Gangs in Liverpool

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Gangs in

Merseyside police have reported in 2023 that as many as 120 gangs are operating around Merseyside. [2]

History

1950-1970

In the 1950s and 1960s,

stolen goods
.

Liverpool mafia

In 1969, career criminal Tommy "Tacker" Comerford was part of a gang of robbers from the north of Liverpool who spent a bank holiday weekend tunneling into a branch of the District Bank on Water Street in Liverpool city centre, using a thermal lance to open the safe and stealing over £140,000 in cash and £20,000 in property, over a million pounds in todays currency. [3] After his release from prison several years later, Comerford abandoned robbery and became involved in the illegal drug trade. In the late 1970s, he formed the "Liverpool Mafia", a group of white criminals who became Britains first drug cartel and the richest crime group in the United Kingdom. He was seen as a pioneer, as one of the first Liverpudlians to become involved in international drug trafficking.[4]

1980s

In the early 1980s Liverpool was tagged by the media as 'Smack City' or 'Skag City' after it experienced an explosion in gang crime and

Cali cartel.[7] Over time, several Liverpool gangsters became increasingly wealthy, including Colin 'Smigger' Smith, who had an estimated fortune of £200m[8] and Curtis 'Cocky' Warren, whose estimated wealth once saw him listed on the Sunday Times Rich List.[9]

1990s-2000s

Curtis Warren

During the 1990s, Curtis Warren became one of the biggest drug lords in the UK and Europe. He was once listed as the International Criminal Police Organisation Interpols ‘Target Number One’. Warren had an estimated fortune of £300 million. Forging direct links with the Cali Cartel, Warren and his gang flooded Europe with drugs.

Warren decided to leave Liverpool for the

Dutch police. On 24 October 1996, Brigade Speciale Beveiligingsopdrachten
raided Warren's villa, where they found guns and ammunition and a large amount of several illegal drugs.

Warren was sentenced to 12 years in the maximum security prison, Nieuw Vosseveld in Vught. During his time in prison, Warren killed fellow inmate Cemal Guclu, who was serving a 20 year sentence for murder and attempted murder. Guclu started yelling at Warren, before attacking him. A fight ensued, resulting in blows being exchanged and Warren punching and kicking Guclu in the head repeatedly. Guclu hit his head and fell into a coma which he never woke up from. Warren stated he stated he acted in “self defence” but was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to a further four years.

On 7th October 2009 Warren was found guilty for conspiracy to smuggle cannabis. He was sentenced on 3 December 2009 to 13 years imprisonment.

In November 2013, Warren was ordered to pay a £198m confiscation order, or face another ten years in jail. On 27 March 2014 it was reported that Warren had lost his appeal over his failure to pay the order, and so would remain in prison.

In November 2022, Warren was released after serving fourteen years in a maximum security prison.[10]

Colin Smith

Colin ‘Smigger’ Smith was one of Liverpool’s most powerful drug dealers, with an estimated personal fortune of £200 million. He took over as de facto boss of the Liverpool Mafia after Curtis Warrens imprisonment.

In 2007, Smith was executed at close range with a

Colombian cartel
on UK soil. It has also been alleged it was a rival Liverpool gangster who ordered his death.

1990s Gang war

A report in the

gun crime.[11] Official Home Office statistics revealed a total of 3,387 offences involving firearms had occurred in the Merseyside region during a four-year period between 1997 and 2001.[12] It was revealed that Liverpool was the main centre for organised crime in the North of England.[13] In 1999, a prominent "turf war killing" occurred when Warren Selkirk was shot five times and a bag of dog excrement placed in his hand, while his children waited in a nearby car: Glaswegian Ian McAteer was convicted of the murder in 2001.[14][15]

Crocky Crew vs Strand Gang

In 2007, the feud between two street gangs from Croxteth and Norris Green reached its peak with the murder of innocent 11 year old Rhys Jones.

In early 2004, what initially began as a petty rivalry among loosely affiliated antisocial youths and young men, spiralled into a gang war. At the Royal Oak pub on Muirhead Avenue, bordering

body armour
.

