A MAN and woman who helped import heroin worth £500,000 from Afghanistan to Britain are paying back just £1 each for their crime.

The pair and another man were handed long jail sentences in May for their part in an operation to smuggle the drugs - 5.5 kilos hidden in tubes stitched into carpets.

A judge has ordered Janhangeer Ali and Naela Khalid to pay just £1 each - even though it is estimated their gang made £60,000 from the crime. 

The third other member of the gang, Moshin Khan, has been asked to hand over £1,000. Police say the pair paying back £1 had no assets to take.

The ruling was made at Minshull Street Crown Court in a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing. The legislation was introduced to allow police to seize ill-gotten goods from criminals. Khan, 30, of Sharpe Street, Collyhurst, was said to have made £31,750 from the crime. But police found cash and assets worth only £1,000, which he was ordered to pay back within two months. Another 44 days will be added to his jail sentence if he fails to pay up.

Khalid, 27, of Alston Gardens, Burnage, was adjudged to have made £450 while her fellow gang member Ali, 29, of Waterloo Street, Glodwick, was adjudged to have made £30,000.

But Judge Mushtaq Khokhar could only order them to pay a nominal £1 each because police could find no `realisable assets'.

The nominal £1 fine is a technical move which allows police to seize any other assets in the future up to the value of the 'benefit' figure set by the court.

Dangerous
Ali and Khalid were given 28 days to pay up, and were told they faced a further day behind bars on top of their prison sentences if they failed to pay.

Khan is serving a 12-year jail sentence for drugs offences and dangerous driving. Ali is serving 10 years, while Khalid was sentenced to six years for drug offences.

Other defendants convicted in the same smuggling operation have been dealt with during previous Proceeds of Crime hearings.

Following the latest hearing, Det Chf Insp Dominic Scally said the Proceeds of Crime legislation was a powerful tool which had helped Greater Manchester Police seize more than £4m in cash and assets last year.

He stressed that the three `continue to owe that money', adding: "When they come out of prison, should they ever get property or assets in the future, we can seek to take them."