As drugs became increasingly valuable, large distribution networks were developed with cocaine producers in South America, including the Cali cartel.
Warren decided to leave Liverpool for the Netherlands after rival gangster David Ungi was shot dead, resulting in a spate of shootings during a local gang war.
On 24 October 1996, Brigade Speciale Beveiligingsopdrachten raided Warren's villa, where they found guns and ammunition and a large amount of several illegal drugs.
[13] In 1999, a prominent "turf war killing" occurred when Warren Selkirk was shot five times and a bag of dog excrement placed in his hand, while his children waited in a nearby car: Glaswegian Ian McAteer was convicted of the murder in 2001.
In early 2004, what initially began as a petty rivalry among loosely affiliated antisocial youths and young men, spiralled into a gang war.
At the Royal Oak pub on Muirhead Avenue, bordering West Derby and Norris Green, a masked gunman entered and repeatedly shot and killed Crocky Crew member Danny McDonald, setting off a chain of retaliatory shootings.
Over the next four years investigators linked 17 shootings and 70 instances of criminal damage to the warring gangs, whose members brazenly roamed housing estates clad in body armour.
Despite significant law enforcement efforts exemplified by the high-profile convictions of Mercer and six Croxteth Crew affiliates in December 2008, violence persisted, culminating in the June 2012 assassination of Joey Thompson, a respected Strand Gang member.
Since January 2016 both areas have witnessed minimal gun violence incidents amidst broader regional efforts to combat escalating firearms offenses.
In 2009, the Huyton firm paid a local gang led by Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes to attack people associated with a trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
Following the June 10 arrests, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) suggested that the police intervention likely thwarted a series of assassinations in Amsterdam, connected to the Liverpool gang war.
In 2013, SOCA dealt a significant blow to the Huyton firm, seizing 400 kilograms of cocaine concealed in a shipment of Argentinean beef at Tilbury docks, valued at £90 million.
He owned casinos in Spain; discos in Turkey; a vineyard in Bulgaria; land in the Gambia; and money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts.
The Huyton firm operates internationally and is connected to significant criminal factions in Europe, including those from Ireland, Russia, and North Africa.
Enforcers, recruited from Liverpool, were handpicked to work for the gang on the Costa Del Sol where they competed with rival crime groups from North Africa and Eastern Europe.
Ian Fitzgibbon faced additional charges related to a scheme to distribute 168,000 ecstasy tablets, potentially valued at over £800,000, on the streets of Merseyside.
The "Liverpool Mafia" gained strength by brokering a strategic alliance with young black gangs following the 1981 Toxteth riots, and became the richest crime group in the United Kingdom.
The arsenal uncovered at a lock-up in the Ainsdale area of Southport included a sawn-off shotgun, Glock pistol, Luger handgun, revolvers, ammunition, silencers, machetes, samurai swords, stun guns, and batons.
In 1996, Haase and Bennett were given a Royal Pardon 11 months into 18-year prison sentences for heroin smuggling, having provided information leading to the seizure of firearms.
The Home Secretary, Michael Howard, was criticized for the decision, and in 2008 Haase and Bennett were convicted of having set up the weapons finds to earn them their release, and sentenced to 20 and 22 years in prison respectively.
On March 14 2020, a house was set on fire in the Whirlow area of Sheffield as part of "terror tactics" after the owners refused to pay an alleged debt of £280,000.
Michael famously flaunted his new-found wealth by driving around his childhood area of Toxteth in a white Rolls Royce and expensive suit.
The Toxteth Gangster was caught following the elaborate operation between British police and HM Customs and Excise and their counterparts on the Indian sub-continent led to the seizure of 12 kg of the drug.
In 2010, he was arrested in Turkey by a joint operation by the Turkish Police and the British Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the drugs baron was reprimanded after being linked to alleged cannabis smuggling.
His 14 year sentence was thought to have begun in Randers, Denmark, but in 2014 the Foreign Office confirmed he was moved back to the UK to finish his jail term.
[32] On 16 December 2008, Sean Mercer was convicted of the murder and ordered to serve a minimum tariff of 22 years by trial judge Mr Justice Irwin.
Using a Skorpion submachine gun, 41-year-old James Witham broke into Dale's home and shot her in the stomach, killing her while she stood by the back door.
[34] On 22 August 2022, Olivia Pratt-Korbel, a nine-year-old girl, was shot by a masked gunman, and was pronounced dead the same day at the city's Alder Hey Children's Hospital.
A gunman fired several shots towards the front entrance of the pub with a military grade sub-machine gun, which was packed with mostly young people at the time.