Christopher Welsh Jr and his friends wore t-shirts emblazoned with “Pablo’s stag do” during their trip to Cancun
Christopher Welsh Jr and his friends wore t-shirts emblazoned with “Pablo’s stag do” during their trip to Cancun
A notorious trafficker who encouraged the nickname the “Scouse Escobar” ran a huge-scale drug operation with his dad before continuing his illicit activities behind bars. Christopher Welsh Jr ran an organised crime group (OCG) with his dad Welsh Sr, supplying cocaine and heroin worth tens of millions of pounds to Glasgow gangs.
Titan, the former North West organised crime unit, said the gang’s couriers made at least 111 trips as part of the massive cross-border operation. The drugs, which were estimated to have a street value of between £100m to £200m, allowed jobless Welsh Jr and his associates to live the good life.
He enjoyed a series of holidays across the world and even blew £57,000 in cash to fly pals out to Cancun for his no-expense-spared wedding. Clearly believing his business put him in the same category as narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar, who amassed an estimated net worth of $30bn, Welsh Jr and his friends wore t-shirts emblazoned with “Pablo’s stag do”.
However, the gang ran out of luck and were handed significant prison sentences in May 2013. But Welsh Jr didn’t stay out of trouble for long, and, returning to his old ways within just two months, was back trafficking heroin and cocaine. During the course of two separate conspiracies around £3m worth of drugs were moved from Merseyside to other regions.
Welsh Jr was handed more time in prison to run consecutively to his previous sentence. As part of a weekly series looking at Merseyside’s criminal history, the ECHO has taken a closer look at Welsh Jr’s various conspiracies and how he was caught on multiple occasions.
‘He obviously thought he was Pablo Escobar and untouchable’
When Welsh Jr, formerly of Lyndale Avenue in Eastham, and his dad, of Paley Close in Anfield, appeared before court in 2013, a top judge told them they had trafficked vast amounts of top-grade drugs “in pursuit of an extravagant life”. Welsh enjoyed regular holidays in Mexico, Spain, Holland, Greece and the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
Describing the drug lord’s holiday to Mexico in 2011, Titan Detective Superintendent Jason Hudson said: “It is almost drawing attention to himself. He obviously thought he was Pablo Escobar and untouchable. It was a lavish trip and they had the stag do when they were there at the same time.
“If you haven’t worked and you don’t have a job what sort of message does it send out when you can afford to pay for 40 of your friends and family to go on such a trip? The only way he could afford that trip was through high levels of drug dealing.” However, while the Welshs and right-hand-man Mark Shields reaped significant financial rewards, the vast majority of the 30-strong crime gang claimed benefits and were coerced into storing drugs or acting as couriers to settle debts.
The upper hierarchy controlled a network of “warehousemen” in Kirkdale, Walton and Everton while others were deployed up to Glasgow. Welsh Jr used at least 43 unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile phones to direct couriers and arrange meetings.
Police made a number of seizures over the space of a year – recovering 32kg of class A drugs and 105kg of mixing agent with a street value of just under £12m. However this was described as “the tip of the iceberg”.
The reality of the scale of the drug operation was the seizures barely made a dent. The gang made at least 111 trips, using both the road and rail networks, believed to have involved shipping up to two kilograms of drugs at a time, putting the potential street value up to £200m.
The gang avoided detection by dressing smartly and mingling with other passengers including commuters. One of the gang made 18 trips before he was arrested making his 19th trip in October 2012. The gang, mainly based in north Liverpool, were then rounded up in a series of raids.
When police raided one flat in Patmos Close, Everton, which was being used as a safe house, one of the gang launched a briefcase out the window. It burst open and was found to contain 2.76kg of heroin. The scale of the operation was illustrated by the discovery of a 10 tonne press and moulds at one gang member’s home in Orry Street, Everton, used to package and compact heroin powder into professional solid blocks.
Top judge David Aubrey KC said the Welshes were the “chief executives” and told the wider gang: “At the same time there would have been desolate and despairing drug addicts languishing in alleyways desperate for their next fix as a consequence of your activities. You cared not.”
