South Shields dealer jailed for 'biggest ever cocaine haul’ with £17.2m stash concealed in cheese blocks

A South Shields drug dealer has been handed a 16-year jail sentence for his part in a plot that involved transporting cocaine in blocks of cheese.

Rieddul Mohabath, of Dean Road, was handed the term after a police investigation involving a gang operating in the sale of cocaine in Blackburn.

Lancashire Police raided a unit at the Old Fire Station in Blackburn and found a £17.2 million haul of cocaine.

The unit belonged to 46-year-old Saleem Chaudhri, who had hidden the large amounts of cocaine inside blocks of Gouda cheese. The drugs - imported from Belgium - were due to be distributed around the United Kingdom.

As the investigation continued, police identified that 28-year-old defendant Mohabath, of South Shields, was directing couriers to Blackburn to pick up large quantities of cocaine.

Following the arrests of Chaudhri and the courier, enquiries showed that a second courier left Blackburn and headed back towards Mohabath’s base in South Shields. Throughout this period the courier was in contact with Mohabath.

On July 3 2023, Lancashire Police arrested Mohabath and outside his home in Dean Road, South Shields, was an Audi containing snap bags of cocaine. 

A property linked to him in Jarrow, South Tyneside, was searched and in the basement police found a significant amount of cash, a cash counting machine and suspected Class A drugs of varying weights.

Evidence shows that between September 2022 and May 2023 Chaudhri agreed to sell over 2000 kilos of cocaine worth over £70 million.

Chaudhri pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine and money laundering and on Friday April 12, he was jailed at Preston Crown Court for 27 and a half years.

Mohabath admitted conspiring to supply cocaine and was today jailed for 16 years.