joe's relationship with geena suffers when he is trying to constantly outdo dev in business matters. in september 2002, the factory do business with dev's cousin, naveen alahan (parvez qadir), but problems arise when naveen's cheques keep bouncing. joe makes some calls and finds out that naveen's business is about to go into receivership. without naveen's money, "underworld" is in danger of going under so joe and steve mcdonald (simon gregson), take a van to naveen's warehouse and take mike's stock back, which steve is not happy about. they manage to retrieve the stock and flee after they trigger the security alarm. however, the robbery backfires when police go to the factory to do a routine enquiry. mike is furious about joe's reckless actions as he could be an accessory to the crime as he lied to the police about the missing stock. when mike points out that there are no buyers to purchase the stock that joe has retrieved, he cons naveen by tricking him into buying the knicker order originally meant for him and makes him pay cash. naveen is furious when he realizes what has happened. dev tells geena about joe breaking into the warehouse. geena confronts joe and is shocked when he is angry with dev for telling her. this leads to a violent fight in the rovers between the two men and geena breaks up with joe. when geena tells the police that joe threw the first punch, joe manipulates her by saying that her testimony will get him sent back to prison. naive geena reconciles with joe, unaware that he is using her to get dev to drop the charges. dev agrees, on the condition that she ends the relationship with joe, who suggests to geena that they pretend that they have broken up and she should get back with dev, attempting to consolidate the lie. however, dev realizes what geena is doing and throws her out. joe gets increasingly worried about the police arresting him and puts it to dev that if he drops the charges, he will dump geena. later on, dev tells geena about his deal with joe and how he had already dropped the charges, telling her that it is up to her what she decides to do. when joe breaks up with her, as he had promised, geena is devastated and leaves weatherfield.