10:43am Friday 9th May 2008
TWO men were last night facing jail for their part in the biggest heroin seizure in a North-East town's history.
Murthaza Arshad, 24, and Amin Younis, 31, were arrested after a police raid on a Middlesbrough house uncovered drugs worth £2m and £100,000 in cash.
Judge Peter Armstrong remanded them in custody at Teesside Crown Court yesterday, saying: "You are both facing a substantial prison sentence."
The raid came after a detective saw a drug deal in the street.
A police unit followed a blue Mercedes to an address which was then raided. Officers found a couple and two young children at home. In the attic, they found a black suitcase containing £5,040.
A search uncovered a heroin with a street value of nearly £2m, the biggest seizure discovered in Middlesbrough.
Large quantities of cocaine and crack cocaine were also discovered, along with packaging material, plastic bags, brown paper and scales.
In a nearby disused shop in Ayresome Street, officers found a drugs factory where there was more packaging, cutting agents and a blender coated with heroin.
Peter Makepeace, prosecuting, said: "You may think that they had every reason to believe that they were about to carry out a routine drug search and uncover some low-level street dealer."
Teesside Crown Court heard that the Mercedes driver, Raja Arshad, 26, who lived there, and Shazad Majid, 29, of Westbourne Grove, North Ormesby, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to supply class A drugs between December 31, 2006, and July 19 last year.
They were remanded in custody for sentencing.
Murthaza Arshad, of Oxford Road, and Younis, of Brafferton Road, Middlesbrough, were found guilty of conspiracy to supply.
Mr Makepeace said that some of the items in Oxford Road bore Younis's fingerprints.
Murthaza Arshad was arrested in the attic and told officers that there was money in the bedroom.
Mr Makepeace said: "It was sent for forensic analysis and was found to have considerable traces of heroin."
The jury will today continue their deliberations on Mohammed Arshad, 50, also of Oxford Road, Middlesbrough.
Earlier, the Crown offered no evidence against Murthaza Arshad's sister, Tabenda Kayani,25, of Kensington Road, Middlesbrough.
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