An Emirates cabin crew member who smuggled heroin on an aircraft while working in business class has been jailed for eight years.
Zohaab Sadique, 30, of Broadway, Oldham, flew to Dubai on an Emirates flight and picked up the drugs in January last year, a court heard.
He smuggled them back on the return flight to Manchester and was caught at the city’s airport.
Sadique pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday to importing a Class A drug.
The court heard Sadique was caught with 2lb of heroin at Manchester airport when Border Force officers and a detector dog carried out checks on the cabin crew, including a search of the bus that transferred them from the plane to the terminal.
Officers found a white carrier bag with five clear bags of brown powder stuffed behind Sadique’s seat, while CCTV cameras caught him hiding the bag on board the bus, the BBC reported.
Jon Hughes, operations manager at the National Crime Agency, said: “Zohaab Sadique attempted to use his privileged access and knowledge of the systems in place at the airport for criminal purposes.
“Corrupt insiders like him are very dangerous people.”