For decades violent gangs have spread fear across the streets of Merseyside.
These criminals often gave themselves nicknames from the Wavo 420 to The Croxteth Crew, while they tried to flood Liverpool and beyond with drugs. Often using intimidation and force to exert their power and control over parts of the city region, many have now been brought down following in-depth investigations by police and brave witnesses who came forward.
Developments in cases including the Encrochat hack which saw police break the code of the communications network and left gangs across the UK reeling. This led to a number of arrests, trials and ultimately jail time for criminal gangs taking them off our streets.
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We have taken a look at some of the gangs and their nicknames, how they got their names and how they were eventually brought to justice.
Manc Joey
The "Manc Joey" network operated out of Liverpool and ran hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of heroin and crack cocaine to Exeter during the first seven months of last year. But detectives were able to easily follow their trail and spot their dealers during lockdown as their illegal activity became far more visible while the streets were quieter.
Anthony Kamara, 33, of Ritson Street, Toxteth, was a leading member of the gang who touted a phone line to users and employed at least two teenagers as a delivery boys. They were both later deemed to be modern slaves.
The first seven members of the group were sentenced at Exeter Crown Court last year, but the eighth, Kamara, was arrested later as a result of police cracking the EncroChat phones. These encrypted devices were penetrated by cyber experts last year which has allowed police across the UK and Europe to bring down serious criminals, and top-level plots involving murder, serious violence, high-level drug dealing and more.
The Deli Mob
Members of the ruthless Deli Mob terrorised north Liverpool, making the lives of decent people a misery around Everton, Kirkdale and Walton. Members became infamous for robbing rival drug dealers' cannabis farms then selling the drugs themselves.
The name Deli Mob relates to the area of Kirkdale where some members of the gang, centring on Delamore Street. In 2016, Merseyside Police officers broke down doors at 13 properties in Kirkdale, Walton, Fazakerley and Aintree as part of an investigation into the gang.
Gang member Jake Glenholmes was jailed four years and eight month, after police discovered a £32,000 cannabis farm when they raided his home in Chirkdale Street, Kirkdale. In 2018, Glenholmes' younger brother Jamie was jailed after breaking into a Fazakerley home and slashing a dad in the face.
Jamie Glenholmes led a masked gang armed with blades and a baseball bat as they stormed the property of drug dealer David Higgins. After demanding £50,000 - which Higgins said he did not have - the 24-year-old launched a brutal assault that left his victim scarred.
Glenholmes was branded a “ruthless, brutal and dangerous man” by Judge Anil Murray, who sentenced him to 15 years in jail with a further 36 months on licence. Both brothers were named as part of the gang when hit with ASBOs as teenagers in 2011.
Another ‘Deli Mob’ thug Paul Dwyer was jailed in 2018 after he kidnapped a drug dealer found covered in blood and begging for help in the boot of his own car. Six foot four, 22-stone Paul Dwyer was jailed for 14 years with an additional four on licence after being convicted of false imprisonment and wounding with intent at Liverpool Crown Court.
In an article in the ECHO last month our crime reporter looked back at the downfall of the gang.
Wavo 420
Wavo 420 was a cannabis supply network that operated on the streets around Wavertree. The name 'Wavo' is short for Wavertree, while '420' is drug culture slang which refers to cannabis related celebrations that take place on April 20.
Gang leader James Lunt backed up his exploits with an arsenal of weapons that included a Beretta handgun responsible for 17 shootings on Merseyside alone. Lunt also had access to an Uzi sub-machine gun that could fire 600 rounds a minute, as well as a sawn-off shotgun.
While the 29-year-old was not accused of pulling the trigger of any of those weapons, in October 2019 he was locked up for leading a drug and guns conspiracy that included an attack that saw the Beretta fired 11 times at a man in a Wavertree street.
