Cocaine’s boss plans to shoot and cut down his rivals while he and his debt-ridden brother get involved in a brutal war in the underworld.
Alan and John Tobin are supplying hundreds of pounds of drugs to well-known gangs in the United Kingdom. But their drug empire in Liverpool collapsed after police seized a van carrying £ 20 million worth of cocaine on an M6.
The loss of 90% of the net shipment led to the shooting of John for debts to a mysterious accountant. ECHO can now reveal how reports on EncroChat show that his older brother Alan has also been left to feel the pressure.
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Desperate drug lord Alan helped devise a brutal plot between a father and son being shot dead on their doorstep by armed men disguised as pizza drivers. And he conspired with an alleged gangster boss to get another enemy “cut” in jail.
For the first time, ECHO may publish secret conversations that reveal how Alan Tobin went from dreaming of winning millions to getting into a conflict involving some of the biggest gangster figures in the Northwest.
The drug empire of CapeRocket and SlightDrake
Tobin brothers Alan Tobin, 52, (left) and John Tobin, 40, (right)
Alan and John Tobin ran a “complex, highly profitable and well-organized business” nationwide. But the duo did not run a legitimate company – they supplied huge quantities of cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis to gangs in England, Wales and Scotland.
Allen’s older brother, 52, has risen from humble beginnings as a forklift driver, Liverpool fruit market worker and Royal Mail sorting office employee to become a respected low-level mental health nurse. the protected ward of Rathbone Mental Health Hospital.
Living in a wealthy Regency Park mansion in Widnes, the father of five marries beautician Helen Hartley, 35, also known as Eli Tobin, on Lake Garda in Italy, followed by a two-week £ 10,000 honeymoon.
The veneer of respect provided by his public service hid his second life as a drug dealer at EncroChat CapeRocket, working in tandem with his younger brother John, 41, also known as SlightDrake.
For more than four years, between 2016 and 2020, Tobins recruited couriers using specially adapted vehicles with secret “hidden” compartments to transport their drugs across the UK.
Among their infamous clients were two Warrington companies – Anthony and Leon Cullen’s heavily armed gang and a group led by Jamie Oldroyd – plus a Liverpool team led by Lee Stoba.
Fighter in the “Bear” cage
Former MMA fighter Rob Broton has worked as a “performer” for a drug empire
Mixing in such circles, the Tobins needed a serious “muscle.” They had it in the form of former UFC player Robbie “Bear” Broughton of St. Helens, who imposed unpaid debts and collected payments on their behalf.
6 feet 2 inches, the 18th Brewer used an EncroChat encrypted phone with a NovaBear handle. He was a close associate of the Tobin family, but also maintained regular telephone contact with the Cullen brothers and offered to move money to other gangs, charging a 7.5% commission.
Brautton, 38, of Breccia Gardens, did not oversee drugs, but prosecutors say he transferred 30 million pounds in cash. This figure shows the huge profits from illicit trade.
Much of the money ended up at Canary Wharf in London, where it was released through various front companies and “professionally laundered”. The Tobin brothers reaped the benefits of enjoying a “lavish lifestyle.”
Up to £ 150,000 of dirty money was deposited in the bank account of Alan’s wife, Hartley. Meanwhile, John amassed an expensive collection of watches and jewelry at his Manor Road home, Prescot.
The lucrative business dealt a fatal blow
Police seize £ 20 million of cocaine from a van stopped on M6 (Image: PA)
Allen and John’s drug racket began to unravel after they instructed a man named Jamie Simpson to transport a £ 20 million cocaine stash for them from Kent to Warrington. Detectives made the largest land cocaine seizure in the UK when they spotted Simpson driving the van.
The attack, carried out in the early evening of August 2, 2018, found 186 kg of cocaine. The illegal cargo was hidden under planks on the floor and in a specially adapted “hide”.
Amazing footage from a police helicopter shows the moment when officers stopped the blue M6 van near Knutsford. This was a fatal blow to the profitable business of the brothers.
John’s DNA was later found on the foil of one of the drug blocks in the van. Studies will reveal that less than a week earlier, on July 28, he traveled from Kent to Brussels via Eurostar, where he watched the blocks being placed in boxes during the packaging process.
