http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-jailed-trying-smuggle-550000-3592428
Important info below:
A man has been jailed for smuggling £550,000 of pure heroin hidden inside chessboards.
The drug was hidden in the fabric of ten games boards and dissolved so it could only be extracted by a special process.
The parcel, which also included dried fruit, was sent from Pakistan abd was intercepted in by the UK Border Force, when a small part of one of the board games was cut.
It was addressed to a house in Gainsborough Avenue, Oldham, in Manchester, to a 'Mr S Ahmed'. The name was fictitious but the address was real.
A dummy package was prepared after the boards were removed and a National Crime Agency officer posed as a delivery man to drop it off at the address.
When he arrived he got no reply at the house so left a 'failure to deliver' card and a number to call.
The number had been set up by the NCA to monitor the calls of anyone requesting delivery of the package.
A call was received claiming the parcel and the undercover officer travelled to the address again.
Manchester Crown Court was told it was [Syed] Shabir's telephone number that was used to call the 'Parcelforce' number. His fingerprints were found on the delivery note.
The parcel was actually received by another man, Khazar Hussain, who signed the delivery sheet 'Sataroz Ahmed' after approaching the 'Parcelforce driver' when he pulled up in his van and asking if he had anything for 'Mr S Ahmed'.
Hussain was arrested in a nearby street but later accused Shabir of setting him up and was cleared of all charges at the trial.
Pete Avery, from the NCA's Border Policing Command, said: "This was a sophisticated concealment and demonstrates the lengths criminals go to in an effort to avoid detection.
I have no doubt Shabir would have gone on to import large quantities of pure heroin, but joint work with the Border Force means he is now behind bars where he belongs."
Stealth and quantity/value are possibly reasons why it was pursued? Do we consider the fake name and calling to claim the parcel a rookie mistake in this case? And do we think there's any information missing from this article?
I don't consider the mirror a good source of news though and there appear to be other newspapers that covered the story but it just seemed like a good idea to see if there were any lessons to be learnt by their mistakes.
I have a couple more packages due soon before I should be out of my current address for good but obviously wary until I have left. And want to make sure I avoid any mistakes in the near, or more distant, future. Think my international orders might have started to raise suspicion if I had been here much longer and made many more. You never know.
LE are going to do this. It's something we cannot stop if we're involving ourselves into illegal activities. Just don't order huge amounts of drugs and if you are then take responsibility for it. I think what the police done there was acceptable considering the amount of heroin. You must always be careful and just expect the un-expected.