On Friday 26 August 2016, Naweed Ali drove to his first day of work at a delivery company in Birmingham. His next door neighbour and close friend Khobaib Hussain had already been working at Hero Couriers for a month. The name seemed appropriate. There was something heroic about the work they did. Ali and Hussain were hired to drive around the country reuniting airline passengers with lost property. The pay was great, too – £100 a shift, cash in hand. It seemed too good to be true.
So it proved. Hero Couriers was a front for Operation Pesage, an undercover police operation.
When Ali arrived at Hero Couriers in Birmingham at about 7.15am in his Seat Leon, he discovered there were double yellow lines and nowhere to park. His manager Vincent told him he’d park the car for him in the lock-up, as he’d been doing for Hussain. Ali happily handed over his car keys.
