Gangs in Liverpool

In the 1950s and 1960s, organised crime in Liverpool still centred on more traditional forms of crime, such as armed-robbery. Crime was controlled by local families who started to gain reputations in the city. One notorious figure from this era was armed robber Charlie Seiga, who was the leader of one of the city's first 'safe blowing' gangs. Liverpool was steeped in poverty during this era. Many local men were motivated by getting out of poverty and making quick money, so turned to robbery. Now in his late 70s, Seiga said he is "revolted" by the violence which came to tear through the city due to the influx of drugs, and advised for young people not to go down the same path he did. Seiga was quoted as saying “In the 50s and 60s there was still a code amongst criminals, which meant you respected women, children and pensioners. But that is now long gone. In my view drug dealers have destroyed families across Liverpool and I want no part of that”. He turned his back on his life of crime and is now a successful author.[2]

In 1969, career criminal Tommy "Tacker" Comerford was part of a gang of robbers from the north of Liverpool who spent a bank holiday weekend tunneling into a branch of the District Bank on Water Street in Liverpool city centre, using a thermal lance to open the safe and stealing over £140,000 in cash and £20,000 in property.[3] After his release from prison several years later, Comerford abandoned robbery and became involved in the drug trade. In the late 1970s, he formed the "Liverpool Mafia", a group of white criminals who became Britains first drug cartel. He was seen as a pioneer, as one of the first Liverpudlians to become involved in international drug trafficking. [4]

In the early 1980s Liverpool was tagged by the media as 'Smack City' or 'Skag City' after it experienced an explosion in organised gang crime and heroin abuse, especially within the city's more deprived areas.[5][6] At the same time several criminal gangs began developing into drug dealing cartels in the city, including the Liverpool Mafia, which was the first such cartel to develop in the UK. As drugs became increasingly valuable, large distribution networks were developed with cocaine producers in South America, including the Cali cartel.[7] Over time, several Liverpool gangsters became increasingly wealthy, including Colin 'Smigger' Smith, who had an estimated fortune of £200m[8] Christopher 'little Ghost' Warren and Curtis 'Cocky' Warren, whose estimated wealth once saw him listed on the Sunday Times Rich List.[9]

During the 1990s, Curtis Warren became one of the biggest drug lords in the UK and Europe. He was once listed as Interpols ‘Target Number One’. Forging direct links with the Cali Cartel, him and his gang flooded Europe with drugs. Warren left Liverpool after a spate of killings during a local gang war, and headed for the Netherlands. He continued running his empire from Holland but was eventually taken down by a dual effort by British and Dutch police. In 1998, Warren had made his only appearance in The Sunday Times Rich List, which stated as a property developer. Warren has spent the majority of the last twenty five years in prison. He was released in November 2022 after serving fourteen years in a maximum security prison. [10]

In 2007, Colin 'Smigger' Smith, one of Liverpool’s ‘Cocaine King’s’, with an estimated personal fortune of £200m, was executed at close range with a pump-action shotgun. The hit was reported by police to be the first sanctioned assassination by a Colombian cartel on UK soil. Smith’s killing threatened a ferocious war between Britain's original drug syndicate, the so-called Liverpool mafia, and the largest Colombian cocaine suppliers to Europe, the Cali cartel. Merseyside's crime gangs believed Colombian cartels ordered the hit on Smith over a missing consignment of the Class A narcotic worth £72m. Merseyside police reported at least one meeting in which the heads of Liverpool's cocaine trade met and agreed to avenge the death of Smith, a high-stakes player whose 1,000kg deals sometimes affected the price of cocaine throughout Britain. Police throughout Europe were concerned that any attempt by Liverpool's gangs to target the Cali cartel's sophisticated cocaine distribution network would produce a spate of killings. Sources in Amsterdam, where Liverpudlians and Colombians operate together to disseminate cocaine across the continent, claimed that Liverpudlian expat dealers in Amsterdam, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Turkey and South America, allied to the Merseyside mafia, had been warned to prepare for a 'mafia-style bloodbath'. Liverpool dealers retaliated by shooting one senior Colombian cocaine emissary in Amsterdam. [7]

A report in the Observer newspaper written by journalist Peter Beaumont entitled Gangsters put Liverpool top of gun league (28 May 1995), noted that turf wars had erupted within Liverpool. The high levels of violence in the city came to a head in 1996 when, following the shooting of gangster David Ungi, six shootings occurred in seven days, prompting Merseyside Police to become one of the first police forces in the country to openly carry weapons in the fight against gun crime.[11] Official Home Office statistics revealed a total of 3,387 offences involving firearms had occurred in the Merseyside region during a four-year period between 1997 and 2001.[12] It was revealed that Liverpool was the main centre for organised crime in the North of England.[13] In 1999, a prominent "turf war killing" occurred when Warren Selkirk was shot five times and a bag of dog excrement placed in his hand, while his children waited in a nearby car: Glaswegian Ian McAteer was convicted of the murder in 2001.[14][15]

Organised crime and drug trafficking in the city is now believed to be largely controlled by a secretive cartel known as the “Huyton Firm” or “Cantril Farm Cartel”, run by two brothers from the Huyton area of Liverpool. They are internationally active and reported to be in the same circles as Europe's significant criminal factions from Ireland, Russia and North Africa. A senior Merseyside Police detective said that the brothers operated on a different level to mainstream Merseyside criminals. In 2002 a young man from Liverpool city centre went to work for the gang in southern Spain. Later that same year, his remains washed up on a gravel beach near Benalmadena. He had been tortured, suffocated and had his lower legs amputated. The man is said to have fallen foul of enforcers who worked for the Cantril Farm cartel. In 2010 the cartel became locked in a major fallout with a powerful drug gang rooted in Speke. In particular they were in dispute with a notorious member of the gang who was known as the ‘Bird of prey’. The brothers were said to have flew a team of criminals over to Amsterdam to shoot their enemy. However, UK police sent over intelligence to their Dutch counterparts which led to a raid by elite police. A group of Merseyside men were arrested and police also found an arsenal of weapons. The haul included battlefield weapons including assault rifles with silencers. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) said that the crew had been sent to Amsterdam to assassinate a rival and that the feud was linked to a 'string of murders'. Some of the men were found to have false passports, although police soon established their real identity. One man, said to be the leader of the gang, was jailed. It was reported the hit team was sent to assassinate a former Liverpool boxer who was a leading member of the Speke firm.[16]