In 2006, Liam "Smigger" Smith, a notable Strand Gang member, was murdered. Smith had been visiting a friend in prison and had a heated argument with Croxteth Crew inmate Ryan Lloyd. Within an hour Smith had been shot and killed. Despite significant law enforcement efforts, exemplified by the high-profile

convictions
of Mercer and six Croxteth Crew affiliates in December 2008, violence persisted, culminating in the June 2012 assassination of Joey Thompson, a respected Strand Gang member. This became the fourth murder linked to the feud.

Since January 2016 both areas have witnessed minimal gun violence incidents amidst broader regional efforts to combat escalating firearms offenses.[16]

The Huyton Firm

Organised crime and

drug trafficking in the city is now believed to be largely controlled by a secretive cartel known as the ‘Huyton Firm’ or ‘Cantril Farm Cartel’, founded in the 1990s and run by two brothers from the Huyton area of Liverpool. The brothers filled a power vacuum left behind after Curtis Warren and his gang were jailed and Colin Smith was murdered. They have had control ever since. They are internationally active. The National Crime Agency
, Britain's version of the FBI, have been trying to convict them for over 20 years.

In 2009, the

Liverpool Crown Court. Family homes were subjected to gun and hand grenade attacks, including an incident where a grenade was accidentally left outside Kenny Dalglish’s Birkdale
residence. Downes and Bradley are now serving life sentences for their roles in the 2009 terror campaign.

In 2010, the Huyton leaders dispatched a heavily armed gang to Amsterdam to

assault rifles with silencers. Following the June 10 arrests, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) suggested that the police intervention likely thwarted a series of assassinations in Amsterdam, connected to the Liverpool gang war. The hit team were said to be targeting a former Liverpool boxer affiliated with the Speke
firm.

In 2013, SOCA dealt a significant blow to the Huyton firm, seizing 400 kilograms of cocaine concealed in a shipment of Argentinean beef at Tilbury docks, valued at £90 million. The operation involved the replacement of the cocaine with dummy packages and the insertion of surveillance equipment.

In March 2017, a

Spanish police arrested 24 individuals, including senior Huyton firm members who were subsequently released on bail. [17]
[18]

Notable gangs

The Whitneys

The

extradited from Spain was Anthony "Tony" Whitney from his home in Dénia where he got mixed up in another smuggling plot, and was apprehended for smuggling 50,000 tablets of an ecstasy-type substance. The family spent years sat at the apex of a massive criminal network in Liverpool, stretching from their home in Anfield across much of the city. [19]

Curtis Warren Cartel

Swiss bank accounts
.

Warren was blessed with a

photographic memory. He never called contacts by their names, but code words; all of the Swiss bank account details were kept in his mind, never written down; he never kept accounts for his drug dealing business. The result was that he had an unlimited credit line from cartels in South America, and with cannabis traffickers in Turkey and Eastern Europe. [20]

The Huyton Firm

Organized crime and drug trafficking in the city are predominantly controlled by a secretive cartel known as the 'Huyton Firm' or 'Cantril Farm Cartel’. Established in the 1990s and led by two brothers from the

FBI
, has been attempting to secure convictions against them for over two decades.

The leaders of the firm, who have always shunned publicity, moved to southern

Costa Del Sol where they competed with rival crime groups from North Africa and Eastern Europe. [21]
[22]

The Fitzgibbons

The Fitzgibbon brothers, Ian and Jason, along with their mother Christine, ran an international drugs empire from their home in

ecstasy tablets, potentially valued at over £800,000, on the streets of Merseyside. Their mother, Christine Fitzgibbon, aged 60, confessed to laundering drug money and received a two-year sentence. [23]

The Liverpool mafia

The "

Toxteth riots, and became the richest crime group in the United Kingdom.[4]

The Clarkes

Peter Clarke, a former weapon's instructor in the

cannabis farms
.

