Crime boss who posed as male escort jailed for £20m cocaine plot

THE head of an organised crime group who claimed he was a male escort while masterminding an international operation to import cocaine into the UK has been sentenced to 21 years and three months in jail.

Kulvir Shergill, 43, from the West Midlands, told National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators he made a living through male escort bookings, teaching martial arts and working as a personal trainer.

However, an NCA investigation showed Shergill’s crime group imported around 250kg of cocaine with a street value of £20 million between February 26 and April 24, 2020. The gang used the encrypted communications platform EncroChat in order to arrange the drugs deals.

Shergill and his accomplices are “directly responsible for the horrendous consequences Class A drugs (banned) have among our communities,” said Rick Mackenzie, NCA operations manager. “Proceeds of crime proceedings have been started and all identified assets owned by the defendants have been frozen and are currently under restraint. The NCA will work with our partners at the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] to ensure that any money made from their drug enterprise is recovered.”

Shergill arranged premises for class A drugs to be delivered to in the UK using the EncroChat handle “orderlyswarmer”, the investigation found. He would liaise with contacts in the Netherlands over impending deliveries, before his group distributed them around the country.

Shergill and his accomplices were arrested on different dates in 2020. He initially denied smuggling class A drugs, but eventually admitted the offence.

On September 20 last year, Shergill was jailed at Birmingham crown court. The news can now be reported after the last member of his gang, 43-year-old Jagdeep Singh, was jailed for the same offences last week.

Singh was an electrician by trade, and was tasked with taking receipt of drug deliveries and acting as a warehouseman. At the time of his arrest in April 2020, he was in possession of 30kg of high-purity cocaine.

He has now been sentenced to six years and eight months behind bars.

Three other gang members were also sentenced last September – Khurram Mohammed, 37, jailed for 14 years and four months was Shergill’s second-in-command and a trusted worker.

Shakfat Ali, 38, who travelled around the UK on behalf of the group and is believed to have delivered drugs, was jailed for 16 years and nine months; while Mohammed Sajad, 44, a trusted member of the group, was jailed for 16 years.