It started with a simple question. When officers raided Qorem Khan's property in March 2022, the 42-year-old allegedly asked them: how did you know I was here? That moment of surprise said everything about the confidence these men had built up over two years of flooding Newcastle with cocaine.
Khan orchestrated the supply of more than 30 kilograms of the drug between April and June 2020. Street value: around £3 million. He directed operations, laundered the profits through taxi companies and even used some of the money as a deposit on a luxury home in Gosforth. Kowsor Ahmad, 41, acted as courier, ferrying the drugs around in a blue Skoda. Richard Small, 48, cleaned the cash through his businesses, made overseas payments, handled investments, and kept nine kilograms of the product stashed in a safe at his unit on 3 June 2020.
The case was cracked because of messages pulled from EncroChat phones. Those encrypted devices, once seen as untouchable by criminals, gave investigators the map of exactly who did what. Khan, Ahmad and Small were arrested in 2022. On 10 July 2026 they stood in Newcastle crown court and received sentences totalling 26 years and five months.
Martin Clarke, NCA senior investigating officer, said: Khan was clearly an experienced criminal who thought he could evade justice. He used Ahmad and Small to facilitate his operation, benefitting financially from putting dangerous drugs on Newcastle’s streets. No matter the lengths criminals go to, the NCA, along with partners like the North East Regional Economic Crime Unit, will continue to pursue and dismantle networks that damage our communities.
This is one small victory in Operation Venetic, the National Crime Agency's UK-wide response to the 2020 international takedown of the EncroChat network. Thousands of arrests and convictions have followed across the country for drugs, guns and laundering. Yet the persistence of these networks raises an uncomfortable question: why do they keep reforming?
Too often the debate drifts toward root causes that avoid hard policy choices. The evidence here points to something simpler. Determined criminals exploit every weakness they can find, whether in border controls that still let vast quantities of drugs enter the country or in a justice system that has sometimes prioritised rehabilitation rhetoric over deterrence. Khan thought he could stay invisible. The fact he was caught shows what robust policing can achieve. The fact such gangs keep operating shows what happens when enforcement is not matched by tougher sentences, faster deportations of foreign offenders and tighter sovereignty over our borders.
The NCA says it will continue to pursue those who damage communities. That commitment deserves support. But communities also need politicians willing to close the policy gaps these men exploited. Individual responsibility matters. So does a state that refuses to look the other way.
