The final member of a multi-million pound drug gang has been locked up.
Connor Smith was one of 10 men ensnared after a National Crime Agency investigation into a Merseyside-based gang which operated an amphetamine lab in North Wales. Conspirators have now been jailed for a combined total of nearly 200 years.
Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Friday, that the 29-year-old was involved in the supply of class B drugs only - including up to £2.5million of cannabis. Nicola Daley, prosecuting, described how EncroChat messages revealed that Smith - of Derby Grove in Maghull - and the other gang members were "involved in the wholesale supply of cannabis".
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His communications, undertaken using the handle Tactical Hawk, evidenced a total of 499kg supplied or offered between April and June 2020 - drugs with an estimated street value of between £2,242,425 and £2,513,009. He was also involved in trafficking around 20kg of ketamine.
Smith, who appeared via video link to HMP Liverpool, has eight previous convictions for 11 offences - including for production of cannabis and possession of cannabis with intent to supply. Ms Daley said: "He appears to have been involved in organising the buying and selling of cannabis on a commercial scale, including its importation - involving himself with the expectation of substantial financial advantage."
Oliver Cook, defending, "painted a picture of someone different" and said his client had been a "customer of others and a supplier to those below him". Smith admitted conspiracy to supply ketamine, mephedrone, diazepam and cannabis and production of cannabis and was jailed for seven years and 11 months.
Sentencing, Judge Denis Watson KC described him as a "trusted member" of an enterprise which dealt in "manufacturing and supply of vast quantities of drugs" - adding: "You played a central and important role in the conspiracy. You are a family man and there is another side of you."
Two previous trials heard that the organised crime group shipped large quantities of injectable amphetamines across England, Scotland and Wales as part of a multi-million pound scheme. The gang was also involved in dealing cocaine, heroin and ketamine among other drugs.
Meanwhile, two of its ringleaders made attempts to get hold of weapons in the months before they were brought to justice. Their huge drug production operation was initially discovered after the EncroChat messaging service was breached by investigators in 2020.
The National Crime Agency then discovered a slew of messages alluding to a drugs lab on the outskirts of Chester and being used to produce amphetamine. Officers from Merseyside Police and North Wales Police later discovered this factory on Deeside Lane in the city, which was "abruptly closed down" when its operators realised they were under surveillance.
The gang continued to try to produce amphetamine, attempting to obtain a storage unit in an Aintree industrial site known as the Boxworks in order to store the large quantities of chemicals needed to make the drugs. Communications detailed arrangements for the supply of a total of 71 litres of amphetamine oil and between 780kg and 1,000kg of amphetamine sulphate paste.
The outfit supplied customers as far afield as Dundee, Glasgow, Neath and Newcastle. Anthony Saunderson, Paul Mount and Darren Owens were the OCG's top men - with the former having used handles named after Breaking Bad character Jesse Pinkman and Sopranos actor James Gandolfini.
Others sometimes worked for more than 10 hours a day to manufacture the drugs. Nine men were previously imprisoned in August in connection with the probe.
Forty-two-year-old Saunderson, from Formby, was jailed for 35 years and 38-year-old Mount, of Halsall, received 34 years. Owens, aged 48 and from Huyton, was handed two 24 years.
Thirty-two-year-old Kieran Hartley, of Knotty Ash, was given 23 years, 42-year-old Steffon Beeby - from Halifax, West Yorkshire - was jailed for 15-and-a-half years and 33-year-old Lee Eccles, of Maghull, was locked up for eight years and nine months. Stephen Shearwood, 38 and also from Maghull, was jailed for 14 years and four months.
Forty-four-year-old David Kelly, of Ormskirk, was handed 15 years and three months. And 35-year-old Michael Pope, of Maghull, was given 17-and-a-half years.
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