A drug gang in Lancashire grinned and posed for photos in police uniform to raid cannabis farms.
Lancashire Police said it found the photos as they raided the Blackpool headquarters of the “Ozone” Organised Crime Group (OCG), who operated an “Amazon-style” drug warehouse and distribution operation.
A December 2024 search conducted by police of their phones showed OGC members Marc Kirkwood and Cole Muir wearing police jackets, and posing for photos.
The gang would don police uniforms in order to burgle other cannabis farms.
The nine-strong gang, who were jailed for their crimes last week, used Telegram to advertise drugs, before using WhatsApp to complete the sale.
The gang even threatened to firebomb a woman’s house as they stormed in and demanded “where the weed was” in March 2024.
Kirkwood and two other men arrived to the victim’s home at Poulton-Le-Fylde wearing face coverings and gloves and wielding a machete-style knife and a baseball bat.
They were told to do so by leader of the gang, 33-year-old Joshua Shaw.
Members of the Blackpool-based gang grinned and posed while dressed in police-style high-vis jackets | LANCASHIRE POLICE
The woman, with her children upstairs, was told the gang was looking for a box with a tracker that was showing her address.
Lancashire Police said it found an open cardboard box which contained polystyrene and empty plastic bags in the victim’s front garden addressed to a different woman in Blackpool from a man in the United States.
The box, which did have a tracker tag inside, had been disposed of by the woman’s partner as a favour to a friend and was labelled to contain a “coffee table and stools”, the court heard.
The gang has now been slapped with sentences as high as 15 years behind bars for crimes including blackmail, conspiracy to supply and produce cannabis, and conspiracy to commit burglary.
Cole Muir, one of nine who was sentenced, seen wearing a police jacket | LANCASHIRE POLICE
Lancashire Police executed a warrant to an address on Whitegate Drive where officers found the “Amazon-style” warehouse where the criminals sent out “a vast amount of cannabis”.
Inside the warehouse was space for storage, producing, packaging, and preparing the supply of “multiple types” of cannabis and cannabis products.
When searching phones seized by the gang, the police found messages which included delivery routes and addresses.
The messages were used to identify other members of the gang, including Joseph Adams, 34, John Card-Mina, 41, Joseph Oakley, 33, and Craig Quinn, 50.
After being charged, Shaw was remanded to HMP Liverpool where he continued to communicate with the gang through a mobile phone found in his cell.
PICTURED: The ‘Amazon-style’ warehouse where the gang produced and supplied cannabis
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LANCASHIRE POLICE
Shaw, the leader of the drug-dealing gang – of no fixed abode – was sentenced to 15 years in jail after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis and importation of cannabis, and was also found guilty of blackmail.
Kirkwood, 29, was found guilty of assisting an organised crime group and blackmail following a trial and pleaded guilty to further charges of conspiracy to supply and produce drugs, as well as conspiracy to commit burglary.
He was sentenced for a total of eight years and six months in jail.
Muir, 27, was sentenced to 42 weeks behind bars after he pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis and conspiracy to commit burglary.
Six other men were sentenced, four of whom received suspended prison sentences.