They supplied items of clout, kudos and lethal force to criminals. They were 'merchants of death' as one was branded, feeding gangs with firepower.
Mac-10s and Uzi sub machine guns from war zones and Soviet bloc countries helped fuel Greater Manchester's gang wars in the 80s and 90s, before a new wave of armourers began converting gas-firing pistols from Eastern Europe after the millennium, triggering another deadly cycle.
Police cracked down on those supply lines, but now the hacking of EncroChat - the private messaging system dubbed Gangster Whatsapp - has exposed the new breed of armourers who stepped into the void.
Here the M.E.N looks at the gun dealers whose offending lay behind an appalling wave of gang crime in the 00s - and the recent offenders who have followed in their footsteps.
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Kaleem Akhtar
Kaleem Akhtar's family was so well respected 4,000 people attended his wedding. But he harboured the most sinister of secrets.
Away from his job in his family’s successful clothing business and his £350,000 Chorlton home, Akhtar was a lynchpin in one of the country’s biggest gun-running networks.
The outfit Akhtar belonged to sold ‘assassins kits’ of self-loading Baikals and bullets, favoured by members of Manchester's Gooch gang. Akhtar, who called himself ‘Big K’, enjoyed the company of two girlfriends, big nights out in clubs, flashy cars and designer gear.
He had the key role in the operation, arranging for the kits, which would sell for £1700 a time, to be brought from a Lithuanian connection in Essex before being distributed in the North and in Scotland. The gang’s undoing came courtesy of a 2007 police surveillance operation which observed a series of secret handovers.
Undeterred by seizures and the arrest of couriers, the gang carried on, knowing police were on to them, ordering fresh batches and recruiting new couriers. By the time he was jailed police had seized fifty-six guns, identifiable by hand-carved Roman numerals, and 856 bullets.
Since guns are passed from hand to hand, or even rented out by their owners for specific jobs, police believed the seizures prevented hundreds of maimings and worse.
Police never found out how he became involved in the criminal underworld - but described him as a `thrill seeking rich kid' who was attracted to the gangster lifestyle.
Akhtar, caged for 20 years in 2010, was one of seven men jailed at Manchester Crown Court for their part in the gang. One gang member even bragged to criminals in Strangeways that Akhtar was responsible for supplying all the firearms in `Gunchester'.
Leon Seale-Edwards
He supplied guns to one of Manchester's most notorious gangs and it would end with him being given a life sentence in 2007. Leon Seale-Edwards - who went by the street name 'Beefy' - stockpiled handguns and bullets for the Longsight Crew, who warred with the Gooch gang in the 00s.
He became a highly respected armourer for the gang and kept a photograph collage of fellow Longsight Crew members - many of whom were jailed for gun crime offences- on his wall. Also on his wall was the message "LIVE BY IT + DIE BY IT = THE GUN."
He was arrested after a raid on his home in Longsight, following a tip-off to police. Officers discovered a sports bag hidden in the cistern of his toilet. It concealed two handguns - an 8mm Lebel hammerless revolver and a Harrington and Richard .22 calibre gun. One gun was already loaded with five bullets ready for use. They also recovered 45 bullets, a CS gas canister and body armour inside the house.
The search also revealed body armour and a mobile phone which was examined and revealed a text message sent by Seale Edwards offering to sell a gun.
The message read: "Safe bro it's beefy got a strap (handgun) for sale need clip only 5bills uncle beefy." Jailing Seale-Edwards, Judge Clement Goldstone said: "You were a fully paid up member of the Longsight Crew...You were clearly respected by them and there is no doubt, in my judgement that respect was mutual.
"This is yet another example of the gang-related crime with which this city is plagued...It seems to me for the ammunition to be there to answer the needs of those who want to terrorise and kill is, if anything, more serious than if you were intending to use that ammunition yourself and is an indication of your standing within the gang."
Michael Sammon
To the underworld he was 'Mickey The Fish', but a judge branded him with a chilling nickname - the Merchant of Death. Michael Sammon was one of Britain's most notorious street arms dealers.
He imported blank-firing guns to the UK, converted them into deadly weapons and sold them at a huge profit to killers and gangsters. And he spent 11 years on the run.
Sammon and his associate, Bobby ‘The Gun’ Tyrer, bankrolled and masterminded the biggest replica firearms smuggling conspiracy the country had ever seen. In a year, the pair brought around 300 guns into the country, employing a backstreet engineer to convert them.
Ostensibly the guns were for sending distress flares from boats, and had been bought legally on the Continent. They looked enough like real guns to convince in robberies, and with the right expertise, Sammon and Tyrer hoped; they could be adapted to shoot real bullets.
Between spring 2004 and summer 2005, Tyrer and his associates made a string of trips to Germany, meeting a supplier based near Cologne.
Tyrer himself made at least ten journeys, paying no more than fifty euros each for the pistols, which the gang smuggled back in rucksacks on the cross-channel ferry.
The Ancoats-based engineer recruited to 're-bore' the weapons was promised £100 for each one: the Umarex Reck Cobra, the Kimar Competitive Alarm, the ME9 Mod Para, the ME P08, the ME38 Compact, Pocket and Magnum. The .38s were the worst; they had a tendency to blow apart when someone pulled the trigger.