Sentenced to over 26 years combined, they faced the forfeiture and destruction of body armor, drugs, and guns, but with only £600,000 of their £3.8 million fortune to be repaid. The arsenal uncovered at a lock-up in the

Glock pistol, Luger handgun, revolvers, ammunition, silencers, machetes, samurai swords, stun guns, and batons.[24]

John Haase’s Transit Mob

firearms. The Home Secretary, Michael Howard, was criticized for the decision, and in 2008 Haase and Bennett were convicted of having set up the weapons finds to earn them their release, and sentenced to 20 and 22 years in prison respectively.[25][26][27]

Haase was released on licence in June 2019, and was quickly recruited as an enforcer for criminals to recover debts. On March 14 2020, a house was set on fire in the Whirlow area of Sheffield as part of "terror tactics" after the owners refused to pay an alleged debt of £280,000 pound. A Range Rover on the driveway was ignited, causing flames to spread to the garage and subsequently to the house. Despite the occupants being away at the time, the fire caused extensive damage to the property. Haase, now 74, was given a 9 year prison sentence for the crime. [28]

The Showers Brothers

Turkish Police and the British Serious Organised Crime Agency
(SOCA), the drugs baron was reprimanded after being linked to alleged cannabis smuggling.

Delroy Showers was jailed in 2009 over a plot to smuggle just over £1m worth of

Foreign Office confirmed he was moved back to the UK to finish his jail term. [29][30][31]

Tragedies

In August 2007, the ongoing war between two rival gangs the ‘Crocky Crew’ and ‘Strand Gang’, caused nationwide outrage when innocent 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot in the back as he walked home from football practice and died in his mother's arms in the car park of the Fir Tree pub in the Croxteth district of Liverpool.[32] On 16 December 2008, Sean Mercer was convicted of the murder and ordered to serve a minimum tariff of 22 years by trial judge Mr Justice Irwin.[33]

Ashley Dale, a municipal worker, was murdered in

Skorpion submachine gun, 41-year-old James Witham broke into Dale's home and shot her in the stomach, killing her while she stood by the back door. Witham, alongside Joseph Peers, Niall Barry, and Sean Zeisz, were convicted on charges related to murdering Dale, conspiring to murder Harrison, and possessing illegal firearms and ammunition. Witham was sentenced to a minimum of 43 years in prison, while the prison sentences for Peers, Zeisz, and Barry were 41, 42, and 47 years, respectively.[34]

On 22 August 2022,

drug dealing and burglary. During the attack, Pratt-Korbel was with her mother. A shot by the gunman passed through her mother's wrist and Pratt-Korbel's chest.[35] On 3 April 2023, Thomas Cashman was sentenced to life imprisonment for Olivia's murder, as well as for the attempted murder of his intended target; he was ordered to serve a minimum of 42 years before being considered for parole. He was sentenced to 10 years for the wounding of Olivia's mother, and received two 18 year sentences for both counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, with all of the sentences to run concurrently.[37]

On 24th December 2022, Elle Edwards was fatally shot and killed inside a pub in Wallasey, Merseyside. Merseyside Police said that officers were called to the Lighthouse Inn just after 11:50 p.m. following reports of gunshots. A gunman fired several shots towards the front entrance of the pub with a military grade sub-machine gun, which was packed with mostly young people at the time. The attack was an attempt to kill Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, two men from a rival gang. Both were seriously injured in the shooting. Elle Edwards, was taken to Arrowe Park Hospital after she suffered a serious gunshot injury to her head, but tragically died shortly after. Four other men were also taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, one of whom, a 28-year-old man, was in critical condition. Connor Chapman was convicted of her murder and seven other counts, including firearm charges and attempted murder. [38]

International operations

Liverpudlian organised crime 'firms' operate on an international level. This mainly focuses around the drug trade but also other forms of criminality. Crime groups from Liverpool are well known for trafficking drugs in the

Mediterranean holiday resorts, are today controlled by various Liverpool gangs, in places such as Marbella and Ibiza.[40][41]

