The Merseyside gang used teenagers on the streets of Exeter to sell drugs to the area’s most vulnerable
The Merseyside gang used teenagers on the streets of Exeter to sell drugs to the area’s most vulnerable
A successful county lines drug gang tried to disguise their Merseyside roots by masquerading as being from Manchester. The well-organised drug gang, which operated under the name “Manc Joey”, ran hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of heroin and crack cocaine to Exeter in the early months of 2020.
The gang was led by Connor Wilbraham whose operation profited off the misery of drugs. Police investigators, who smashed the group as a result of the penetration of the EncroChat phone network, believed the gang adopted the Manc name to help avoid being traced back to Merseyside.
However, the gang unravelled when police made a number of arrests before cleaning up the final members when officers gained access to the encrypted messaging platform and were able to read messages. The hack, known nationally as Operation Venetic, gave detectives access to the messages sent by drug dealers and gangsters.
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Detectives were also able to track down their quarry and spot their dealers during lockdown as their illegal activity became more visible while the streets were quieter. Seven members of the gang, including two teenage delivery boys later determined to be modern day slaves, were arrested and jailed, before Anthony Kamara – second in command to Wilbraham – followed when the EncroChat network fell.
Wilbraham was just a teenager when he started as a drug dealer, initially working at the bottom of the dealing ladder as a runner for a Scouse gang, before masterminding his own operation two years later. He organised a network of dealers while on the run from police after jumping bail in Wales in 2018 – and remained at large throughout the time he ran the Manc Joey gang.
Wilbraham, formerly of Bidston Green Drive in Birkenhead, and Kamara organised a network of street dealers in Exeter and recruited older men with no background in drugs to act as drivers to take a series of dealers from Wirral to Exeter between February and July 2020. The dealers were young friends from Merseyside who stayed in hotels or Airbnb addresses in Exeter while using teenage boys or local addicts to deliver drugs which were ordered by phone.
Police used phone records and number plate recognition technology to trace 21 different trips, including several in which Wilbraham or Kamara travelled to Devon to supervise operations. In one message, Kamara, known as AK, was said to be bagging up drugs in Liverpool for dispatch down to Devon.
Up to 1,543 ready-wrapped street deals, each worth £10 to £20, were taken on each trip and dealers and couriers boasted of earning £1,000 to £2,000 per journey. The ECHO previously reported how police seized £6,500 in cash on one return trip alone.
Police arrested dealers selling drugs openly in the Hoopern Valley in Exeter just three days after the start of lockdown. Others were intercepted in cars heading south on the M5 near Cullompton on May 19 and July 14. Two boys aged 16 and 17 were used to deliver drugs on some of the trips and both were later deemed to be modern slaves.
Seven members of the group were sentenced in 2020 at Exeter Crown Court. Five members of the gang were jailed for a total of more than 15 years at Exeter Crown Court. These were Jordan Kaye, formerly of Gilroy Road, West Kirkby – three years, four months; Joseph Westbury, formerly of Benedict Close, Upton – two years, six months, Ian Cramp, formerly of Kirkfield Grove, Birkenhead – two years, six months, Alan Hughes, from Merseyside – four years and one month; John Kirk, from Merseyside – three years.
Wilbraham was also handed a seven-and-a-half year sentence after he admitted conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine in Exeter in 2020 and possession with intent to supply in Rhyl in 2018. His barrister told the court his client had been acting under pressure because of a debt he owed from his initial arrest in 2018.
A judge told him: “It is clear from the phone evidence that you occupied a significant, if not pivotal role. This was a relatively long lasting conspiracy and it is clear from the messages that you were receiving money from it.”
The same judge told the other gang members: “You targeted a completely different area from that where you live in order to exploit it and deal in class A drugs, with all the appalling issues and impact that brings. It was a pretty despicable act.”
Woodchurch-born Lewis Rees, who turned 18 following his arrest, received a suspended sentence after it was deemed he was a modern slave. Charges were dropped against another boy a year younger than him after he received a similar adjudication.
Kamara was the last member of the crime group locked up when he was jailed for six years in February 2021. He was said to have “played a highly significant and active part in bringing drugs down and taking money back and running the phones”.
In June of the same year he was back before the courts when he poured boiling water over the face of a sleeping murder suspect. Kamara waited for his cellmate to fall asleep before he boiled a kettle at around 2am and poured it over his head and chest, causing serious burns to 15 per cent of his body.
He later said he carried out the attack on his cell mate because he was angry about the murder of an elderly person which his cellmate was alleged to have committed and his attitude to the news report about the incident. Kamara, formerly of Ritson Street in Toxteth, was sentenced to another 10 years in prison for the attack.
