Liverpool's sickening gang violence is being fed by the fallout of a major police takedown of organised crime in the city, it is claimed.
Younger criminals - many considered to be more brazen and violent - are “backfilling” the vacancies left by hundreds of older gangsters who have been arrested or are on the run.
More than 200 mid and high ranking Merseyside criminals have been arrested over the last two years since police cracked their secure Encrochat phone system.
We’re told that a similar number went “on their toes” to countries like Holland, Spain and Dubai as they feared arrest by Operation Venetic, the UK’s largest ever police investigation into organised crime.
The claims come as Liverpool is rocked by the senseless killing of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, a nine-year-old girl who died after being blasted in the chest at her home.
Crime experts have told the Mirror that the resulting vacuum in the city’s organised crime networks could spill over into violence as young wannabe gangsters fought over status and lucrative supply chains.
Some who work with young offenders in the city say how criminals terrorising the community have got younger, more brazen and more violent.
Crime in Merseyside, as in the rest of the country, dipped during lockdown.
But it has come roaring back.
Firearms offences in the year to April were up 51% to 211. In the last three months alone, Merseyside Police have publicised 30 incidents involving weapons.
Last week’s killings brought the number of murders in Merseyside to 16.
There have been 59 in London, which has ten times the population. It means Merseyside’s murder rate is 2.7 times higher than the capital.
James Riley, a former probation officer who set up an education programme called Get Away ‘N’ Get Safe, said: “Lockdown suppressed activities but as we left lockdown, old disputes, they never go away.
“These people don’t forget, they have long memories, they have little black books. People remain a target. People can remain a target for a very long time.
“Traditionally a lot of these incidents happen late at night under the cover of darkness. But I have noticed a change in the last couple of years, people are reckless enough to carry out these acts in broad daylight.”
The Encrochat mobile phone network was infiltrated by a joint French and Dutch police operation in 2020.
It had 50,000 users, who law enforcement believe to be mostly criminals, with 10,000 of them in the UK.
Arrests of users began in June 2020 and had reached more than 2,800 by this June, with 170 firearms seized, along with 10 tonnes of Class A drugs, 3,400 rounds of ammunition and £77m in cash.
Liverpool has emerged as an Encrochat hub. By December there had been 166 users arrested on Merseyside, 130 of them had been charged and 43 sentenced for a total of 502 years - an average jail term of nearly 12 years.
The arrests have continued this year, and are believed to have topped 200. The repercussions of so many significant crime figures being taken off the streets will be felt for years.
James Riley said: “The Encrochat arrests will have created a void. Once you take those people out there will be others waiting to fill that void. In order to take over that so-called business, people will often resort to extreme violence.
“These recent attacks could be linked to that, or there could also be historic disputes.
“These people don’t reason with each other. There are no handshakes. Noone wants to lose face or be disrespected.”
He said that guns are easily accessed by “those in that lifestyle”, adding: “If one of them want a firearm, it is a phone call away, a meet up and an exchange of cash.”
Paul Walmsley, former top-ranking Liverpool criminal turned mentor and author said: “When a certain gang is arrested and sent to jail, that work is still there. It just gets back filled with the younger generation.
“Now you have got 16 or 17 years running the weed scene in this city.
That’s where the big money starts - that’s your foot on the ladder.
“It all revolves around a phone number. All the weed users in an area have that phone number and that number is a business. It is treated like a business.
“These phone numbers can sell for enormous amounts of money - sometimes tens of thousands of pounds. People go to jail but the lads outside still want to graft on their street.”
He added: “Mainly it was the wholesalers who were lifted over Encrochat.
All the people who ran the Liverpool wholesale drugs operation a few years back are now in prison.
“It is like a game of tetris. Remove one layer and it gets replaced. It means that at street level they are getting younger and younger.
“You’ve got kids now who are smoking weed from 10, 11, 12 years of age. It means that by the time they are 13, 14, their decision making is skewed.
They see selling weed as a job opportunity.
“We are dealing with a more ruthless generation of criminals. They have less fear. That’s because they are younger. Fear comes with time.
All gang disputes are now settled with knives or guns. They just seem to be available at short notice.”
Both James and Paul said they hoped these latest killings would be the spur for change.
Paul said: “The only way to fight bullets is with jobs.
“We need to look at our failing education system and our massively failing care system where lots of these kids get missed.
“Far too many of them end up in the criminal justice system where they just meet other young criminals.”
James called for an end to the so-called “no grass” culture, the code of silence that makes many inter-gang crimes difficult to solve: “The no grass culture is strong in every major city.
“It cuts through the generations and it is something that has to change.
“If people want things to change we have to get through to young people that you are not a grass, you are not a snitch. You are doing the right thing.
“We have to change the current generation if we are going to change the future generations. I am hoping that it is the murder of a nine-year-old girl in our city, a nine-year-old girl who should have been in the safety of her own home, that finally breaks down the barriers.
“People will know things and they have to give that information to the police.”
