An amateur chemist has been jailed for playing a key role in a gang's plot to produce amphetamines worth £3m.
Hungarian national Laszlo Viszocsanszki, 56, played an 'essential' role in a scheme to flood the UK with the drug. He was extradited from Belgium, where he had been involved in another drugs lab, to face justice in the UK.
Now Viszocsanszki has been jailed for three years and four months after he admitted conspiracy to supply class B drugs. Other members of the gang including its leader Gary O'Regan were jailed in 2019.
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Viszocsanszki had been wanted for entering the UK to help set up an amphetamine lab for O’Regan.
He was extradited from Belgium. He had been involved in a synthetic drugs lab in Belgium for which he was handed a four-year jail sentence there, according to Greater Manchester Police.
The self-proclaimed chemical engineer played an 'essential' role in the Manchester operation although he would not have known its full scale, according to GMP.
The judge accepted Viszocsanszki would have received a professional fee for his services, said the force.
The 2019 hearing was told the gang plotted to produce £3m of amphetamine - around 300kg - with the help of a Hungarian chemist, Viszocsanszki. The outfit was also found with heroin and huge wads of cash.
The judge jailed six people for almost a century in relation to the elaborate conspiracy, in which pink ladies' shoe boxes were used to conceal blocks of cocaine.
One of the gang's members Sam O'Neill, described as a 'jolly big man' in court, was jailed alongside his wife Jennifer O'Neill and four other accomplices.
Sam O'Neill, 35, Gary O'Regan, 34, Paul Higginson, 40, and Patrick Warde, 52, were equal partners in the huge drugs scheme, the 2019 case was told. Jennifer O'Neill, 31, and Darren Gill, 27, had lesser roles.
The group made a number of trips around the UK, when cocaine and heroin was dropped off or collected. Destinations included Lancashire, Merseyside, West Yorkshire, the North East and Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, according to the prosecution.
The gang was also in the process of finding a factory where they could produce amphetamine.
A Hungarian chemist was hired and brought to Manchester to act as a consultant to help them set up the scheme, and they had purchased chemicals and equipment which were being stored at a lock up in Denton ready for use.
After arriving, Viszocsanszki was given a new mobile phone to use and was taken to watch Manchester United play Newcastle United at St James' Park by O'Regan. Members of the gang also used encrypted phones to try and thwart any police investigation.
Police began covertly monitoring the gang.
O'Regan, who police said was the head of the gang, and had spent time in Spain before returning to Salford, was stopped by police on the M62 travelling to Liverpool and was arrested. In his black VW Passat was a silver revolver and eight rounds of ammunition. Following his arrest, police said Higginson took the reigns.
Days later, police followed Sam O'Neill from his house to Caesar's Bar and Cafe, on Market Street in Hyde.
Sam O'Neill, described in court as a 'jolly big man', had originally set the business up legitimately, but it had closed and was used by the gang to store drugs.
The following month, police watched on as Sam O'Neill, accompanied by his wife and one of their children in a car park outside a Salford casino, passed on a shoe box with a pink lid to Darren Gill.
On March 8, police stopped Sam O'Neill on the M6 after he had travelled to Slough. He had picked up 30kg of high purity cocaine, worth about £2.4m.
Police later searched the lock up in Denton, recovering chemicals which could have produced 115kg of amphetamine, with a potential value of £3m. Heroin valued at £50,000 was also recovered from Ceasars in Hyde.
More cocaine was also found which resulted in a total amount of the class A drug seized of about £3m.
Officers searched the O'Neill family home in Hattersley, where they recovered a large quantity of expensive jewellery, designer clothing, shoes and a handbag.
They also discovered a kilo block of cocaine in the front passenger foot-well of Jennifer O'Neill's Nissan Qashqai. She told police she didn't know anything about the cocaine, and that she wasn't involved in the drugs conspiracies.
But she was found guilty after a trial. Her husband was already in custody having pleaded guilty before the trial.
Judge Patrick Field jailed all six defendants for almost 100 years.
O'Regan received a sentence of 24 years while Sam O'Neill was handed 19 years and six months. Higginson and Warde were given 21 years apiece.
Gill was jailed for nine years, while Jennifer O'Neill received four years.
After the latest hearing, Detective Constable Christopher Chinnery, of the Serious Crime Division of GMP, said: "This sentence represents closure of this huge operation, involving an elaborate conspiracy carried out across the country.
"We monitored the activities of this drugs operation closely, which enabled us to gather evidence and unravel the conspiracy. We are committed to identifying and bringing down drugs operations, however big and complex, to make sure the drugs will never hit the streets of Greater Manchester – and ultimately keeping residents safe."
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