East Side Boys
Brothers Jake and Callum Burrows ruled over the East Side street gang in Speke which flooded the area with hard drugs, fought a turf war with rivals and terrified locals. The gang was named after the area of Speke where they operated and made life hell for law abiding residents who had to put up with their behaviour.
Families could not walk past certain addresses without fear of being attacked by thugs who worked for the Burrows brothers. The gang's arsenal of weapons included a St Etienne revolver, Tikka hunting rifle, Smith & Wesson revolver, Baikal shotgun, Browning shotgun and a Smith and Wesson revolver.
Some of the guns were buried in woodland in the Speke area. In October 2019, Jake Burrows was jailed for 25 years and six months, while Callum Burrows was jailed for 20 years.
The Strand Gang
(Also known as the Nogga Dogs)
The 'Strand Gang', also known as the 'Nogga Dogs', hailed from the Norris Green area of Liverpool. They took their name from their favourite haunt at the time, outside the Strand shops in Scargreen Avenue.
At the peak of the gang’s notoriety in the 2000’s, they were reported to have members as young as 12 and called themselves 'Nogzy soldiers'. The Strand Gang’s rival crime firm was the Croxteth Crew, a gang which operated in nearby Croxteth.
Liam ‘Smigger’ Smith was a prominent member of the 'Strand Gang' who was shot dead on August 23, 2006 after he went to visit a friend who was serving time in Altcourse Prison. While visiting his friend he had a bitter dispute with convict Ryan Lloyd, who was a central figure of rival gang the Croxteth Crew.
The dispute is understood to have happened in the visitors area, where Lloyd was being visited by his sisters. When Smith left Altcourse prison he was ambushed by about 20 members of the Croxteth Crew - who had hidden in bushes.
Moments later the 19-year-old was shot in the head, with a sawn-off shotgun, at point blank range. Ryan Lloyd, 19, Thomas Forshaw, 18 and Sean Farrell, who was just 16-year-old, were convicted of Smith's murder and jailed.
Liam Duffy was convicted of manslaughter and received 20 years. An article in The ECHO in February this year looked back at the gang after Jamie Mac Thompson, the younger brother of Joey Thompson, 32, who was shot dead in a city street in 2012 during the gang war, was in Crown Court.
The Croxteth Crew
(Also known as the Crocky Crew or the Croxteth Young Guns)
The Strand Gang's bitter rivals were the Croxteth Crew, also known as the Crocky Crew, who took their name from the area of north Liverpool where they lived and operated. The gang war between the two feuding sides hit national headlines in 2007 following the senseless murder of innocent schoolboy Rhys Jones, who was unintentionally caught in the crossfire.
On August 22, the day 11-year-old Rhys was shot and killed, Croxteth Crew gang member Sean Mercer was told three Nogga Dogs had been spotted on their territory. The teen gunman rode to the car park of the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth Park, armed with a WW1 Smith and Wesson revolver and opened fire.
None of his intended targets were hit, but Rhys was killed while returning home from football practice. Leading gang member Sean Mercer was 16 years old when he shot Rhys in the car park of the Fir Tree Pub.
Mercer was found guilty of murder following a nine-week trial in December 2008 and jailed for a life, with a minimum sentence of 22 years behind bars. In 2013, seven Croxteth Crew members were jailed for a total of 113 years for carrying out a terror campaign of punishment shootings and fire bombings.
An ECHO report from the time said the small time drug dealers made a habit of feuding with former associates and members of rival gangs, which led to violent tit-for-tat attacks. In order to enforce their dominance they collected an arsenal of weapons including several pistols and a double barrelled shotgun, and made petrol bombs out of Lucozade bottles filled with white spirit.
They used unlicensed scrambler bikes to get quickly to and from their targets and avoid police patrols, while earning money dealing around their turf on Stonedale Crescent and Mossway shops. The judge who sentenced the gang members, Mr Justice Openshaw said: “Despite their denials the defendants are members of the criminal gang known to themselves as the Croxteth Young Guns. They are known and feared by others as the Croxteth Crew.
