Osman Iqbal’s moonlighting as a brothel runner and drug dealer in London’s West End was rumbled when he turned up for his work as a sergeant at Kings Heath Police Station, responding to 999 calls, in a £170,000 Ferrari.
The 37 year-old, from Birmingham, appealed against the length of his sentence imposed last September, which he argued was too long, with his cousin, Talib Hussain.
Hussain, of Douglas Avenue Hodge Hill, admitted the same offences as Iqbal – conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to supply, conspiracy to manage brothels and conspiracy to launder money – and was jailed for eight years and four months.
But the cousins’ appeal bids were rejected by three of the country’s most senior judges at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, who said their jail terms were ‘not excessive’ in light of their serious criminal enterprise.
Iqbal, picture, and others had been in charge of two ‘high-class’ brothels, where prostitutes charged up to £300-an-hour to rich businessmen and cocaine was sold to both them and their clients.
The brothels, which had been running since February 2012, attracted nearly 150 customers in just nine days – nearly 40 of whom bought drugs.
The gang laundered the profits from the brothels into legitimate business accounts and by buying expensive luxury cars, giving the impression they were running a chauffeur company.
The court heard Iqbal and Hussain were the ‘leading lights’ of the operation, run out of two properties in the West End of London.