See also

  • Crime in Liverpool

References

  1. ^ "The Gangs of Liverpool". Archived from the original on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2013. ljmu.ac.uk
  2. ^ Gangs in UK using Czech-made sub-machine guns
  3. ^ Duffy, Tom (28 December 2021). "'Top Cat' the Liverpool 'council flat' drug boss and his extravagant life of crime". Liverpool Echo. Archived from the original on 27 March 2022.
  4. ^ a b From Mr Nice to a laser scientist and 'Cocky Curtis' - meet men who drugged Britain Amanda Killelea Daily Mirror 8 August 2020 Archived 27 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ [1] www.druglibrary.org
  6. ^ "The Liverpool Model". Archived from the original on 15 November 2007. Retrieved 17 November 2007. www.drugtext.org
  7. ^ Thompson, Tony (18 May 2008). "Colombian 'hit' that set off a UK cocaine war". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
  8. ^ Rossington, Ben. "Liverpool's top gangster Colin Smith shot dead". Liverpool Echo. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
  9. ^ "Gangster freed from Dutch prison". BBC News. 14 June 2007. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
  10. ^ >From Mr Nice to a laser scientist and 'Cocky Curtis' - meet men who drugged Britain Amanda Killelea Daily Mirror 8 August 2020 Archived 27 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Thompson, Tony (8 April 2001). "Drug gangs' spate of turf war killings". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
  12. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. Retrieved 11 November 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) www.criminal-information-agency.com
  13. ^ icLiverpool – Liverpool revealed as centre for organised crime in North
  14. ^ Thompson, Tony (8 April 2001). "Drug gangs' spate of turf war killings". The Observer. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  15. ^ "Drug baron gets life for killing father of three". The Telegraph. 6 April 2001. Archived from the original on 13 July 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  16. ^ "Little Boy Blue: The Croxteth Crew and Strand Gang feud that brought misery to L11". Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  17. ^ Tom Duffy (29 March 2020). "From Cantril Farm to the Costa Del Sol: the brothers behind the real Liverpool mafia". Liverpool Echo.
  18. ^ Tom Duffy (12 August 2018). "Revealed: Police's secret war with the REAL Liverpool mafia you've never heard of". Liverpool Echo.
  19. ^ Last member of Whitney gang extradited from Spain – Liverpool Echo
  20. ^ Drug Lord Curtis Warren dubbed UK’s Pablo Escobar - Mirror
  21. ^ Tom Duffy (29 March 2020). "From Cantril Farm to the Costa Del Sol: the brothers behind the real Liverpool mafia". Liverpool Echo.
  22. ^ Tom Duffy (12 August 2018). "Revealed: Police's secret war with the REAL Liverpool mafia you've never heard of". Liverpool Echo.
  23. ^ Liverpool's Fitzgibbon drug family jailed for more than 30 years over Turkish heroin deal - Independent
  24. ^ gangster Clarke brothers to pay back just £600k of £3.8m crime fortune - Liverpool Echo
  25. ^ "Haase and Bennett jailed for 42 years over gun plot". 20 November 2008.
  26. ^ "My shock at seeing John Haase on the door at pub". 15 October 2008.
  27. ^ Powder Wars: The Supergrass Who Brought Down Britain's Biggest Drug Dealers
  28. ^ "Ex drug baron John Haase torched house when owner refused to hand over £280,000". 18 January 2024.
  29. ^ "Merseyside drugs baron Michael Showers in Turkish court on heroin charges - Liverpool Echo". 26 July 2010.
  30. ^ "Liverpool Echo: Latest Liverpool and Merseyside news, sports and what's on".
  31. ^ "Liverpool drugs baron faces heroin smuggling charges in Turkish court > Local News > News | Click Liverpool". Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
  32. ^ Boy, 11, dies after pub shooting BBC, accessed 28/10/07
  33. ^ Life term for Rhys Jones killer
  34. ^ "Ashley Dale: Four men jailed for total of 173 years for murdering council worker in Liverpool".
  35. ^ a b Dodd, Vikram; Brown, Mark; Vinter, Robyn (23 August 2022). "Gangland murder attempt blamed for shooting of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, nine". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  36. ^ "Olivia Pratt-Korbel: Former drug dealer held after Liverpool shooting". BBC News. 24 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  37. ^ "Olivia Pratt-Korbel: Thomas Cashman jailed for 42 years for her murder". BBC News. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  38. ^ "Man guilty of Christmas Eve murder of Elle Edwards".
  39. ^ BBC – Inside Out – North West – Gangster town
  40. ^ [2] www.guardian.co.uk
  41. ^ [3] icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk
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