LINES OF DUTY
Cocaine worth £20m found after TV-style swoop... on the M6!
POLICE seized a record £20million of cocaine – after swooping on drug traffickers in the middle of a busy motorway.
in scenes similar to TV’s line of Duty, a police helicopter filmed the officers using unmarked cars to tail and block in the van on the M6 – before pinning its occupants on the road in handcuffs.
it is the largest-ever amount of drugs seized on land by UK police.
The bust came as part of an investigation into an organised crime group who supplied vast amounts of class A drugs to gangs across Britain.
Now, the mastermind brothers behind the operation – and their exUFc cage fighting enforcer nicknamed ‘The Bear’ – have been jailed for their part in the conspiracy.
liverpool crown court heard that police had been watching one of their ‘customers’ – a criminal gang who were ferrying the class A haul from Rochester in Kent to Warrington in cheshire for the brothers – as part of an undercover operation. They intercepted the van as it travelled along the M6, near Knutsford, cheshire, in the early evening of August 2, 2018. in the footage, traffic is seen flying past officers on the opposite side of the carriageway as they make the dramatic stop.
Around 186kg of 90 per cent pure cocaine was discovered in a specially adapted hidden compartment under the wooden floor base of the blue Volkswagen vehicle.
later, the DNA of drugs boss, John Tobin, 40, who ran the operation with his older brother, Alan, 52, was found on bubble wrap covering one of the blocks of drugs.
The court heard John had travelled a week earlier on the eurostar from Kent to Brussels, where detectives suspect he arranged for the cocaine to enter the country.
The brothers also used wellknown cage-fighter Robbie ‘The Bear’ Broughton, 38, as their ‘enforcer’ to collect payments from gang leaders. The 6ft 2in, 18st heavyweight was described in court as the brothers’ ‘muscle’ and moved an estimated £30million of cash between 2016 and 2020.
Police eventually smashed the drug dealing ring after launching undercover operations on three of their crime boss customers.
The Tobin brothers were arrested and their homes raided in September last year.
Judge Garrett Byrne this week jailed Alan Tobin, of Widnes, for 20 years after he admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and ketamine. His brother, John, of Prescot, Merseyside, received 19 years and eight months after admitting the same offences. Broughton, of St Helens, was jailed for eight years and six months after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply drugs.
The occupants of the van – which included crime boss Jamie Simpson, 33, and three of his gang members – were jailed for a total of 35 years in 2019 for conspiracy to supply cocaine.