Drug runners who attempted to import heroin with a street value of £306million through Felixstowe and other English ports have been jailed for a total of 232 years.

Their cases can now be reported after a major drug trafficker’s wife was sentenced today in the last in a series of trials.

A total of 19 people from the Midlands-based crime gang have been jailed after a Serious Organised Crime Agency-led investigation, in conjunction with the UK Border Force, and other law enforcement agencies.

Heroin seizures in the UK and Pakistan linked to the investigations amounted to 1,039 kilos. The wholesale value is approximately £26 million, with the street value being around £306 million.

Nearly 200 kilos of the Class A drug was discovered at Felixstowe in two shipments.

The first occurred on April 20, 2011 when 68 kilos bound for Birmingham was seized. The second was eight days later when 121 kilos was seized. It was also destined for Birmingham.

As a result Mehrban Hussain, 34, Nadeem Ramzan Aslam, 33, Manjinda Singh Tethy, 35, Mohammed Jabbar Khan, 36, all from Birmingham, were jailed for 12 years, 16 years, four years and four years respectively. All were convicted of conspiring to import heroin.

Mohammed Farooq, 47, from Solihull, was sentenced to 29 years at Birmingham Crown Court for conspiracy to import heroin.

On two occasions officers watched as Mohammed handed over boxes full of cash to couriers in supermarket car parks. A total of £299,950 was later recovered.

Two of Farooq’s criminal associates from Pakistan – Ahmad Shah, 40, and Homayon Mehrpoor, 58 – were also jailed for 29 years and 25 years respectively for their roles in organising a shipment of 263 kilos of heroin seized at Southampton.

Two other drug hauls were found at Tilbury docks and another at a house in Birmingham.

Other members of the gang Asid Iqbal Shan, 42, Akthar Ali Sarfudin, 42, Naeem Mussa Ali Bhai, 28, all of Leicester, Mohammed Tanvir, 28, Mohammed Nasser, 31, Zahir Ali, 22, all of Birmingham, Dilawar Ahmedzai, 33, of Bradford, Safdar Nawaz, 43, of Birmingham, and Ali Abdulla, 37, of Leeds were given sentences ranging from four years and six months to 18-and-a-half years. All were convicted of conspiring to import heroin.

Muhammed Rajmil, 46, of London, and Abdul Rehman Niazi, of London were jailed for two-and-a-half years and two years respectively for money laundering.