“It seems to me they have no stake in society excepting their membership of the gang. None of them has ever done a day’s honest work in their lives or aspired to do so. Their families are dysfunctional. Each left school without skills.
“Their days were spent posturing outside Mossway shops dealing drugs. It is as if they belong to some sort of outlaw tribe which has rejected all of society’s moral standards and conventions. Their minds are spent towards feuding and prosecuting vendettas against former associates.
“In this case drug dealing was not used as an end in itself but funding the gang’s principal activity of feuding.”
The Whitney Gang
The Whitney gang were a family drugs ring that flooded the streets of Liverpool with drugs, peddled crack and heroin next to school playgrounds and lived a life of luxury off the back of it. In 2011, the Whitney family and their associates were hauled in front of the courts and sentenced to a total of 82 years behind bars.
But they had spent years sat at the apex of a massive criminal network in Liverpool, stretching from their home in Anfield across much of the city. The Whitneys made selling heroin and crack cocaine a 24-hour business, running a “cash and carry” style operation.
They raked in profits targeting the city’s desperate addicts - and at one point stooped so low a young mum in the family stashed cocaine in her baby girl’s nappy bag to hide the drugs from the cops. The 13 gang members who were ultimately jailed for the Whitney drugs ring consisted of family members, their partners and extended family as well as a string of "associates" and big players who weren’t related to them.
Paul Whitney was the ringleader, who headed up the criminal operation with help from his mother Carol Whitney who hoarded the gang’s money and was dubbed "the banker".
The Fernhill Gang
The Fernhill Gang originated around Fernhill Road in Bootle - though they kept the name when the jailing of one leader led to the drug gang's base shifting to Netherton's Park Lane estate. James Shiels and his brother Kyle ran the Fernhill - Kyle was the gang’s number one, and saw himself as untouchable.
The brothers had grown up on the Netherton Park estate, which they turned over time into a stronghold. Drugs were stored in safe houses, with deals done in alleyways and side streets.
Kevin Roberts, Robert Lee, Connor McKevitt, Terrence Nixon and Stephen Fletcher were the Shiels’ trusted lieutenants. Roberts looked after the guns, while the rest of the “lieutenants” carried out thousands of drug deals.
Anthony McCormack, Brian McLlelland, Gary Wells and Neil Smith were the drivers, ferrying gang members and drugs around the area. Residents were intimidated, rivals were threatened with guns and local police officers were mocked and teased in the street.
The original Fernhill gang dates back to the 1970s. The older generation of gang members competed with the rival Deli Mob from Kirkdale and spent their weekends drinking in the old Aintree pub, on the corner of Fernhill Road.
The Shiels brothers progressed through the Fernhill ranks over time. Kyle was an enforcer, just one tier below the leadership. But when feared boss Liam Johnson was jailed for drug offences, Kyle became the gang’s leader.
As power transferred to the Shiels brothers, the gang’s geographical hub shifted away from north Bootle and toward the Park Lane estate, known to locals as Dodge. After the Shiels brothers’ gang was jailed for nearly 100 years, police noticed a marked fall in trouble on the Netherton Park estate.
In May 2020, Fernhill gang member Jack Quinton, 26, was jailed over a weapons arsenal including an Italian revolver and a semi-automatic Glock with a silencer. Photos Quinton previously kept on his mobile phone, which were published by the ECHO after his sentencing, showed his fascination with guns, dating back to his youth.
Quinton, of Garden View, Caspian Place, Bootle, has 22 convictions for 35 offences, dating back to 2005, when he was just 11 years old. He worked as a driver for the Fernhill Gang and was arrested on March 28 last year at a garage in Bedford Road, where armed police recovered an Austrian pistol and Castelli of Brescia 1913 Revolver.
Quinton admitted possessing a Glock with intent to endanger life, possessing a silencer, possessing a revolver, two counts of possessing ammunition and handling stolen goods. He was jailed for 13 and a half years, with an extended two years on licence.
