A member of a Glasgow-based drug gang jailed for three years has lost his appeal to stay in the UK and now faces deportation to Pakistan. Jamshaid Yaqoob pleaded guilty to being involved in organised crime in 2023 after a fellow gang member was caught red-handed in Harrods, London, by undercover police officers.
The gang had advertised their two online drug supply lines selling cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, and cannabis through Snapchat, and distributed it through post, pick-up, and drop-off services. However, kingpin Kashif Sadiq was arrested in 2021 while trying to access a safety deposit box at Harrods, where officers found £282,350 in cash, £63,000 worth of gold bars, and £140,200 of Rolex and other luxury watches.
In August 2023, seven members of the gang pleaded guilty to being involved in serious organised crime in Glasgow and East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire. Judge Lord Clark at the High Court in Glasgow handed down sentences totalling 31 years.
Sadiq had splashed the cash during his stint in the gang and the court heard that in one day in June 2021, Sadiq had paid £8,150 for Louis Vuitton items in Harrods, and £1,300 at clubs and hotels in London.
At the sentencing, Jamshaid Yaqoob’s lawyer said he only got involved in the gang after the pandemic affected his job as a taxi driver.
He was due to be automatically deported as soon as he got out of prison, because he was classed as a “foreign criminal” under the UK Borders Act 2007, as he is not a British citizen, and was jailed for more than 12 months.
He filed an appeal heard by judges in July, when his lawyers argued that deportation would breach the UK’s obligations under European Convention on Human Rights, and that separation from his British wife and children, now aged 11 and four, would be “unduly harsh”.
At the tribunal, concerns were raised over the emotional impact on his children, because the high costs of travelling to Pakistan meant they would go for years at a time without contact.
The judges accepted that his wife Nazia, who the tribunal stated married Mr Yaqoob in 2011 in Glasgow after he entered the UK illegally in 2007, would be “lonely” and that the family would “undoubtedly be upset” by the deportation.
However, they added that the family was able to cope “during the difficult times following the appellant’s arrest, conviction and incarceration. We are satisfied that they would do so again, in the future.”
They decided that his automatic removal to Pakistan would not be “unduly harsh” or “disproportionate”, adding that there was a “cogent and strong public interest in his deportation”. Upper Tribunal Judge Mandalia and Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Farrelly rejected his appeal on July 15.
Yaqoob’s gang operated two Snapchat accounts called Dr Greengo and Rodger Dodger. Dr Greengo mainly dealt in cannabis in various forms, while Rodger Dodger was involved in “party drugs” such as cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine.
