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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Luke Traynor

The chilling text messages sent by cocaine and heroin bosses to petrified customers

These are the chilling and threatening messages sent by the boss of an organised crime gang to terrified users desperate for his trafficked heroin and cocaine.

Paul Hickman, the "controlling mind" of a huge conspiracy to ferry the massive Class A hauls from Merseyside to the Welsh coast, was jailed for 12 years on Friday.

His second-in-command - Dovecot-based Joseph Jones - was handed eight years behind bars for his involvement in the drug peddling operation.

Today, the ECHO ran reveal the disturbing text messages sent by Hickman to customers who owed him money.

The text messages sent by drug dealer Paul Hickman as he ran his heroin and cocaine operation from Liverpool to Swansea (trinity)

One, to someone in North Wales, said: "Make sure this[a drugs debt] is paid today. No more bull **** texts and phone calls to them.

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"I want my money, you don't have to wait for the car sale, you have other places to get it, I have used the time, you’ve been lying, to find out.

Paul Hickman was the mastermind of the widespread heroin and cocaine drug trafficking from Liverpool to south Wales (merpol)

"TODAY there will be no more talk.”

Just three hours after that threat, in June 2018, Hickman armed himself with a gun before watching police pursued him in a high-speed chase.

It ended in Roby with the criminal flipping his BMW onto its roof.

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The tactic of "cuckooing" was used in the conspiracies, placing young Liverpudlian dealer Luke Donoghue in Thomas Evans' house on the south cast of Wales, to conduct street deals and to report back home to Hickman.

The text messages sent by drug dealer Paul Hickman as he ran his heroin and cocaine operation from Liverpool to Swansea (trinity)

In another spate of texts, Hickman messaged his ally Jones, ordering him: "Get texts out on that Swansea one[phone] all the time till people[customers] come back."

And he added: "Sound, get texts out for Swansea all day till people start getting sh*t.[drugs]."

Cash seized from Paul Hickman and his drugs cronies (merpol)

This was, prosecutors said, a "reference to resuming their disrupted street dealing operation in Swansea, with Jones being directed to get out drug flare messages in the city to previous customers."

One of Hickman's customers was so scared of him that he offered to sell his most prized possessions to avoid any violent reprisals.

He messaged: "Yo lad, tell u the truth I f****** up man.

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"I ain't got no money, I still got the 3 oz[ounces] of the w.

A frightened customer begging drugs boss Paul Hickman not to seek retribution for not paying him a debt (trinity)

"But no dark[drugs] or cash, but I'll sell my bike and dogs and get the money.

"I have f****ed up with money, but only way I can pay debt back is to keep grafting[working], so tell P[Hickman] that.”

Hickman's car after it overturned following a high-speed police chase (merpol)

Operation Banjo, launched by Merseyside Police, led to secret surveillance of the gang during the eight month blitz, between January to August in 2018.

They observed how any cutting of drugs took place locally before they were transported to Swansea in wholesale quantities to be divided and bagged.

There were six journeys trailed by cops with a minimum seizure of three ounces of cocaine to a maximum recovery of half a kilo of heroin powder and a kilo of cutting agent.

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Throughout the period, Aigburth-based Hickman used at least 10 graft phones, changing them after key arrests, and Jones is seen to change his phone 4 times.

Prosecutor Ben Jones said: "This was a well organised operation sourcing wholesale quantities of drugs, the quantities seized might be described as mid-market...

Joseph Jones was one of a handful of men snared in Operation Banjo (merpol)

"Significant efforts were made to avoid detection with the threat of force clear from text messages,"

Hickman is currently serving a five years and three months sentence after a gun was found in his crashed BMW, meaning he is now effectively starting a 17 year stretch behind bars. 

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