As 2020 began, Mark Cavanagh had much of the West Cheshire heroin and crack-cocaine trade in his control and was making dirty money hand over fist.
With a reputation for selling "high-quality" product to users, more than a decade of experience and a knack for avoiding damaging underworld conflicts, the 30-year-old seemed untouchable. In his own words, Cavanagh boasted to another crook that he "never stops grafting and has been at it for 15 years".
The Wallasey native, sporting a distinctive mop of brown hair, controlled a network of safe-houses across Merseyside and Cheshire, had a crew of street dealers and couriers at his beck and call and enjoyed the sense of confidence afforded by the supposedly impenetrable EncroChat handsets he and his associates used to source huge quantities of drugs from suppliers in Merseyside, Manchester and Bradford.