All of these details will emerge as part of an ongoing investigation by detectives. But after the confiscation, the Tobin family had much bigger problems than the police.
Debt to the Banker
Jamie Simpson, 31, from Delary Drive, Padgate, Warrington (Image: Liverpool Echo)
The dire consequences of the colossal victory for police when Jamie Simpson was arrested were revealed when the Tobin family were convicted of their drug conspiracies in April last year. The Liverpool Royal Court heard by March 2020 that the brothers were struggling with “big debts” that Nicola Daly, a persecutor, said could “not be a surprise”, given that they had lost 186kg drugs’.
She said: “In particular, John Tobin has been under some pressure to pay other people, perhaps because of salaries he has not been able to pay for other jobs. He was pressured to sell his personal belongings to pay these sums.
The EncroChat hack revealed that John often sends instructions through Allen to Broughton to contact someone known only as the Banker. Court documents state that the debt collector Broughton sometimes passed messages from the Banker back to the Tobin family.
Ms Daly told the court that the Banker was believed to be a woman who had acted as an accountant in the underground drug trade. Evidence shows that John owes the Banker a “significant sum” and the MMA star is “committed to trying to raise that money and make contact with John Tobin.”
Shots
Police at the scene of the shooting at Brook Road mansion in Prescott
To pay off his debt to The Banker, John was offered to sell some of his watches or jewelry. But he said police had already captured them when his home was searched after he was shot.
ECHO reported that on the evening of February 6, 2020, a 39-year-old man appeared in hospital with a gunshot wound after being referred to a new residential complex. Neighbors heard a series of gunshots in the area around Manor Road – the alleged scene of a shooting at the Brook Road mansion in Prescott – around 20.30.
The victim of this shooting was John. His lawyer, Jason Smith, revealed that the family man was shot as part of a series of threats and intimidation by drug traffickers.
Mr Smith said: “John Tobin was shot and there were a number of threats against him and a number of forced demands for money from him. He added: “There were others above them in the chain who not only influenced them, but intimidated and attacked them.”
“So far we have been millionaires”
The drug shipment hidden in the Tobin brothers’ van, which was stopped on an M6
By April 2020, the Tobini family had been forced to become much more involved in their drug conspiracies. This was largely due to the problems they experienced after the mega-extraction of the M6 and the prison sentences that flowed for associates in Warrington.
EncroChat data recovered from hacking by French and Dutch authorities led to a “cold check” by Cheshire police of old evidence, including Tobini and past sightings of him with the man driving the van, Simpson and gang leaders Aldroid and Anthony Cullen. all of whom were in prison. Prosecutors said the Tobins “sold to one group and when that group was removed, they began selling to the group that followed.”
The texts show that the brothers delivered kilograms of cocaine, “tops”, kilograms of heroin, “bots”, plus “keti”, ketamine and “smoke and greens”, cannabis. On April 2 and 3, the two discussed deliveries to Darlington and Sheffield, but their fate changed due to the loss of money and contacts.
Ms Daly said: “There was a reference to the ‘connections’ they had before, and the word they used was ‘native parts’, which seems to refer to those captured by the authorities who destroyed those connections. Referring to this, there was a comment without this intervention, “we are already millionaires.”
An innocent man shot by a fake pizza delivery driver
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At around 9pm on Friday 24 April 2020, a man named David Barnes was shot dead at his home in Warrington. A bullet struck him in the lower right leg.
He was not the target of a fake home driver who knocked on his front door and shouted “pizza delivery.” Mr. Barnes was shot because he had the misfortune to open the door to a gunman looking for his stepson, heroin dealer Liam Byrne Jr.
The man who pulled the trigger was Everton’s squadron Aaron Braderton. But the serving soldier did not work alone; he was part of a ruthless conspiracy that could be traced back to the desperate Tobin brothers.
This week, the verdict of one of the conspirators, Norris Green, “corrector” Lewis Fitzpatrick, heard that the attack was “part of a dispute over who controls the drug movement in the Warrington area”.
Phil Barnes, a prosecutor, said Byrne Jr. “stood up” against those responsible and so “he was fair play as a target.” But who had ordered the strike?
“Give me the details, let me fix these muppets”
Aaron Braderton, 24, of Netherfield Road South in Everton, has been convicted of …
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