‘Festive Ape’ cocaine crook jailed
A COCAINE dealer who worked with an organised crime gang which laundered £9 million in dirty money in just three months has been locked up for almost a decade.
Nathan Powell, 31, was unmasked as the man operating the EncroChat handle ‘Festive Ape’ when law enforcement were able to hack in to the previously untraceable messaging network.
He was linked to drugs boss Leon Atkinson, a friend of cop killer Dale Cregan who was found to have prison letters from the murderer when police raided his home. Powell, from Openshaw, and another man, 37-year-old Adam Marsden, acted as ‘distributors’ below ‘regional’ cocaine supplier Atkinson.
Atkinson, 44, was linked to at least 28 kilos of cocaine. Marsden was linked to 12 kilos and Powell to 13 kilos.
In interview with police, Powell denied being responsible for the ‘Festive Ape’ handle. “My name’s Nathan Powell, not Festive Ape,” he said. Powell has now been sentenced after the other four men were jailed earlier this week.
“He realises he has got himself into very deep and very hot water,” his barrister Keith Harrison said. “This is not the way he wants to manage his life.”
Mr Harrison said Powell suffered serious injuries during an accident and started using drink and drugs to cope
with the pain, before starting dealing drugs himself. “That is how he came to succumb to temptation in helping out a so-called friend supply drugs,” he said.
Powell was later given an EncroChat phone, Mr Harrison added. “The rest is sad history.” More than a dozen of his family and friends attended the sentencing hearing. “That should tell you how badly you have let down the people who are closest to you,” Judge Nicholas Dean QC said. Powell’s partner told of their ‘nightmare’ after he was arrested following the EncroChat discoveries.
Powell was jailed for nine years and eight months. Marsden previously received the same sentence, while Atkinson was sentenced to 15 years.
Abdul Ghafar was locked up for eight years and eight months, while Romiz Ahmed received six years. Atkinson, of Brindley Close, Atherton, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs. Ghafar, of Halifax Road, Nelson; Marsden, of Taunton Avenue, Rochdale; Powell, of Cheney Close, Openshaw; admitted one count of conspiracy to supply class A drugs. All four men admitted conspiracy to transfer criminal property. Ahmed, of Rossall Road, Rochdale, was found guilty after trial of being concerned in an arrangement which facilitated the acquisition, retention, use of control of criminal property by others.