Bradford drug dealer found hiding in parents’ attic, locked up

A Bradford drug dealer who fled the UK and was later found hiding in his parents’ attic has been jailed.

Faaris Zaman, 27, fled abroad after being arrested by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers in July 2020.

Zaman used the encrypted messaging platform EncroChat with the handle ‘oraclewarrior’ to supply cocaine and heroin and managed criminal profits of £1.3m.

He was found more than three years later and jailed for 11 years and seven months at Bradford Crown Court on Wednesday.

After Zaman’s arrest, NCA investigators searched his family home in Ashgrove, where they found £89,000 in cash, a vacuum packaging machine and lists of “debtors”.

They also recovered handwritten notes detailing buyers, prices and pickup vehicles that provided records of drug supply deals dating back to October 2018.

EncroChat’s messages showed he contacted other organized crime groups to deal in cocaine and heroin, moving hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time.

Zaman then left the country after refusing to comment in a police interview.

However, he managed to re-enter the UK and in October 2023 he was tracked down and found in the attic.

NCA operations manager Nigel Coles said: “Faaris Zaman suggested he played a smaller role in this drug supply network but this was serious and organized crime at a high level and his messages showed he was an important and reliable operator”.

His activities were uncovered as part of Operation Venetic, when the NCA managed to ‘crack’ EncroChat, a platform used almost exclusively by criminals. The UK had over 10,000 users and hundreds of arrests were made as a result. The app’s servers have now been shut down.

Mr Coles added: “Messages obtained in Operation Venetic led us directly to Zaman, who believed he was operating above law enforcement.”