AN EAST Lancashire drugs boss serving a 12-year sentence for a major crack cocaine conspiracy has failed in a Court of Appeal challenge to his £150,000 confiscation bill.

Naheem Nazir, 43, of Stonecross Close, Accrington, was jailed in November 2007 after admitting conspiracy to supply the drug and was hit with the confiscation bill in August of last year.

He challenged the sum at the Court of Appeal in London, but had his ‘merit-less’ complaints rejected by top judges, Lord Justice Leveson, Mr Justice Davis and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones.

Nazir was convicted after police smashed his million-pound drug-dealing operation, which flooded the streets of Blackburn and surrounding areas with deadly crack cocaine.

The conspiracy, which ran from July 2005 to November 2006, was said to have involved £1.6million worth of cocaine, with Nazir at the very top of the chain.

He organised the gang and employed couriers, street-level dealers and drivers, making substantial profits from his criminal enterprise.

At his confiscation hearing, prosecutors said that more than £500,000 in cash had not been accounted for, but said only £151,940 was available to pay back, most likely having been used to buy a villa in Spain.

But Nazir claimed he had no interest in any property in Spain, and said his own expensive drug habit accounted for the missing money.

His lawyers were back in court in London yesterday where they argued that the confiscation judge was wrong to find against them and order that the sum be handed over.

Fresh evidence suggested that the villa in question was owned by another man and that he had had it for the last 10 years, the court was told.

But Lord Justice Leveson rejected the argument, saying it had been up to Nazir at the crown court to prove that he did not have the £151,940 sought by the prosecution.

“The judge was perfectly entitled to conclude that he had not discharged the burden of proof in establishing that he did not have that sum,” he said.

“In our judgment, there is no merit in this appeal and it is dismissed.”

If he fails to pay up, Nazir faces serving an extra two years and four months’ imprisonment, consecutive to his 12-year term.