Drug trio ordered to hand over crime profits

Shakeel Afsar (31), of Moor Way, Swallownest, was ordered to pay back £278,400 he accumulated through the cultivation of cannabis and money laundering in at hearing at Sheffield Crown Court.

Afsar, who is currently serving a four-year jail sentence for the offences, has been ordered to pay back the money in six months or face an additional three years in prison.

Earlier this year Afsar’s partner, Praphatsorn Wacharaluecha (28), also from Moor Way, Swallownest, was ordered to pay back £10,875 and his brother, Shabbir Afsar (30), from Darnall, was ordered to pay back £932.

Both are also serving prison sentences of 15 months and three years respectively for the same offences.

The extent of the trio’s criminal activities was discovered following a complaint of assault in December 2008 that led officers to search an address linked to Shakeel Afsar.

The search uncovered a quantity of cash and cannabis plants.

Searches of two further properties followed and larger quantities of cash and more cannabis plants were recovered.

After the sentencing of the two Afsar brothers and Wacharaluecha, a confiscation investigation under the Proceeds of Crime Act got under way.

Some of the cash recovered through the investigation will now be used to fund a number of community initiatives through the South Yorkshire Community Foundation.

Graham Wragg,head of South Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit, said:

“Criminals who profit from crime will be made to pay back that profit or face further terms of imprisonment.

“In this respect their debt to society will remain with them for life or until they have repaid it.”