Drug lords ‘foot the bill’ for illegal raves
COUNCILLOR SAYS CRIMINALS PAID FOR MASS GATHERINGS
GANGSTERS are bankrolling DJs to mount a summer of illegal raves so they can make money from selling class A drugs, it has been claimed.
Senior police officials believe organised criminals – looking for new markets since the closure of Manchester’s clubland during lockdown – have been taking advantage of the 39 illegal raves and gatherings that have taken place in the last fortnight.
But now a senior councillor has gone further and said organised criminals are paying for DJs and sound equipment to enable raves to take place and replace the drugs trade they have lost since lockdown.
Police say they have stopped at least 13 raves – sometimes referred to as ‘block parties’ – the weekend before last although more events are being planned, including one at Boggart Hole Clough park in north Manchester on Saturday.
Coun Pat Karney, city centre spokesman for the council, said: “The police have done an excellent job. They have apprehended some of the people but there are still more people who need arresting.”
He added: “The drugs trade, because the nightclubs are closed and will be for a long time, they are planning a summer of these block parties across the city so that they can ply their trade selling drugs to young people. It’s organised crime because of the money that it takes to put on these event in terms of speakers, DJs and generators. These block parties don’t come cheap.”
Three people were stabbed and one young woman was raped at a lockdown rave at Carrington on June 13, an event attended by up to 2,000 and described as ‘wild’ by senior police. Some 4,000 people attended a ‘quarantine rave’ in a field near Daisy Nook Country Park, Failsworth, on the same night - one man died of a suspected drugs overdose.
The following week about 200 people attended another lockdown event in a car park off Caythorpe Street in Moss Side which ended with two people being shot dead. Cheriff Tall, 21, and Abayomi Ajose, 36, were both shot in the head from close range.
Police, who have been criticised for allowing the Moss Side event to continue, intervened in another large gathering in a cul-desac in Longsight on Thursday night.
This is not an event like Parklife. Nobody is going to look after you if you have an accident Coun Hannah Reid