A CORRUPT lawyer from Wembley has been jailed for trying to keep a criminal gang out of prison.

Naveen Sagar, 32, was sentenced to 14-and-a-half years in prison after disrupting a police investigation into a gang of heroin dealers from Southall.

Sagar used his job as a criminal solicitor to try to protect the gang members, arranging false alibis and changing transcripts of conversations between officers and witnesses to imply police corruption.

Sagar was an integral part of the armed gang, led by 29-year-old Ahmed Osman Hersi, while continuing his day job with Mehra and Co Solicitors, based in Wembley High Road, Wembley.

Hersi and his gang became the subject of a three-year investigation by the Met, culminating in 35 arrests and nine convictions.

During raids in Hackney, Leicester Square and Shepherds Bush, officers seized four kilograms of heroin, 280 rocks of crack cocaine, two Mac10 machine guns, five semi-automatic handguns, a revolver, ammunition, and £300,000.

Sagar pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, attempting to pervert the course of justice, two counts of fraud, and contempt of court with intent, at Kingston Crown Court.

He also asked for a charge of burgling his mother's house to be taken into consideration.

Police will now try to claim back some of the profits from Sagar's criminal dealings, thought to total £1m.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Beyer, of the Met's Central Task Force, said: "Between them, Hersi and Sagar were responsible for the running of a criminal network that supplied drugs and guns on a large scale.

"Such was their grip on the criminal network they could coerce others to make themselves vulnerable to police action in order to protect the gang's activity.

"Sagar's relative inexperience as a criminal lawyer did not prevent him concocting elaborate plans to undermine the integrity of our investigations."

Hersi is due to be sentenced tomorrow (Thursday, December 6) at Kingston Crown Court, for his part in the criminal activities.