Officers picked up a suspected offender and found pictures of him with others on the device. Within hours the whole house of cards began to tumble
12:23, 17 Oct 2026
(Left to right) Omer Mahmood, Mohammed Yasin, and Barzan Sarhan(Image: South Wales Police)
Police officers with a good memory for faces helped to take down an organised crime group, a court has heard.
An investigation by a specialist police team disrupted a Kurdish gang which was supplying drugs in Swansea and recruiting asylum seekers to act as runners in the Welsh city.
Three members of the gang have been jailed at Swansea Crown Court – though the ringleaders remain at large.
Hywel Davies, prosecuting, said the background to the case was an investigation by officers from the serious and organised crime team in Swansea into the operation of a Kurdish drugs line known as the Pasha line.
He said on August 11 this year police in the Mount Pleasant area of the city saw a suspected drugs exchange taking place in Carlton Terrace involving a male – later identified as Sirwan Aland – and people in a car. Officers watched Aland returning to a black Audi car parked nearby and then moved in and detained him.
In the car police found deals of cannabis, cash, “drugs paraphernalia”, and a phone. On the phone police found group photos showing the defendant and a number of other men. For the latest court stories sign up to our crime newsletter
The court heard that later the same day officers in Walter Road in the city centre saw a male they recognised from the photos on the phone driving a Ford Focus. The car was followed to nearby Page Lane and when it stopped the driver, Omer Mahmood, was arrested and his phone was seized.
The prosecutor said the investigation led officers to a property in Swansea where they found Barzan Sarhan in a bedroom. In the house officers found bags of cannabis, cash, identity documents, a lock knife, cocaine, car keys, and a number of phones including the one holding the Pasha line number.
The court heard one of the keys opened a VW Golf which was parked nearby and in the vehicles officers found a Sports Direct carrier bag containing bags of cannabis and a hidden compartment in the footwell which was found to contain cash.
Further inquiries led to the identification of Mohammed Yasin as another member of the gang and he was located and arrested the following day.
The barrister told the court that in total police seized 17g of cocaine worth up to £1,000 and 1.2kg of cannabis worth up to £8,000 along with cannabis vapes and edibles and a quantity of cash. Don’t let an algorithm decide what Welsh news you see – click here to add WalesOnline as your preferred Google source
In his subsequent interview Aland said he had been living in Warrington when he was approached by a male who offered him work in Swansea and he said he was being paid £30 a day to sell cannabis. In his interview Mahmood said he knew the co-defendants from Birmingham and said he was being paid £30 a day to supply deals of cocaine and cannabis. Sarhan and Yasin answered “no comment” to all questions asked in their interviews.
Omer Mahmood, aged 20, of Birmingham Road, West Bromwich; Barzan Sarhan, aged 33, of Gibson Road, Handsworth, Birmingham; and 27-year-old Mohammed Yasin, of Mackintosh Place, Roath, Cardiff had all previously pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine, being concerned in the cannabis, and possession of criminal property – cash – when they returned to the dock for sentencing. Sarhan had also previously pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply. Mahmood had also previously pleaded guilty to driving without a insurance and driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence. Yasin had previously pleaded guilty on the day of trial to burglary, an offence which saw him and another male breaking into the Vaporiyum shop in Treorchy in the early hours of August 22 last year and stealing vapes. The court heard both men ran off from the store when police officers arrived on the scene and were chased and caught.
Sirwan Aland, aged 22, of Old Liverpool Road, Warrington, Cheshire, had previously pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis, possession of cannabis with intent to supply, and possession of criminal property when he appeared alongside the co-defendants.
Mahmood has one previous conviction for two offences from Dorset Magistrates’ Court in July last year, namely driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence, and driving with no insurance.
Sarhan has one previous conviction for one offence of conspiracy to supply cocaine from Swansea Crown Court in 2024 for which he was sentenced to four years in prison. That offence saw Sarhan operating as part of a sophisticated Birmingham-based organised crime group which flooded Aberystwyth with drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, used businesses such as car washes and barbers as “fronts” for their criminality, and moved recruits around the UK to “embed” them in the university town.
Aland has no previous convictions while Yasin has one previous conviction for three offences the last being a racially-aggravated assault in Cardiff last August for which he was given a 36-week suspended sentence.
Megan Williams, for Mahmood, said her client had accepted his guilt in his police interview and then entered early guilty pleas. She said the defendant was originally from Iraq and had been living in the UK for three or four years but did not have to remain the country, though she said he had applied for a visa which would allow him to work. The barrister said her client had asked her to apologise to the court.
Hannah George, for Sarhan, said her client’s best mitigation was his early guilty pleas. She said the defendant had been released on licence from his 2024 sentence in April and said following his arrest in Swansea he had recalled back to prison until November 2027.
Pamela Kaiga, for Yasin, said the defendant had entered the UK in 2017 and subsequently applied for asylum – an application which had been rejected. She said her client was in the process of reapplying for asylum and was “realistic” about the position he was in.
Harry Dickens, for Aland, his client had been living in Home Office accommodation in Warrington when he was approached by a male and offered work. He said his client found himself in Swansea supplying drug deals and living out of a car. The barrister said his client had only been involving in the operation for 17 days and said in his submission Aland’s position was “markedly different” from that of the co-defendants. He said Aland wished to apologise to the court.
Judge Huw Rees said the court was dealing with serious offences of trafficking drugs of Class A and Class B.
With discounts for his guilty pleas Mahmood was sentenced to 28 months detention in a young offenders’ institution. The judge imposed no separate penalty for the motoring matters but the defendant’s licence was endorsed with six penalty points meaning he is disqualified from driving as a “totter” with 12 points. The six-month ban was extended by another 14 months – half the custodial sentence.
With discounts for his guilty pleas Sarhan was sentenced to four years in prison. With discounts for his guilty pleas Yasin was sentenced to 28 months in prison for the drugs matters and to two months for the Treorchy burglary to run consecutively. The judge activated three months of the previously-imposed 36-week sentence for assault to run consecutively to the other two sentences making an overall sentence in his case of 33 months in prison.
The defendants will serve up to half their sentences in custody before become eligible for release on licence.
With discounts for his guilty pleas Aland was given an 18-month community order with a probation requirement and must complete 150 hours of unpaid work in the community.
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