Following a British Transport Police (BTP) investigation, a middle-aged man was caught wheeling a suitcase full of cannabis and was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison. In May 2022, he was stopped by plainclothes officers from the BTP’s County Lines Taskforce as he walked through Birmingham New Street station. Mahn Van Phan, 41, of Sylvan Road, London, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply a Class B substance. On Friday, January 6, he was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison by a judge at Birmingham Crown Court. On the morning of May 11, 2022, Phan entered the West Midlands station and paid cash for a train ticket to Aberdeen. BTP then received a text report that Phan was acting suspiciously, so plainclothes officers rushed to the station and found him on one of the platforms. His luggage was searched after a brief conversation, and officers discovered vacuum-packed bags of cannabis in his suitcase and rucksack. The cannabis Phan was transporting to Aberdeen weighed 7.4kg in total. This was a particularly brazen attempt to move drugs across the UK using the rail network,” said Detective Constable Mohit Behl, who is investigating the case. Every day, we deploy specialist units on the railway, including plain clothes officers and drugs dogs, to combat county line activity. Anyone attempting to move commodities on the railway in this manner is extremely naive; we will apprehend and prosecute you.” I’d like to thank the rail staff at Birmingham New Street that day who reported Phan, as well as the courts for imposing a sufficiently harsh sentence. If you see anything suspicious while riding the train, please report it to us by texting 61016 or calling 0800 40 50 40.
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