Key members of one of Merseyside's most notorious crime families are behind bars after admitting to running a multi-million pound drug smuggling and money-laundering racket.
For decades the Fitzgibbons of Allerton, south Liverpool, ruled the city with "fear and terror" as they flooded the streets with heroin and ecstasy, according to officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
The family became fixtures in the Merseyside media, which detailed their sometimes violent exploits, including feuds with Curtis Warren, a local gangster once on Interpol's most wanted list who is serving a 13-year jail term for conspiring to import drugs into Jersey. As one Soca investigator put it: "These are seasoned, tier one criminals at the top of their game."
"What we are talking about is a family who have held a very tight rein on areas of Liverpool for quite a number of years. They thought they were untouchable."
Now the family's matriarch Christine, 60, and two of her sons Jason, 40, and Ian, 39, are in prison after being caught boasting about their crimes on a hidden listening device planted in Christine's Allerton home.
On Friday they and two associates were jailed for up to 16 years for their role in a conspiracy to import 57kg of heroin into Britain via Turkey, as well as a plot involving 165,000 ecstasy tabs and a batch of pure MDMA powder. The heroin had a street value of almost £7m, said prosecutors at Manchester crown court. The ecstasy tablets were worth between £494,000 and £823,435.
On paper, Christine Fitzgibbon was an unemployed housewife who, with her husband William, collected £1,500 in benefits each month.
When police searched her house in Allerton, south Liverpool, they discovered she was far from hard-up: carrier bags containing £182,820 in cash were found hidden under the floorboards and in the central column of a dining room table. At Ian's home in nearby St Helen's, a further £34,530 was found.
In April Christine, who has seven grandchildren, pleaded guilty to money laundering and on Friday at Manchester crown court was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
The judge, Michael Henshell, rejected her claim to have become unwittingly embroiled in the plot, saying: "You are a significant figure in this case. You knew precisely what you were involved in. You knew precisely where the money was coming from and I am quite sure you enjoyed the lifestyle that came with it."
Soca claims she was the linchpin in what it refers to as "Fitzgibbon plc", schooling her sons in crime from a very early age. She was heavily involved in arrangements to conceal and move around the family's ill-gotten gains, acting as a banker and financial adviser to her criminal sons. Her husband William, known as Billy, also admitted money-laundering, but a judge ruled that the charge can lie on file.
Soca believes Jason and Ian were the leaders of this criminal enterprise, both deeply immersed in drug dealing and money laundering. They ran a lucrative international business, cultivating criminal contacts in the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey, but also in South America, including Colombia and Mexico.
They had developed numerous tactics for throwing detectives off their scent. They would conduct business meetings while jogging and, when travelling, would fail to turn up for pre-booked flights, taking different routes and paying in cash. They had also developed a criminal shorthand designed to be indecipherable to all but their fellow conspirators. "Little fellas" were ecstasy tablets; a "ticket man" was a courier, "a quid" was £1,000.
The family were caught after detectives seized the 57kg heroin consignment in Turkey and followed the trail back to Liverpool.
Ian pleaded guilty to conspiracies to supply heroin and MDMA as well as money-laundering and on Friday was sentenced to 14 years and six months. Jason, who since last August has been in jail after being convicted of the serious assault of a car dealer in Liverpool, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import heroin and money-laundering and was given a 16-year jail term.
No comments:
Post a Comment