Four men have been jailed for burglary and firearm offences after one of them was caught telephoning a takeaway from the scene of the theft to order food.
Musfer Jabbar, 22, and his three accomplices – Shabaz Ismail, Andrew Coy and Andrew Cross – struck a gun store in Sheffield in April 2020. While CCTV footage showed Coy and Cross driving away with stolen firearms, a hungry Jabbar stayed at the scene of the burglary along with Ismail and contacted a local takeaway and placed an order for two lamb burgers.
Investigators found the stolen items were delivered to a property whose occupant – a 34-year-old woman – was later convicted of handling the goods.
Police managed to recover almost half of the stolen firearms with some of them found in West Yorkshire and London.
Jabbar, who has no fixed address, has been jailed for nine years for burglary and possessing a firearm without a certificate. His offences also included the possession of class-A drugs which he intended to supply. Ismail who pleaded guilty to similar crimes has been sentenced to eight years and one month in prison.
Cross will be in prison for nine years while Coy has been jailed for five years and 10 months.
The owner of the gun store appeared in court months after the burglary and was fined £350 for leaving his goods insecure.
The Armed Crime Team’s detective constable Scott Davies said Ismail and Jabbar took advantage of an insecure building to commit the burglary, resulting in several firearms potentially ending up in the wrong hands.
He said a number of the stolen guns were “possibly on the country’s streets.”
“Officers from different areas within the force spent an extensive amount of time piecing together exactly what happened and who was responsible. This included hours of CCTV checks which thankfully later led us to arrest and successfully charging this group.”
