Undercover work smashed drug ring, court told

A major AngloIrish drugs ring was smashed after undercover police swooped
on a courier carrying nearly £150,000 worth of heroin destined for Ireland,
a London court was told yesterday. The ring, allegedly masterminded by a
Dubliner, Mr Thomas Mullen, known as "Boxer", smuggled drugs by air from
London City Airport to Dublin.

After a lengthy undercover operation involving the Garda and Scotland Yard,
Mr Mullen's role was exposed, Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London was
told yesterday.

After police arrested Kathrine Brooks, a courier and exprostitute, on her
way to the airport, they raided her London home and found another four kg
of heroin worth £592,000. Brooks said she regularly smuggled heroin for Mr
Mullen and his London contact, Rurhan Mustapha, to pay for her cocaine and
heroin habit. "When I first met Mustapha I had a heroin habit and was
smoking cocaine," she told Mr Graham Blower, prosecuting.

Brooks, who along with Mustapha has already pleaded guilty to playing a
part in the conspiracy, was soon asked to pay her drug debts by smuggling
heroin. "I had to pay off my debt to Mustapha." She said she met Mr Mullen
(26), and Mustapha (48), at her flat and was given instructions to make a
trial run to Dublin.

On her next trip she took a kilo of heroin and met Mr Mullen in a hotel
where he handed over a Sainsbury's bag stuffed with cash. "I met a man who
I believe was Mr Mullen who I had seen before at my flat," she said.

Mr Blower told the jury that Mustapha rushed to her flat and into the arms
of waiting police after her arrest because she had not arrived in Ireland.
When arrested, his mobile phone received a barrage of messages from "Irish
Tom", allegedly Mr Mullen.

The Garda also linked Mr Mullen to Mustapha when a routine car search
unearthed a personal organiser with two nickname references to the "Turk".
And a phone belonging to Mr Mullen's girlfriend was also used to make many
calls to Mustapha.

Mr Blower asked what was "an unemployed man from southern Ireland doing
ringing a butcher's van driver in London who is Turkish and who we know has
contacts in the drugs fraternity? "This was a man who was a prime mover in
this conspiracy, using a number of smaller people to distance himself from
being the man doing the dirty work."

Brooks picked Mullen out of an identity parade, Mr Blower said. Mr Mullen,
whose last address was Etchingham Court, Finchley, denies conspiring to
smuggle heroin between December 1995 and June 1996. The case continues
today.