Drug boss Leon Cullen tells judge no problem as he gets 22 and a half years
One of the UK s most wanted men had fled to Dubai and hid for two years
Updated
Drug and gun trafficker Leon Cullen (Image: Cheshire Police)
One of the UK s most wanted men Leon Cullen was today finally put behind bars for spearheading a major gun and cocaine network - one of the most notorious in the northwest in recent history. The 33-year-old fled abroad when he became aware police were about to strike and hid undetected for two years before he was finally captured in Dubai.
Drug boss was beaten and forced to brush teeth with soap in Dubai jail Luke Traynor
A major cocaine and gun supplier who fled abroad as police were set to arrest him was regularly beaten in a Dubai prison and was forced to brush his teeth with soap. The Warrington siblings peddled high purity cocaine to Liverpool and other towns in the northwest and Wales, and had dealings with Merseyside associates.
But to try and escape justice, which led to his brother being handed a 27 year sentence in 2019, Leon managed to leave the UK and lay low for two years.
The first downfall Leon Cullen and his twin brother Anthony were born in the summer of 1987. Growing up in the Longford area of the town, Anthony was the more level-headed and popular of the two while Leon could prove to be a volatile character on occasion. It was not unknown for the pair to fall out from time to time, as brothers do. By the early 2010s, Leon and Anthony were beginning to gain notoriety in the criminal underworld. Leon soon rose to become the ‘mastermind’ of an 18-man drugs cartel which shipped at least 5kg of cocaine worth around £300,000 across the north west during a six-month period from August 2010 onwards, as well as supplying other gangs in Warrington.
The nightmare world of cocaine debts, enforcers and the Bird of Prey
Criminals are coming under increasing and dangerous pressure from other criminals over drug debts
Updated
Police scene in Everton as Landseer Road approach to Lance Close is sealed off by police after shooting in April 2014.
The seizure of a drugs haul worth £20m undermined a crime group controlled by two well known brothers.
Earlier this week Liverpool Crown court heard how brothers John and Alan Tobin were under pressure after police seized the massive haul of drugs on the M6 in Cheshire.
On February 6 last year John Tobin arrived at hospital with a gunshot wound after an incident in the Prescot area.
Cocaine brothers moaned we wud b millionaires by now
EncroChat messages show the Tobins blamed nuggets for costing them a drug empire with mystery Colombian connections
08:55, 24 APR 2021
The Tobin brothers Alan Tobin, 52, (left) and John Tobin, 40, (right)
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Two brothers who ran a drug empire moaned they would have been millionaires if it wasn t for nuggets who let them down.