The gang, who were nicknamed the “dirty thirty”, appeared before the courts in May 2013. Ringleader Welsh Jr was sentenced to 16 years and eight months, while his dad was given a 15 years and four months sentence. Shields, of Bluebell Close in Kirkby, was sentenced to 14 years and eight months, while lieutenants Christopher Amos, of Vesuvius Street in Kirkdale, and James Edmonds, of Every Street in Kensington, both received 13 years and four months.
The Welshes and their co-conspirators challenged their sentences at the Court of Appeal in 2014. However, Mr Justice Leveson – one of the country’s most senior judges, said the scale of the racket was “truly massive” and threw out all of the gang’s cases.
Scouse Escobar’s ‘audacity’ led to new plot
“Sophisticated and determined” Welsh Jr was back trafficking class A drugs from his prison cell two months after being jailed. Using a smuggled mobile phone and sim cards, he sent trusted allies on trips to Glasgow to supply a crime group headed by Scottish gangster John Reid while still in his cell at HMP Garth.
But detectives from Titan seized on intelligence from within the prison system and launched a new probe dubbed Operation Prion. Detective Superintendent Hudson, who again led the probe into Welsh Jr, said: “The audacity of Christopher Welsh and his associates is astounding but it has ultimately been his downfall and for that he is now paying a very heavy price indeed.”
Detectives observed new drug runners making nine 440 mile round trips to Glasgow with deliveries for Reid’s crime group. During these drug runs the pair were in constant phone contact with both Welsh and Reid. Welsh was searched by prison officers in October 2013, and found to be hiding the phone in his clothing and the sim cards in an intimate area.
Judge Denis Watson KC, who presided over Welsh’s second sentencing, told the criminal his actions showed a “complete contempt for the law”. Welsh Jr saw 12 years added to his prison sentence resulting in a huge total of 27 years when taking into account his original sentence.
However, perhaps displaying the sophistication of the plot and the experience of those involved in it, a splinter conspiracy soon emerged involving another of Welsh Jr’s confidants Neil Sutemire. Sutemire, of Percy Street in Bootle, became the “driving force” behind a plot to supply cocaine, heroin and amphetamines to north Wales, west Cumbria, Bolton and Middlesbrough.
Sutemire was jailed for 14 years while his “trusted courier” Wendy Abraham, of Roughwood Drive in Kirkby, received 10 and a half years behind bars for playing “significant” roles in both conspiracies. Abraham was also involved in a conspiracy to smuggle phones, steroids and cannabis into prisons stashed inside her bra for two of her ex-partners: Jack Holt, of Cuckoo Lane in Prestwich, and Paul Mount 31, of Whalley Drive in Aughton.
Judge Watson said others had taken advantage of former nursery nurse Abraham’s “loyalty and naivety” but suggested she still “knew right from wrong”. Det Supt Hudson added at the time of sentencing in December 2015: “By going after Welsh again, we have also managed to put influential associates such as Neil Sutemire, John Reid, Stephen Wigham and Stephen Bennett before the courts and today they and the others are staring bleakly at very lengthy sentences indeed.
“Mr Welsh in particular is facing a huge amount of time in prison as he had barely made a dent into the 17 years he was already serving and, at 37, will be considerably older and far-less highly regarded by other criminals when he eventually gets out. People say that leopards can’t change their spots and Christopher Welsh has certainly proved that is the case and yet again, more of his criminal associates have joined him in prison.”
Other criminals collared as part of the two operations included four men and a woman from Merseyside, Cumbria, Bolton and Middlesbrough, who were sentenced to a combined total of 23 years. Scottish gang leader Reid, of Cumbernauld Road in Glasgow, received nine years, four months behind bars for his part in the conspiracy.
Welsh Jr continued to reoffend however and found back in trouble with the authorities after he was twice discovered with phones in jail in 2020 and 2021. A court heard he was discovered to be in possession of an iPhone and a SIM card in HMP Wymott, Lancashire, in August of that year and then, after being moved to HMP Berwyn in Wales, he was found with a tiny Zanco mobile and a SIM the following April.
He claimed the phones were to contact family during the restrictive prison regimes enacted during the covid lockdowns. He admitted possessing specified items in prison and was handed a six month jail term for the offences – a period that will be added to the 28 years he is already serving.
