By Our News Desk
LONDON – A RESPECTABLE London magistrate who lived a secret double life helping a ruthless gangster flood the capital’s streets with Class A drugs has been jailed.
Purshotam Dhillon, 59, abused his position of ultimate trust to give a multi-thousand-pound heroin and crack cocaine empire an “air of respectability.”
But yesterday, the scales of justice tipped heavily against him as he and three other members of a sophisticated West London organised crime network were locked up for a total of 25 years.
Croydon Crown Court heard how Dhillon—a self-confessed drug addict—turned his suburban Hounslow home into a drug factory. Cops discovered he allowed the gang’s kingpin to park a van packed with high-purity heroin right outside his front door.
Inside the property, lethal Class A drugs were weighed out, sliced up with a rare cutting tool, and packaged for the streets.
The mastermind behind the operation was hardened criminal Hardeep Thind, 48—known in the underworld as “Harry Singh” or “The Plug.”
Shockingly, a Metropolitan Police investigation revealed that Thind was already serving a 17-year stretch for conspiracy to supply drugs and possession of a terrifying Skorpion submachine gun when he launched the multi-state network.
Operating from the comfort of an open prison, Thind used an illicit burner phone to direct his foot soldiers. Upon his release in October 2024, he aggressively expanded his empire, recruiting a web of dealers across Hayes and Southall.
But Scotland Yard’s elite drug squad was already watching.
Detectives painstakingly pieced together thousands of call data records, tracking location data that proved the gang was meeting up to plot their next moves.
They even intercepted voice notes where Thind boasted about controlling multiple county lines.
The gang’s empire came crashing down in a series of dramatic synchronized dawn raids across West London. Cops seized a massive haul of heroin and crack cocaine with a street value of £174,000, alongside packaging materials, digital scales, mounds of dirty cash, and incriminating “tick lists” detailing drug transactions.
On Thursday, June 25, the key players faced the music:
Hardeep Thind (“Harry Singh”), of Southall, was hit with the heaviest sentence of 12 years and six months for drug supply and dangerous driving.
Purshotam Dhillon, of Hounslow, was handed seven years behind bars. Bikramjit Brar, 46, of Hayes, who held and distributed the drugs, was jailed for three years and four months.
Leandrea Lynch, 49, of Hayes, who acted as a runner, received a two-year-and-six-month sentence, suspended for the same length of time.
Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Inspector Mark Gavin, from the Met’s Specialist Crime unit, issued a fierce warning to corrupt officials.
”As a serving magistrate, Dhillon abused a position of trust in the most serious way,” DI Gavin said. “This case demonstrates that no-one is above the law, and those who engage in criminality will be held accountable.
”County lines are far more than drug dealing – they exploit the vulnerable and fuel violence. We remain committed to relentlessly pursuing those responsible.”
The conviction marks a massive victory for the Met Police, who disrupted serious and organised crime groups over 21,000 times last year alone—a massive 63 per cent spike from previous years.
