"Our consular staff are in contact with the Pakistani authorities."
Mohammad Hafeez Hanif, aged 22, of Bradford, was arrested in Pakistan on Saturday, January 5, 2019, after he was stopped at an airport for allegedly attempting to smuggle heroin.
He was stopped by Anti-Narcotics officers at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore and was found with 28 kilograms of the class A drug.
It was alleged that he was trying to board a flight from Lahore to London with the heroin stitched into hidden pockets of women’s clothing.
It is believed that the drugs were to be smuggled in the UK where they would be mass distributed to flood the streets with the drugs and to fuel organised crime.
Anti-Narcotics Force Punjab arrested Hanif and he was taken into custody. It was there that they discovered that Hanif is a resident of the UK.
While the heroin has been seized, if the drugs were successfully smuggled into the UK, it could have an estimated street value of well over a £1 million on the streets of Britain.
In addition, the quantity was large enough that it could have been split into at least 280,000 separate wraps of heroin.
A spokesperson from the Foreign Office has said that they are aware that a British national has been detained in Pakistan.
He said: “Our consular staff are in contact with the Pakistani authorities following the detention of a British man.”
There Anti-Narcotics Force in Pakistan has not currently provided an update on the investigation.
The offence of drug trafficking is a very serious offence in Pakistan as it is one of 32 countries across the world that carries the death penalty as punishment for the offence.
The punishment for supplying class A drugs such as heroin in the UK is up to life in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.
This is not the first time where people from the UK allegedly attempting to travel from Pakistan to the UK while transporting a large quantity of drugs.
In December 2018, British-Pakistani Mohammad Aakash Habib, aged 23, was arrested after he attempted to smuggle heroin into the UK.
He had soaked 25 sweaters in 24kg of heroin to smuggle them from Pakistan into the UK using this unique method.
Habib was stopped by Anti-Narcotics officers before he could board a flight to Manchester and was arrested.
In July 2016, a British man believed to be from Bradford was arrested by officers for attempting to smuggle 16kg of heroin from Pakistan to Manchester after he hid the drugs in his suitcase.
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