By Simon Hamalienko

An air hostess has been jailed for eight years after she teamed up with a former public schoolboy to smuggle £250,000 worth of cocaine into Britain.
Mandeep Shahi, 27, of Ontario, Canada, took advantage of lax security while working for Air Canada to smuggle four kilos of the cocaine on board in her luggage.
After breezing through the customs checks at Heathrow, Shahi then headed to a hotel to deliver the goods to a pair of major drug dealers.
She was only caught by an undercover police operation but was arrested on her return to Britain five months later after being identified by CCTV footage.
Shahi claimed she had been an unwitting drugs mule - but a jury at Southwark Crown Court found her guilty of possession of class A drugs with intent to supply.
Southwark Crown Court heard it was highly unlikely that an Air Canada cabin crew would be subjected to random searches as Canada was not considered a high-risk country for drug smuggling.
Former public schoolboy Simon Howard-Harwood and Baljinder Nijjar, both 28, who collected the drugs Shahi smuggled into Britain had admitted conspiracy to supply prohibited drugs. A minicab driver Ghulem Malik, 53, was also convicted of ferrying drugs for the pair.
After leaving the airport she checked into the Danubius Hotel in central London - which was being staked out by undercover drugs officers.
Nijjar was seen going into Shahi’s room and left carrying a blue Air Canada Bag - thought to contain cocaine.
He then walked to room 221 where Howard-Harwood was staying and left without the bag.
Shortly afterwards taxi driver Malik, who ferried drugs for the dealers, went to Howard-Harwood’s room, and left with a bag which he loaded into his vehicle and drove away.
When police stopped Malik they found a kilo of cocaine in his car.
Shahi was not arrested at that stage and she unsuspectingly flew back to Canada.
She said she was married to Nijjar’s cousin, Bhupinder Sanghera, and suggested that he could have easily put the drugs in her bag without her knowing.
The deal had been set up by Nijjar and his cousin Sanghera - Shahi’s husband - but the hostess agreed to take drugs on the flight from Toronto.
It was reported that after Shahi gave the drugs to Nijjar, she travelled to Westfield shopping centre in west London and splashed out on a new £200 handbag. 
Shahi wept as the judge sentenced her and her fellow drug dealers to a total of 32 years in prison.

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