The guns fetched up to £700 a time on the street. With dreams of converting 200 a week, Sammon started to talk of expanding the operation, of setting up a factory in Spain and importing thousands more, with buyers for the guns flocking from from Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Yorkshire, Scotland, Bristol and Wolverhampton.
Police believed the weapons from the prolific gun factory were behind more than 4,000 crimes nationwide, including kidnap, armed robbery, torture and extortion. Notorious crime boss Dominic Noonan was found with one of the handguns and five bullets when stopped by police near Darlington, Co Durham, in 2005. He was jailed for nine and a half years over the gun find.
After an undelivered package was left at a shop in Levenshulme, close to one of the gang’s addresses, in June 2005, a shopkeeper discovered fourteen Cuno Melcher pistols inside and fingerprint evidence linked Tyrer to the package.
The engineer would turn supergrass, and Tyrer, of Gorton, would be jailed for 19 years. Sammon vanished as the net closed in At the time he began funding the conspiracy, Sammon had already been on the run for seven years, after failing to show up for a fraud sentence.
Sammon would remain at large until 2008 after using a series of false identities to evade capture. He was finally tracked down to a holiday park in Hampshire, tried, and jailed for thirty years following guilty verdicts. At the time, 140 of his weapons had been seized.
Jailing Sammon, then aged 49, at Manchester Crown Court in 2010, Judge Martin Steiger QC called him a 'merchant of death', adding: "One hundred of the guns are still in circulation, waiting to do their lethal work to innocent victims."
Michael Derrane
In more recent years, armourers have been exposed by cops hacking into the secret Encrochat communication system used by criminals.
They include Michael Derrane, 50, who supplied guns and drugs to organised crime gangs across Britain including Manchester.
Using the handle 'Big Corey', he was well known to serious organised crime groups in Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, the Midlands, and London and would travel up to 700 miles to exchange illicit goods. In one series of messages he discussed the sale of 30 kilos of heroin split between locations in London, Leicester and Oxford.
Last month at Leeds Crown Court, he was sentenced to 19 years and two months imprisonment after pleading guilty to conspiracy to transfer prohibited weapons and conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs - namely heroin, cocaine and cannabis - having been arrested in his van in Leeds by National Crime Agency armed officers.
During a search of the van officers recovered a firearm that had been converted to fire fully automatic, as well as ammunition, class B drugs and £6000 cash.
In messages analysed by police, a criminal associate requested guns from Derrane, of Morpeth, and got the reply: “They in Spain until we start sending again I can’t get em you got enough kill someone only need one in right place.”
In another message, Derrane references a dispute he has over drugs and money with another man, saying: “‘That’s all they have to wait and I just need 2 bullets in a gun.”
Umair Zaheer and Bilal Khan
Two others exposed by the EncroChat breach include Umair Zaheer and Bilal Khan. A judge accepted in court that Zaheer was a good son, partner, father and fundraiser for charitable causes.
But this picture revealed his other side as a 'ruthless gangster' and gun runner who helped Salford criminals plot a gangland revenge shooting.
Zaheer, from Eccles, was given a 25 year jail sentence in February last year after EncroChat messages revealed his involvement in sourcing guns and drug dealing.
The image of Zaheer above provided police with a crucial breakthrough as they were able to find the same clothes he had been wearing on the picture at his home. The Louis Vuitton T-shirt, grey top, trousers and trainers were all recovered by police.
His close ally, Bilal Khan, 33, from Didsbury, also posed with the deadly machine gun. Khan, who worked for a property management company, was locked up for more than 10 years.
"The photograph of you holding the AK47 was circulated to associates as a sign of your power," sentencing judge Mr Justice Kerr told Zaheer.
"Mr Khan celebrated with jubilant messages boasting of the firepower of the weapons and the prestige and thrills they brought."
EncroChat messages revealed how Khan, known as 'Legend killer' on the network, revelled in possessing the deadly machine gun.
"This ting gives me a hard on," he wrote. This is the daddy. I feel like my d*** works. No lie best ting I’ve seen."
Zaheer and Khan were sentenced alongside five other men for firearms and drugs offences after a revenge plot was exposed.
Brandon Moore, 24, and Jordan Waring, 23, were both shot during an incident in Kersal in April 2020. They sought the help of Zaheer to source a gun and seek retribution.
Zaheer, 34, said they would 'do him' when they discovered where the alleged gunman was. "This kids f***** now," he said. "Oh yea he is a dead man," Waring replied.
Zaheer sent Moore a list of firearms available for sale, including two AK47s and an Uzi. "Yeah nice bro this kid needs it," Moore, who had been shot in the arm, replied. Zaheer said: "He will get bro just let him get comfortable a bit we will sneak up on him."
Moore and Waring were later arrested and the plan came to nothing.
Zaheer was also involved in helping broker deals to sell terrifying weapons to other criminals. He arranged a £37,000 deal to sell Uzi and Skorpion sub machine guns, as well as a pistol to Khan.
Zaheer, Moore and Waring, all of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess firearms or ammunition with intent to endanger life. Moore received 11 years and five months, Waring was sentenced to eight years and seven months.
Zaheer pleaded guilty to a separate conspiracy to possess firearms or ammunition with intent to endanger life, as did Khan, of Mersey Road, Didsbury.
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