Kirkstone Riot Squad
The Kirkstone Riot Squad is a feared Litherland gang named after the Kirkstone Road North area which has been a flashpoint for crime and disorder over recent years. The drug gang is claimed to have easy access to guns and has been linked to serious crime across south Sefton.
In 2017 the ECHO revealed that gang, called the Kirkstone Riot Squad, was exerting a malign influence on the streets of Litherland. A licensing hearing at Sefton Magistrates Court heard members of the gang had been causing trouble in a trendy bar on South Road in Waterloo.
James Cullen, representing Merseyside Police, said members of the Kirkstone Riot Squad were out of control in the bar and that door staff were unable to deal with the situation. He said that some of the gang had knives on them.
Last year the police arrested a number of suspects in the Kirkstone Road area in relation to a serious crime. An ECHO article published in April 2021 - which investigated the gang in more detail - said they are still in custody awaiting trial.
Scottie Road Crew
The Scottie Road Crew were named after their Scotland Road territory and became locked in a petty dispute with the Langrove Street based "Langy Crew."
In 2010, 17-year-old Scottie Road Crew member James Moore was jailed for stabbing innocent army cadet Joseph Lappin, 16, to death outside a youth club in a horrific 2008 attack. Moore and his gang had gone looking for revenge after a fight between their associates and rivals earlier that day.
The Laneheads
The Laneheads were a gang of teenage yobs who wreaked havoc in and around Anfield's Townsend Lane - a location which also provided their name. In 2014, five teenage gang members were found guilty of the murder of Sean "Shorty" McHugh in an Anfield laundrette.
Sean McHugh, 19, was chased into the launderette, on Priory Road, by a gang on September 30, 2013, where he was fatally stabbed with a sword stick and died a few days later. Jurors who had listened to the trial, which lasted more than two months, found ringleader Reese O’Shaughnessy, 19 and Keyfer Dykstra, 14, guilty by a unanimous decision after more than 17 hours of deliberation.
Cousins Andrew Hewitt, 15 and Corey Hewitt, 14 but who was 13 at the time, and Joseph McGill, 14, also 13 at the time, were found guilty of murder by majority verdicts of ten to two. A sixth boy, who always said he was not at the scene of the murder, was found not guilty and released from the dock.
During the trial Nicholas Johnson, QC, prosecuting, said the boys referred to themselves as the “Laneheads”, after the gang’s territory around the Townsend Lane area of Anfield, whereas as Sean McHugh and his friend Josh Williams, who was also chased but got away were called “Village Rats”, because they came from Walton Village.
Linacre Young Guns
The Linacre Young Guns was a street gang based in the Linacre Road area on the border of Litherland and Bootle. One drug dealing associate of the yobbish gang was jailed in 2017 after pushing heroin and crack cocaine on the streets of Litherland.
Operating under the alias Lil Wayne, Michael Foy delivered drugs to order while working for a criminal network that spanned from Bootle to Southport. The 18-year-old was snared after being caught on camera selling drugs to an undercover officer posing as an addict.
Foy was busted through an extensive Merseyside Police operation targeting the supply of illicit substances across Sefton. Geoffrey Lowe, prosecuting, described him as being part of “a generic group of people called the Linacre Young Guns” - a gang that operates across Bootle and Seaforth which is said to have come into conflict with the infamous Fernhill Gang on the streets of south Sefton.
The drugs network Foy was part of was locked up after being hit in a series of police raids at addresses across Southport, Formby, Birkdale, Litherland, Bootle and Seaforth. Cultivated cannabis was found together with hydraulic presses and other equipment for the production of Class A drugs.
Fifteen people were jailed for a total of 41 years over the operation. Foy, of Chelsea Road in Litherland, joined them behind bars when Judge Robert Trevor-Jones sentenced him to 37 months.
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