Two men shot at a rival's home and riddled his front door and windows with six bullets on the orders of one of the UK's most wanted criminals - Leon Cullen.
Lewis Sinclair and Andrew Johannessen were part of the plot which saw thugs open fire at the address on behalf of fugitive gang boss Cullen.
The shooting was sparked by a dispute between the gun thug - now jailed for 22 years and six months after going on the run in Dubai - and another organised crime group.
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The attack happened on Hilden Street in Bolton when Johannessen, from St Helens, joined up with Shawn O’Malley, from the Orford area of Warrington, and Sinclair, from Partington.
On September 9, 2019, they travelled from Warrington, then to St Helens and on to the target address in Bolton in a stolen Mercedes to settle a score amid a long-running dispute between two crime factions.
Johannessen, 38, had even carried out reconnaissance missions at the scene, which was later easily tracked by the electronic tag he was wearing.
CCTV footage from Hilden Street showed two thugs, covered in black clothing with their faces covered, before up to six shots were dispatched at the windows and door of a particular house.
The two men ran off and Johannessen drove them towards Leigh, where they changed vehicles to a BMW and continued onto St Helens.
The weapon - a Czech 9mm parabellum self-loading pistol - along with cocaine, was planted in the car of Craig Millington, to try and frame him.
Millington had been involved with the same woman as Cullen and the fugitive held a grudge against him.
This week, at Bolton Crown Court, Sinclair and Johannessen, of Gaskell Street, St Helens, were jailed for 12 years each, plus an extended period of 27 months on licence.
They will not be eligible to apply for parole until they have each served at least six years and 10 months in jail.
Honorary Recorder of Bolton, Judge Martin Walsh said: “Guns kill, maim, terrorise and intimidate.
“Too many are carried and too many are used, often with devastating effect upon individuals and always with an insidious and corrosive impact on the well-being of the local community.”
“Your actions were intended to terrify the occupants of that address, and the discharge of live rounds of ammunition into an occupied dwelling created a real and obvious risk of serious injury or worse to those present within the building.”
In May, Cullen was 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.
Cullen, who operated alongside his brother Anthony, himself jailed for 26 years in 2019, was responsible for the supply of very high-purity cocaine, about 50kg in total.
Leon was in control of a startling arsenal of guns including a functioning AK-series rifle, a pump-action shotgun, automatic pistols and revolvers as well as a silencer that was fitted to one of the automatic handguns.
Those guns were found inside a house in Warrington where a mum lived and her young child, with weapons discovered in an ottoman and inside a loft.
Vehicles were used to transport the drugs, including a car which had a secret hide, which was controlled by a device linked to the cigarette lighter.
While Leon and his brother Anthony hailed from Warrington, they had substantial links to criminals in Liverpool including Lee Stoba, a drugs boss who ran his own illegal business while behind bars at HMP Altcourse in Fazakerley.
One of the Cullen guns, a 9mm self-loading pistol, had previously been used in a shooting at a house on Rose Avenue, Bootle, when a round was fired into the curtained living room where the occupier was present, on August 20, 2015.
