A drug dealer who helped run a £ 9m scheme to distribute cocaine in Britain has kept details of his gang’s deals in notebooks.
Behnam Tawakoli-Juibari acted as an accountant for a gang responsible for transporting huge quantities of Class A drugs across Britain. The 37-year-old man is the last of the gang to be convicted but was finally jailed on Friday (May 6th) after being extradited from the Netherlands and admitting his role in the plot.
The group provided hundreds of pounds of drugs in England, Wales and Scotland in the first half of 2016, with eight members sentenced to a total of 106 years in prison in May 2018. The plot, which focuses on cocaine supplies but also included heroin, MDMA and diazepam, was run mainly by Wirral but collapsed after Operation Merseyside Wessex Police.
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Officers attacked an address used by the group, grabbing a stash of £ 1.4 million including more than 9 kg of cocaine, 7 kg of counterfeit heroin, 10,000 MDMA pills and 11,000 diazepam tablets. Prosecutor Martin Reid told Liverpool’s Royal Courts of Justice yesterday afternoon that Juibari had played a number of roles in the scheme, working as both an accountant and a drug courier.
Mr Reid said during the search, police found a number of notebooks that were full of handwritten Tawakoli-Juibari transactions. These include records of sales to other dealers, debts that need to be settled, and payments that the gang has received.
Mr Reed said: “They represent the supply of at least 216 kg of cocaine”. He said the quantities of drugs sold were “very significantly above” the quantities that would put Tavacoli-Juibari’s crime in the highest category of seriousness.
Emma Goodall, QC defender, said that while Tawakoli-Juibari of New Brighton apparently played a key role in the group, he was not a leading figure compared to a number of other members. Unlike some other members, Tawakoli-Juibari did not participate in the scheme when it was conceived and his participation in it was canceled for a period of time before the police struck.
Ms. Goodall also noted the lack of previous convictions and said people who knew him spoke highly of him and were shocked by what he had done. She said: “His mitigation goes beyond the lack of convictions and shows that there are some positive characteristics that can be taken into account.” Ms. Goodall said members of his Tawakoli-Juibari family relied heavily on him, including his partner and her child and his own elderly mother.
She said he stayed out of trouble before joining the scheme through one of his employers, Christopher Atherton, with whom he worked in a legitimate business. Ms. Goodall said: “He had a good upbringing with his mother, who instilled in him a good work ethic and a strong moral compass.
Judge Neil Fluitt, QC, said: “I don’t know what happened to this moral compass when he was trading in Class A drugs. prison.
He told him today that he had made things worse for himself by fighting for his return to the United Kingdom from the Netherlands and that he had not initially pleaded guilty when charged. This led to the process being listed four separate times, with covid issues forcing it to be postponed.
Judge Fluit said administrative problems may have caused some delay, and Tawakoli-Juibari’s continuing denials are the reason the case has lasted so long. The judge said: “If you wanted to avoid this delay and if you really regretted it, this case would have been resolved at a much earlier stage.
After hearing further arguments from Ms. Goodall regarding Tavakoli-Juibari, including additional information about his medical problems, Judge Flewitt reduced the sentence to 15 years. Tavacoli-Juibari of Woodlands Avenue has already served more than 15 months in custody in both this country and the Netherlands. He has also spent a significant amount of time under electronic surveillance while on bail, which further reduces the time he will spend in prison.
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