Fife man jailed over £63m heroin bust

A Fife man has been jailed after police busted a heroin shipment with a street value of £63 million.
Brian Kennedy.Brian Kennedy.
Brian Kennedy.

Brian Kennedy was handed the sentence as part of a group of seven, who were jailed for a total of 110 years coillectively.

Kennedy (37), of Gallacher Avenue in Leven, ran a freight company called Freight Forward Ltd, which was used to import the drugs for the gang.

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In August 2017, officers from Greater Manchester Police uncovered 210 kilograms of high purity heroin at an industrial unit in Salford.

Enquiries also revealed that Kennedy was the ‘logistics man, and had been drafted in to help the group import the drugs through his company.

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Kennedy opened a business called Freight Forward Ltd but on his arrest, officers found him to have only one customer – druglord Fikri Yarasir.

Financial checks showed large amounts of money moving through the bank account of Kathryn Fearon to ‘Freight Forward Ltd’ over several months, linked to imports for Yarasir.

Fearon and her partner Paul Livesey were used as mules to transport money to Turkey on several occasions, a few days at a time, taking large amounts of cash with them and returning to the UK with significantly lighter luggage.

Officers worked out that the missing weight was the cash they were spending, which totaled around £372,500, all on behalf of Yarasir.

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This week the gang have been jailed at Manchester Crown Court.

Kennedy was given a sentence of 18 years in prison.

He was jailed alongside, Yarasir, Fearon, Livesey, David Mulligan, Ahmet Taskin, and Steven Hindley.

Detective Inspector Lee Griffin of GMP’s Serious and Organised Crime Group, said: “The lengths this group went to to try and conceal the drugs, cover their tracks and evade police capture, would have been impressive had they not failed at simple hurdles like leaving fingerprints and traceable bank transfers.

“Drugs, in particular heroin, have a detrimental effect on the communities that the majority of people work so hard to uphold and ruin the lives of those most vulnerable and their families.”

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“We are constantly building a better picture of illicit activity and those who profess to be sophisticated criminals and will continue to do everything in our power to find those who attempt to make a profit from putting others in harm’s way.”

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