Six men have been found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow of laundering criminal money through an operation prosecutors linked to a convicted drug trafficker. The verdicts were returned on Friday, 6 November, after a lengthy trial.

Aftab Allah, 36, his brother Shehbaz Allah, 40, Hamzah Habib, 38, Kamran Javid, 33, Asim Afzal, 34, and Imad Younis, 37, were convicted of a charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The court heard that between 2015 and 2019 the group moved criminal cash through large deposits and bank transfers using personal and business accounts, then converted the proceeds into cryptocurrency to hide their origin.

The six were effectively laundering cash for Gary Morris, a drugs boss jailed for trafficking millions of pounds of cocaine. Jurors were shown footage of officers searching the Day to Day shop in Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, where Allah and other relatives worked. Tens of thousands of pounds were found hidden in a Nike bag in the ceiling space.

The indictment originally put the value of the operation at more than £6 million, although that figure was later amended in the charge to a sum of money. The Allahs are from Lesmahagow, Habib is from Cambuslang, Javid and Younis are from Govanhill in Glasgow, and Afzal is from Thornliebank in East Renfrewshire.

All six had been on bail during the trial but were remanded in custody by Judge Lady Poole after the verdicts. They each face a maximum sentence of 14 years and are due to be sentenced next month in Edinburgh.