Sunday People

LINES OF INQUIRY Cops hunting cocaine kings seize drugs and cash

7yr fugitive is arrested

- By Dan Warburton

AN alleged cocaine trafficker on the run for seven years was behind bars last night after being arrested as he celebrated his 45th birthday.

Police acting for the National Crime Agency snared David Walley on Thursday at home in posh Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

He was on the NCA’S most wanted list after he allegedly trafficked cocaine and ecstasy tablets and also used a false passport.

Walley, below, who has a Manchester City FC tattoo on his arm, appeared at Manchester magistrate­s court yesterday and was remanded in custody.

His arrest means the NCA have caught a total of 104 wanted people during lockdown.

Suspected rapists, drug trafficker­s and robbers have been captured since March 23, also with internatio­nal arrests in Ireland, Sweden and Cambodia for

UK offences.

MILLIONS of pounds in cash have been seized from suspected cocaine gangs trying to operate in Britain in the lockdown.

Gangsters desperate to move their drugs during virus restrictio­ns have been hit hard by the National Crime Agency and UK Border Force..

Officers have seized 25 tons of Class A drugs including heroin and have stripped organised crime gangs of £15 million.

As well as seizures at ports the toll includes British-led busts in Spain and as far afield as Panama. The swoops have drive up the lockdown street price of cocaine to around £40 a gram.

But gangsters are hellbent on smuggling more because Britain is now the biggest user of cocaine in Europe with an illegal market worth £25million A DAY.

As we reveal the faces of some of Britain’s most wanted alleged drug lords, the National Crime Agency’s lead drug investigat­or Lawrence Gibbons told us: “A really significan­t proportion of the class A consignmen­ts we see coming into Europe – routed through Spain, Belgium or the Netherland­s mainly – is destined for the UK. Britain is the biggest user of powder cocaine in Europe. The cocaine market is worth more than £25.7million DAILY and between £9.4billion and £11.8 billion annually.

“Drugs-related deaths are increasing. Drugs and serious violence go hand in hand.

“Of all UK homicides around a third of victims and two-thirds of suspects are either known drug users or suppliers.” Some of the UK’S most wanted cocaine suspects include:

MICHAEL MOOGAN, 28, from Croxteth, Liverpool, who has been on the run since Dutch armed police raided a cafe in Rotterdam in 2013 used as a meeting point for some of the world’s biggest drug cartels.

Guns, a radio scanner, hundreds of thousands of euros, a cash-counting machine and dozens of phones were found.

DANIEL DUGIC, 38, from Serbia is wanted over an alleged plot to flood the UK with a quarter of a ton of cocaine.

His gang are claimed to have used a small UK vessel to meet a commercial container ship in

 ??  ?? DOSES: Lines of cocaine ready to be inhaled
DANGER: Gun and ammo found
SEIZED: Packets of cocaine
DOSES: Lines of cocaine ready to be inhaled DANGER: Gun and ammo found SEIZED: Packets of cocaine
 ??  ??

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