Drug couple led double life at £1.5m ‘Towie mansion’ smuggling heroin in hair extension bags… before boss’ idiotic error
TO the outside world they looked like a quiet, unassuming couple who happened to have hit the jackpot in life.
Hammad and Azilah Golam-Rassoude lived a quiet life with their only daughter in a £1.5million house in upmarket Chigwell, Essex, a neighbourhood popular with footballers, TOWIE stars and businessman Sir Alan Sugar.
The French-Mauritians seemed like any other wealthy, middle-aged couple who appeared to be enjoying early retirement in their 60s, with a swimming pool in the back garden and regular holidays to France.
In reality, their luxury lifestyle was funded by a drug kingpin on the run from Britain.
Drug smuggler Hoosain Mungur paid for their £7,000-a-month property and used the couple to launder cash and collect drugs for him.
It’s suspected he even installed the expensive CCTV in the house so he could watch the comings and goings from his hideaway in France after fleeing the UK while awaiting drug charges in 2013.
However, the dopey boss’ meticulous surveillance proved to be his downfall when cops studied the tapes back.
Mungur, 62, vanished after being given permission to go to France for planned heart surgery after supplying cops with genuine medical papers.
While on the loose, he recruited his relatives, the Golam-Rassoudes, to store cocaine and heroin shipped into Britain in boxes of hair extensions which would then be picked up by dealers.
The wife, Azilah, also deposited massive amounts of up to £8,000 a day into bank accounts belonging to companies set up by Mungur.
Justice finally caught up with Mungur in June last year when he was arrested at Madrid airport getting on a flight to the Dominican Republic.
He was last month jailed for 19 years.
An undercover officer involved in the National Crime Agency operation told The Sun how Mungur was so brazen that he even put his telephone number on packages full of drugs sent to the UK.
He revealed that Mungur – who has previous drug convictions in France and Germany – was enjoying trips around South America, including El Salvador and Argentina while the couple dealt with his packages.
The officer said: “If you looked at this couple you would never have suspected a thing. They were the stooges for Mungur.
“He obviously knew he was a wanted man and would end up going to prison so rented the house for £7,000 a month, put the Golam- Rassoudes in there rent free and installed this top of the range CCTV, most likely so he could watch what was going on from abroad.
“They were so blasé about the whole thing that unknown people were turning up with carrier bags with money in them. At the start drugs were taken to an Access self storage in Edmonton, north London.
“The couple must have got fed up with that because, after 11 lots of boxes went there, they eventually drove direct to Kent to pick up packages and back to Chigwell where they put them in the garage.
“Mungur is abroad, has control of this house in London and Rassoude is doing all the dirty work for him while his wife goes around laundering all the money.”
Cocaine in a tyre
The saga began in May 2013 when Mungur was caught smuggling four kilos of coke into the UK hidden inside the spare tyre of his car at the port of Harwich on the Essex coast.
At the time he was living in a £2.25 million family house in Woodford Green, less than three miles away from the mock-Tudor Chigwell property.
Just two days before his arrest he deposited £1,000 into the bank and paid in £30,000 a month before.
He said the cash came from his hair product business called Mazia but cops say his only shop in an Ilford shopping centre “wouldn’t bring that amount of money in.”
They were so blasé about the whole thing that unknown people were turning up with carrier bags with money in them
He was bailed but allowed to travel to France for planned heart surgery – and never returned.
Steve said: “He was quite lucky to go abroad to be honest but you have to be sympathetic with a medical condition and he had the right paperwork, but just disappeared after his procedure.”
Fast forward three years and a UK-bound lorry was stopped at Border Control where officers found 45kg of cocaine worth £1.3million and 25kg of heroin worth £700,000 hidden in a pallet containing boxes of hair extensions.
When the National Crime Agency stepped in to find the culprit they discovered the name Mr Faw on the assignment – Mungur’s middle name is Faweez – and French phone numbers linked to the drug lord.
Steve said: “It seems he got confident in years of not being caught. It was blatant really.
“Between May to November 2016, there were previous consignments of hair products weighing between 70kg and 100kg a time.
“We can’t say for definite there were drugs in those loads, but the judge in the court case said it was highly likely there would have been.”
In a bid to trap those picking up the drugs, NCA officers watched as they were collected by the Golam-Rassoudes.
Police found the 10 cardboard boxes in their garage along with others labelled ‘Claire International’.
Then cops discovered the CCTV system installed by Mungur that would prove to be his downfall.
Footage showed suspicious deliveries back and forward to the house and bags of money with thousands of pounds being handed over to the couple at their front door.
French connection
Blackfriars Crown Court heard in 2019 how the pair made frequent visits to France where Mungur was hiding out in Arnouville in the north of the country.
The Golam-Rassoudes, who left Mauritius for the UK in 1995, claimed to know nothing about the illegal activities and said they thought they were running a legitimate business.
They were jailed for four-and-a-half years for converting or transferring criminal property.
Last month Mungur was caged for 19 years at Chelmsford Crown Court after being found guilty of three counts of importing class A drugs and money laundering.
He has previous convictions across Europe.
Britain's cocaine boom
Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ranked 41 developed nations on the proportion of adults aged 15 to 64 who had used cocaine in the previous 12 months.
- Australia – 4.2%
- United Kingdom – 2.7%
- Austria – 2.5%
- Spain – 2.5%
- United States – 2.4%
- Ireland – 2.3%
- Netherlands – 2.1%
- Canada – 2%
- Croatia – 1.8%
- France – 1.6%
In 2008 he was convicted of importing drugs at the Criminal Court of Paris. The following year he faced charges of possession of drugs at Pontoise, north of Paris, while in December 2009, he was convicted of illegally importing and trafficking 8kg of cannabis from the Netherlands into Germany.
NCA Brand Commander Mark Howes said: “”Mungur was a career drug trafficker with convictions in France and Germany before he came to the UK.
“Following his initial arrest he fled the country, and continued his criminal activity from overseas.
“After spending so long at large he may have thought he was safe living abroad, but the NCA worked with international partners to have him returned to the UK to face justice.
“This case demonstrates the NCA’s determination to do all we can to track down and put before the courts those involved in serious organised crime.”