Handshake brings truce in deadly gangs feud
‘SECRET MEETING IN MIDDLE EAST TO END SALFORD VIOLENCE’
THE gangster believed to have ordered the assassination of Salford ‘Mr Big’ Paul Massey has shaken hands with one of his rivals following ‘peace talks’ in Dubai, it is believed.
He fled to Spain after Mr Massey, 55, was shot five times with a sub-machine gun outside his home in Clifton almost two years ago.
The murder was the culmination of a year-long feud between a Salford gang known as The A Team and a splinter faction.
The A Team sent a hit squad to Spain but the leader of the rival gang fled the country – it is believed – to the Far East.
He is said to have made a few previous unsuccessful attempts to make peace before finally meeting a key member of The A Team – who had survived a previous shooting – in Dubai in April.
Gangland sources have said the pair shook hands and agreed to set aside past differences.
But the ‘peace deal’ brokered through a contact in Cheetham Hill is said to have infuriated other members of The A Team, who had been kept in the dark.
Their violent feud started in July 2014 over the purchase of a Breitling watch which turned out to be counterfeit, a source familiar with both gangs has told the M.E.N.
The row escalated when a woman threw a drink over a key member of The A Team and then turned violent at the Just Around The Corner Cafe in Doveleys Road in Irlams O’ Th’ Height on July 21, 2014.
Rival gang members were involved in a brawl and guns are said to have been drawn.
Police were called and found one man with injuries but he refused to give a statement. Suspects were arrested and interviewed but no prosecution followed.
Six months later members of The A Team are suspected of using a machine saw to remove the roof of a VW Golf outside an address on Salford’s Duchy estate linked to the leader of the rival gang.
Then a gunfight broke out in Irlams O’ Th’ Height on February 18, 2015, when two members of The A Team were shot.
Their rivals had used a tracking device – which police found under their car – to locate them.
One of the shooting victims turned up in hospital two hours later and tried to dismiss shotgun injuries to his right arm as a ‘DIY drilling accident.’
The following month a member of The A Team, the one who had the drink thrown over him, nearly died when his jugular was cut in a machete attack.
Again a tracking device was attached to a VW Scirocco found on the street where the seriously-injured man was discovered.
A week later, a grenade was thrown at another address on the Duchy estate linked to The A Team, but within hours the gang appears to have responded when one of their rivals was shot three times as he went to collect a car from a car wash in Ashton-in-Makerfield.
Police believe a Heckler and Koch P7 self-loading pistol – which had been forensically linked to seven other attempted murders in Merseyside – had been used by the gunman.
Mr Massey, who was held in high regard by members of The A Team, was shot five times with a sub-machine gun outside his home in Clifton at 7.28pm on Sunday, July 26. One of the bullets pierced his heart.
He had been branded Salford’s ‘Mr Big’ during a council meeting in 1992, was jailed for 14 years for stabbing a man in the groin in 1999 and stood for mayor of Salford in 2012.
The feud continued with violence at Mr Massey’s funeral and on October 12, 2015, when seven-year-old Christian Hickey was shot at the door of his home in Winton.
His mother had answered the door and when she tried to slam it shut shots were fired.
One bullet went through her and hit her son. Both survived.
Police believe members of The A Team carried out the attack.
Spanish police, assisted by detectives from GMP, arrested six people – three of them suspected A Team members – during a swoop in Marbella on February 16, 2016. They found a loaded gun and a weighted vest, which could have been used to sink a body. The suspects were released on bail and remain at large in Spain.
As yet there are no reports of major clashes between the A team and other gangs since the handshake but gangland sources say tensions remain high in the area and they believe it is unlikely the factions will be able to set their differences aside in the long-term.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police declined to comment.