A drug lord shot outside his own home over debt after £20m of cocaine was seized on the M6 by cops.
Alan and John Tobin supplied hundreds of kilos of narcotics to notorious gangs across the UK. The brothers enjoyed “lavish lifestyles” but their Liverpool drug empire came crashing down after police intercepted a van ferrying £20m of cocaine up the M6.
The huge loss then led to one brother, John being shot over debts to a mysterious accountant. The two men’s business was described as “sophisticated, highly profitable and well-organised”. They supplied vast amounts of cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis to gangs across a network that stretched across the UK.
The older brother Alan, who had previously worked in a number of manual jobs, used the veneer of his job as a respected mental health nurse – based at Rathbone mental health hospital’s low secure unit, to mask his criminal involvement.
Away from the public eye, he went by the EncroChat name “CapeRocket”, while his younger brother John was known as “SlightDrake”. Between 2016 and 2020, the pair enlisted couriers utilising specially adapted vehicles with secret hides to ferry their drugs, reports the ECHO.
Much of the gang’s money ended up in Canary Wharf where it was put through various shell companies. Up to £150,000 of dirty cash was also paid into the bank account of Alan’s wife, Helen Hartley.
The brother’s empire began to unravel after they instructed a man named Jamie Simpson to transport a £20m stash of cocaine from Kent to Warrington for them. Detectives made the largest ever seizure of cocaine on land in the UK when they intercepted Simpson driving the van on the M6 near Knutsford.
When EncroChat was hacked in the early months of 2020, messages obtained by the police found the brothers had asked Broughton to contact someone known only as “The Banker”. It was believed the financer was a woman who acted as an accountant in the underworld drug trade.
The Tobin brothers helped spread pain and misery across the UK, from feeding addiction to class A drugs to setting in motion an attack that saw an innocent man open his door to a hail of bullets. But now they and many of the men they did business with are languishing in prison cells.
Between March and May 2020 alone, they discussed deals on EncroChat involving around 73kg of heroin, 83kg of cocaine, 57kg of ketamine and 78kg of cannabis. These drugs had a total estimated street value of up to £20m. For his role in the drug plots, Alan was jailed for 20 years in April 2021. John, formerly of Manor Road in Prescot was locked up for 19 years and eight months.
In September of the same year, Alan was handed a further eight years behind bars, for conspiring to cause grievous bodily harm with intent to both Liam Byrne Jnr and Snr. Judge Driver.
Alan was left with a 28-year prison sentence. John was handed a further two and a half years for participating in the activities of an organised crime group, taking his term up to more than 22 years. They will serve 14 and 11 years in prison respectively.
Alan’s wife was also locked up for her part in her husband’s criminality. For possessing criminal property, mum-of-two Hartley was jailed for nine months. “Dangerous” hitman Bretherton was jailed for 22 years, with an extended five years on licence. He will have to serve nearly 15 years behind bars before he is even eligible for parole. Getaway driver Morris was jailed for 14 years.
Judge Driver said Fitzpatrick, who fell to be sentenced for ketamine and cannabis plots in addition to the shooting plot, was also “dangerous”. He was jailed for 26 years, with an extended five years on licence, meaning he now faces just over 17 years behind bars, before he can ask for his release.
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