Long Haired Luke 2 drug dealing gang member to pay back £190

Craig Williams was part of the Long Haired Luke 2 ring, 15 members of which were locked up for 62 years and one month at Liverpool Crown Court in March.

The 20-year-old was jailed for six years and eight months for his role in a conspiracy to supply crack cocaine and heroin.

He appeared back before Liverpool Crown Court last week for a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing, to learn how much of his ill-gotten gains he will have to repay.

Williams, of Liverpool Street in Salford, was told he must only pay a victim surcharge of £190 within three months or face an additional six months in prison.

The organised crime group was responsible for peddling between 1.7kg and 3.5kg of the class A drugs – illicit substances worth up to an estimated £356,000 – on the streets of Warrington over five months during 2021.

Based in Salford, the operation first emerged in February last year, but it quickly became the most lucrative heroin and crack cocaine dealing gang in the town.

Members took over address across the borough and used graft phones in order to send flare texts to users, alerting them to the availability of drugs.

One such message, circulated to 79 customers, read: “Long Haired Luke back on 24/7, all day and all night every day – the fattest and best stuff in Warrington.”

A total of 16,094 flare text messages were sent out by the OCG during the period of the conspiracy.

Gang safehouses were located on Longshaw Street in Bewsey, Gough Avenue in Longford, Pickmere Street in Sankey Bridges, Gregory Close and Cavendish Close in Old Hall and Cumberland Street and Kingsway South in Latchford.

Liverpool Crown Court

Long Haired Luke 2 was one of 11 county lines gangs brought down in summer last year when Cheshire Police raided 28 addresses across the north west following the covert investigation codenamed Operation Spartans.

The major investigation, the ‘largest county lines operation’ in Cheshire Police’s history convicted 44 dealers in gangs responsible for supplying more than £1million of the class A drugs in Warrington.

The 11 separate gangs oversaw the supply of up to 11kg of heroin and crack cocaine over the span of 11 months.

The total terms of imprisonment handed out in connection with Operation Spartans came to 209 years and five months.

Before sentencing Long haired Luke 2 gang members, recorder Andrew Menary said: "These offences were exposed by clever detective work by officers of Cheshire Police, who identified that all of you were actively involved in the operation of county lines drug trafficking.

“The operators of these particular conspiracies moved significant quantities of drugs from Manchester to Warrington, where they were dealt to drug users.

“It was plainly a very successful operation, trading 24 hours a day.

“This enterprise operated a network of seven safehouses in the Warrington area used as a base to direct operations and to store drugs and money.

“I've no doubt some of these were acquired as a result of cuckooing, where the homes of users were taken over by those running the operation.

“On any view, this was trading on a commercial scale. This was county lines trafficking which involves a degree of sophistication street dealing does not contain.

“Each of you has been part of a conspiracy, a wider course of criminal activity.”