‘High level of expertise’ Police swooped on drug runners in £100,000 Preston sting

Two foreign drug runners were caught with almost £100,000 worth of cannabis when police swooped on their car near Preston.

A court heard taxi driver Vandinh Tran from Vietnam and Iranian national Hassan Ziai were transporting the drugs from Birmingham to Scotland when they were intercepted just off the M6 at Samlesbury.

Front seat passenger Tran, 30, was jailed by a judge at Preston Crown Court and told he will almost certainly be deported when he has served his sentence.

Car driver Ziai, 67, was given a suspended prison sentence for his part in the high value drug operation.

Judge Philip Parry heard police pounced on a Skoda Octavia car on the service area at the Tickled Trout Hotel on September 17 2024 after information was received by police linking the vehicle with drug activity.

When officers searched the boot they found a blue suitcase and a laundry bag, both containing vacuum-packed packages of cannabis.

Barrister Charlotte Phillips, prosecuting, told the court that a total of 15 packages were discovered. The drug haul came to just short of 10 kilogrammes.

Police search both men and the rest of the vehicle and found two mobile phones which, when examined, contained numerous messages between the two men showing they were involved in transporting drugs.

Both suspects denied they were in any way involved in the drug trade, even though the messages between them talked about the quality of cannabis supplies and videos and photographs showing the packages to be transported. The phones also contained messages about previous meet-ups between the pair.

A drug expert valued the haul found in the car boot as worth between £29,679 wholesale and £98,930 when sold on the streets.

Ms Phillips said the volume of drugs seized was far in excess of an amount for personal use and was more in keeping with a large-scale supply network. The phones also included references in videos to a cannabis grow.

“The manner in which the cannabis was prepared for transportation in sealed packets shows a high level of expertise by the seller,” she said.

Tran appeared on a video link from a prison in Scotland where he is on remand accused of a separate drug-related offence. Throughout the hearing a Vietnamese interpreter explained to him what was being said in court.

The prosecution claimed that in the Preston case he had an expectation of a “significant” financial advantage from transporting the drugs to Scotland and an awareness and understanding of the scope of the operation.

Ziai had been the driver of the car and so had an operational function within the drugs gang. The haul of drugs being transported was described as “significant”, although it was claimed by Ziai’s defence barrister he would have had little knowledge of the scale of what was going on.

He was said to have a strong work ethic and “a law-abiding attitude to life”. But he had suffered a relapse of his addiction to opium around the time the offence was committed.

His police record showed he had two previous convictions, both involving drugs – the last of which was just months before this offence. He had claimed when arrested that he believed Tran was picking up food in Birmingham, not drugs.

Tran’s lawyer Anthony Horsfall said his client had played a “courier” role in the transportation of the drugs from Birmingham to Scotland. He was someone of previous good character, although he was currently in prison north of the border awaiting trial on drugs charges that he denied.

Tran had entered the UK in 2020 and had spent most of the last six years as an illegal immigrant.

Judge Parry said both men had denied being involved in the supply of drugs even though almost £100,000 of cannabis had been discovered in their car travelling north near Preston.

He said phone records showed the men had been in contact with each other “regularly discussing cannabis” for some time before they were apprehended.

“It suggests you had been together in a car, the suggestion behind that is that you had been transporting drugs before that, but there is no evidence of that despite the suspicion that that was what you were doing. So I will sentence you only for offending on September 17.

“You drove from Scotland to Birmingham. At Birmingham Mr Tran loaded the car up with two bags and you headed north. Your vehicle was stopped at the Tickled Trout services on the M6 in Lancashire.

“Mr Ziai you were the driver and Mr Tran was the front seat passenger when police stopped the vehicle, searched the boot and found the blue suitcase and the laundry bag Mr Tran had loaded (into the car).

“Both contained significant quantities of cannabis professionally packed. Across both bags 15 packages (were found) totalling just short of 10 kilos.”

He said the value of the cannabis was put at between £30,000 and £70,000 wholesale and, if sold on the streets, close on £100,000. “It is clear the drugs were destined for Scotland.”

Addressing Ziai he said: “You denied any involvement in the supply of drugs. You said to the author of the pre-sentence report (probation service) that you thought Mr Tran was picking up food. That is plainly untrue and you accept (now) that you were picking up cannabis.

“You denied involvement even though you had been sent to prison in February 2024 for being concerned in the supply of cannabis. You seem to be in complete denial over your involvement in cannabis supply.

“I have read an awful lot about you and listened carefully to your barrister today. You have lived in the UK since 1975, you are a highly educated man who moved to the UK from Iran. For all of your adult life it appears you have been very hard-working.

“You no longer work as a taxi driver as a result of this, but I am told you still have a good job.”

Turning to Tran he said: “You have no previous convictions against you. (But) you are on remand in Scotland awaiting trial for cannabis (offence).

“You have been here in the UK for six years and for most of that time illegally. You know that once this process is over you are highly likely to be deported to Vietnam.

“You don’t speak English well and I expect your time in custody is more difficult because of that.

“I will put out of my mind that you are on remand awaiting trial in Scotland – that will not affect my sentencing today.

“You had a trusted role in this drug operation given the amount of drugs you were asked to move.”

Tran, who gave his home address as Shore Street, Gourock, Scotland, was sentenced to 20 months in prison. The judge said the question of where he serves that sentence and when he is released was a matter between the English and Scottish courts.

He told Ziai, of Glenfinnan Drive, Glasgow, he may not have been fully aware of the scale of what he was involved in, but he wasn’t just a courier.

“You travelled some considerable distance with your co-defendant Mr Tran,” he said. “Whilst you may not have known the precise details of what you were involved in, I am quite sure you knew you were trafficking a substantial amount of cannabis.”

He gave him a 17-month prison sentence suspended for two years.

“For you it has been a very close call indeed. But I have decided that given the delay (in getting the case to court) and the fact that you have not committed any further offence in those two years, I can just about suspend your custodial sentence.”

He ordered him to complete 200 hours of unpaid work for the benefit of the community. In addition he will be subject to supervision for 18 months and an electronically tagged curfew for three months.

He ordered the confiscation of the phones and drug paraphernalia and the destruction of the cannabis.