Rafiq, aged 35, was one of 12 people given a gang injunction in 2014 after being described as a leading member of a Bordesley Green gang.

But his criminality continued, and a major investigation by the Regional Organised Crime Unit for the West Midlands (ROCUWM) established that he used 13 different phone numbers in an effort to evade detection. CCTV caught him using his phones while working out a local gym.

But he was caught thanks to the takedown of EncroChat - a bespoke encrypted global communication service used exclusively by criminals.

EncroChat was one of the largest providers of encrypted communications and offered a secure mobile phone instant messaging service, but an international law enforcement team cracked the company’s encryption in 2020. Unbeknown to users, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the police monitored their every move in the aftermath of the cracking under the nationwide Operation Venetic.

There were 60,000 users worldwide and around 10,000 users in the UK – the sole use was for coordinating and planning the distribution of illicit commodities, money laundering and plotting to kill rival criminals.

Rafiq was one of those users, and went by the name ‘Wisehorse’.

He would have conversations, which he wrongly thought were secret, with other serious and organised criminals to arrange the supply of multi-kilogram amounts of heroin and cocaine.

We recovered these images of guns and drugs as part of the investigation.

He was arrested in an operation with our firearms officers in June, 2020, at a property in Aston.

Rafiq claimed that he was being maliciously targeted by police due to his association with other criminals, but he eventually pleaded guilty to encouraging or assisting with the sourcing, advertising and sale of prohibited weapons and ammunition, and being concerned in the supply of cocaine and heroin.

Rafiq, of no fixed address, was jailed for 18 years and six months at Birmingham Crown Court last Thursday, and was sentenced on the basis that he had or supplied 28kg of heroin and cocaine during a short period of just three months.

DCI Peter Cooke, from ROCUWM, said: “Rafiq tried to claim the messages were just bravado and that he was trying to big himself up to other drug dealers.

“The claim was described as ‘fanciful’.

“He was clearly a significant player in the criminal underworld of firearms and drug dealing, which causes so much misery on the streets of the West Midlands and beyond.

“This result shows that while Operation Venetic was launched five years ago, the fallout for those involved in serious and organised crime continues to this day.”

The success is part of Operation Target, our 24/7 mission to disrupt and arrest those involved in serious and organised crime in the West Midlands region.

Those involved in guns, drugs, money laundering, exploitation are all in our sights.