Drug cops catch up with ‘bonus’ dealer after EncroChat is cracked
ADRUG dealer was rumbled when specialist detectives stumbled across his details in EncroChat messages with a key member of a dealing conspiracy from Widnes.
The capture of Anthony Lenehan was a bonus for the undercover team set up to target a gang that moved almost £500,000 of amphetamine.
Nicknamed JetHawk, Lenehan exchanged messages with Ricardo Hughes - one of the key figures in the group.
Hughes and his associates were on the radar of the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit in early 2020, months before the landmark EncroChat hack that prised open the private chats of some of the European underworld’s biggest figures.
The Widnes dealer was made the subject of undercover surveillance mission Operation Magma in February of last year.
The NWROCU said the investigation revealed what proved to be a “large-scale drug dealing business with connections around the UK”.
The big breakthrough came when a team of French and Dutch investigators cracked encrypted communications platform EncroChat the following April. Hughes was identified as the user “NovaCoast” and, along with Christopher Dooley, aka “OctoOx”, and David Hunter, was exposed as a key player in the supply of both Class A cocaine and Class B amphetamine across the UK.
Hunter was also conspiring with others to supply ketamine, another Class B controlled drug.
The gang bought and sold more than 49kg of amphetamine, worth up to £490,000, between February 2020 and March 2021.
Photos of the drug, nicknamed Billy Whizz, showed quantities ready for supply in blocks packaged up with images of the fictional Beano character of the same name.
Back in July, Hughes, 53, of Rock Lane, Widnes, who organised the handover of drugs between third parties and the gang, was jailed for 10 and a half years for conspiring to supply Class A and B drugs.
Hunter, 48, of Larch Close, Billinge, who was thought to play a leading role in the crime group, was sentenced to nine years and seven months for conspiring to supply Class A and B drugs.
Dooley, 35, of no fixed address but from St Helens, said to be a “trusted lieutenant”, was jailed for nine years for conspiring to supply Class A and B drugs.
A fourth man, “trusted courier” Stephen Piert, 27, of Harlow Close, St Helens, who moved amphetamine for the gang, was jailed for two years and seven months for conspiring to supply Class B drugs.
It was the conversations involving Hughes that yielded a bonus prosecution for the detectives leading the case.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how he exchanged messages with Lenehan, of Scarisbrick Road in Walton.
The 57-year-old, operating as “JetHawk”, was involved in conversations about the supply of cocaine across the UK with Hughes.
Simon Parry, prosecuting, said when attention was turned to Lenehan messages were discovered that suggested he was involved in “supplying cocaine at a regional level” and that: “He said he successfully imported 100kgs into Hamburg.”
He worked with others to order the massive haul, 8kgs of which was his.
Further messages stated he was handed 2kgs of cocaine as part-payment for a debt in April of last year and they also revealed discussions to sell kilograms of the Class A drug for £37,000 and £39,000.
Lenehan, who lived in Dubai until recently, appeared to be chasing debts owed by people in India and Iran and revealed how he was holding onto the vehicle of another dealer who owed him £155,000.
One of the topics of conversation that helped detectives to identify him was an HMRC investigation that saw him arrested over allegations linked to cigarette importation.
As part of the HMRC probe, Lenehan had his passport confiscated.
In response, he applied for a new one - claiming his old one had been lost.
Mr Parry said the application represented a “deliberate attempt to gain a new passport knowing his old one hadn’t been lost”.
Lenehan admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine and making a false statement to gain a passport.
In a basis of plea in relation to the drug allegation, he accepted selling 5kgs of cocaine and having been involved in efforts to source 8kgs of the drug as part of a bigger importation.
Ian Whitehurst, defending, said his client was remorseful and had been living in Dubai but returned to Merseyside to support his mum.
Mr Whitehurst explained: “He is a man who was living away from his partner, trying to support his elderly mother, and ran into financial difficulty and got himself involved in activity of this nature.”
The barrister described the passport offence as being the result of his client’s “impatience and stupidity”.
Judge Brian Cummings, QC, sentenced Lenehan to eight years and four months for the cocaine offence and an additional six months for the passport crime, making a total tariff of eight years and 10 months.