GANGS LEFT REELING IN CRACKDOWN
56 ARRESTS, 13 VILLAINS SENT BACK TO PRISON AND TWO JAILED – AND NO SHOOTINGS FOR A MONTH
POLICE have made 56 arrests, put 15 crooks in jail and seized a terrifying array of weapons during a crackdown on organised crime.
Operation Naseby has taken advantage of the coronavirus lockdown to strike on the streets of Salford.
Officers hope their new tactics could be a game-changer in dismantling and taming armed gangs.
The crackdown began after a dog was shot. Three masked men knocked on the door of a house in Pendleton – when the owner answered, one fired a gun into the premises and a Patterdale terrier was hit by gunshot shrapnel, but survived.
Just over a month later, in April, in what is believed to be an escalation of the same dispute, two men were shot in the Kersal district of the city, escaping without life-threatening injury.
Within a few days, Detective Chief Inspector Rick Thompson, previously part of the GMP gangbusting team Xcalibre, which tackled gangs in south Manchester, was tasked with setting up a team to get a grip on Salford’s gangland.
He told the M.E.N.: “We want to increase public confidence in the police and increase intelligence.
“Despite Covid-19 we are out there and in some ways it (the virus) has increased our opportunities – most people are abiding by the lockdown, but some, criminals, have continued to operate.”
“Stopping people on the roads to inquire why they are out and about has proved fruitful in terms of making new links between suspects.
“We have logged 100 items of intelligence since starting the operation,” DCI Thompson said.
“We are able to put people with other people in terms of associations.
“We are putting people in and using certain vehicles, seizing vehicles and mobile phones – which in turn leads to other suspects.”
In the last 12 months there has been a 30 per cent rise in the number of shootings in Greater Manchester and a third, about 30, were in Salford. There were also several others outside the city – but linked to its gangs, including a spate in Wigan.
Now, methods which worked in Moss Side more than a decade ago – to reduce shootings between the Gooch and Doddington gangs – are being used again. “We had something called Operation Cougar in south Manchester and we are using similar tactics in Salford,” said DCI Thompson.
Cougar involved high-visibility policing on the streets, hounding known gang members and working to prevent the next generation joining gangs.
By April 10, DCI Thompson had pulled together a ‘disruption hub’ operating under the umbrella of Operation Naseby – an existing investigation into Salford-based organised crime gangs.
Uniformed and undercover police have gone after pre-determined target criminals in strikes on cars and homes and got on the streets to gather intelligence.
In four weeks the impact has been immediate, as criminals fall foul of the increased police attention, even if they have no links to the feud that sparked it.
Police have made a total of 56 arrests – resulting in 13 people being recalled to prison, including the two men who were shot. Two people have also been jailed. One of the jailed men is convicted killer Bradley Walsh, 38, of Goodiers Drive, Salford, who got 20 weeks for the dangerous driving of an off-road motorbike. Craig Thompson, 29, of Asgard Drive, Salford, was jailed for 22 weeks for dangerous driving and breaching lockdown restrictions after driving an off-road bike with no brakes into a police vehicle while breaking
the coronavirus
lockdown. Others face charges for drugs and driving offences. One man recalled is considered at ‘high risk’ of perpetrating domestic violence. Another had only been out of jail for three hours when he breached the terms of his licence and was sent back behind bars.
The crackdown has also resulted in 37 stolen or uninsured cars recovered – including a high-value stolen Audi RS3.
A total of 104 new intelligence logs on organised crime gangs have been created and 27 vehicles added to the Automatic Number Plate Recognition hotlist – cars suspected of being used in crime.
Twenty-six homes have been searched, resulting in the seizure of a cannabis farm; 12 9mm bullets; six .22m bullets; two loaded crossbows; an axe; a large hunting knife; a Taser and two machetes and £30,000 in cash, plus multiple luxury items like Rolex watches and designer clothes seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Meanwhile, six phones have been seized in relation to inquiries into drugs supply and cocaine and six kilos of cannabis have been recovered from various addresses.
Since the start of the crackdown there have been no firearms incidents in the city.
DCI Thompson wants the use of the disruption hub to become permanent.
“If we can build something that continues I would like to think we can look back at this as a key point,” he said.
“It is about changing culture. It will be a long process. But we can take out the top level that are heavily entrenched in organised crime by enforcement and ultimately custodial sentences. There is a middle level that we can help divert into a different lifestyle. Then there is the lowest level – younger ones that we need to stop getting involved.”
Operation Naseby was set up last year after a spike in shootings, arson and grenade attacks in Salford and neighbouring Wigan. A complex network of organised crime gangs within the city and warring factions within different groups are behind the rise in shootings.
The long-running, and murderous, spat between Salford’s A Team crime group and rivals, the Antis, is just one source of the violence. There are other groups and ‘freelance’ criminals with no allegiance who will do anything for the right price.