at a federal court in Manhattan.

From his residence in the UK, he was the puppet-master of a vast drugs empire, supplying many tonnes of heroin, methamphetamine and hashish from bases in Pakistan and India that were distributed across the world. The gangs he informed on were his rivals - and his motivation was to rid the market of his competitors.His status in the underworld earned him the moniker "the Sultan".

But this criminal power and prestige would not last forever. After a complex joint operation between the British and American authorities, Hafeez, 66, was extradited from the UK in 2023. He pleaded guilty last November.On Friday, he was sentenced to 16 years in a New York prison for conspiring to import drugs - including enough heroin for "millions of doses" - into the US. Having been in custody since 2017, Hafeez’s sentence will end in 2033.The BBC has closely followed Hafeez's case. We have pieced together information from court documents, corporate listings and interviews with people who knew him.

We wanted to find out how he managed to stay under the radar for so long - and how he eventually got caught.Hafeez was born in September 1958 to a middle-class family in Lahore, Pakistan. One of six children, his upbringing was comfortable. People in Lahore who knew the family told the BBC that his father had owned a factory near the city. Hafeez also later told a US court that he had trained as a commercial pilot.

From the early 1990s to about the mid-2010s, he ran an outwardly legitimate umbrella company called Sarwani International Corporation, with subsidiary businesses in Pakistan, the UAE and the UK.

According to its website - which has since been shut down - it sold technical equipment to militaries, governments and police forces throughout the world, including equipment for drug detection.A Parliamentary and Political Services Committee considers honours for politicians and for political service.

When somebody is approved for an honour, they are sent a letter asking if they will accept it.A list of 277 people who turned down honours between 1951 and 1999 - and subsequently died -

, and painters Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and LS Lowry.because of the association with the British Empire and its history of slavery.