Ibraheem Abdullah and Amit Desai have been convicted and sentenced for supplying firearms, ammunition and Class A drugs to organised crime groups. The National Crime Agency (NCA) led the investigation after evidence emerged from the encrypted EncroChat network.
Abdullah, 42, from Crumpsall in Manchester, and Desai, 49, from Leicester, used the handles Tenderpasta and Brixonlease respectively. Messages showed that Abdullah mainly found customers for the weapons while Desai collected cash and sometimes delivered the pistols.
Abdullah obtained converted Slovakian made Grand Power G9A pistols designed to fire blanks, which he bought from another EncroChat user. The pair charged customers £10,000 and £8,500 for each weapon.
In March 2020 Desai supplied half a kilo of cocaine to Abdullah as a down payment to secure firearms. He kept a further 500 grams to fund the remaining cost and also offered to supply cannabis. That same month Desai drove to a location near Brighton and sold two firearms together with approximately 100 rounds of ammunition.
The following month Abdullah sourced another two pistols. Desai collected one of them from the car park of a convenience store in Thelwall New Road, Grappenhall, Warrington.
Abdullah was already serving a 12 year sentence imposed in March 2022 for conspiracy to import Class A drugs. He was under investigation for those offences when NCA Armed Operations Unit officers stopped the car he was driving on 21 March 2021. He drove off after being told to get out, was pursued by road and on foot, and was arrested in an alleyway in Brinsworth Drive, Cheetham Hill, Manchester.
A few days earlier Staffordshire Police arrested Desai at the request of the NCA while he drove on the A500 in Stoke on Trent. Officers found £2,870 in cash and a bag the size of a golf ball containing cocaine hidden inside the fuel cap.
Abdullah pleaded guilty to two firearms charges at Manchester Crown Court in October 2023. Desai pleaded guilty to one count of supplying Class A drugs (cocaine) and two counts of conspiracy to transfer prohibited weapons at the same court on 29 June this year, just before his trial was due to begin. He had earlier admitted a charge of supplying cannabis.
Desai was sentenced to ten years in prison at Manchester Crown Court on 8 October.
NCA branch commander Cat McHugh said: “Abdullah and Desai nonchalantly traded in these deadly weapons. They completely disregarded the dangers posed to the public, or in whose hands the pistols could have ended up in. Their only motive was financial gain. Such cases show how closely linked the firearms and drugs trades are, which is why the NCA works with law enforcement partners at home and overseas to tackle the organised crime groups behind them.”
EncroChat was dismantled in 2020. The NCA led Operation Venetic, the UK law enforcement response to the network.
By John James
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