OPERATION Iconic saw nearly £150,000 of cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis seized by police.
The covert investigation lasted nearly a year, with numerous properties across Warrington raided by officers along the way.
This is a 12-month timeline, charting how Cheshire Police brought down Lewis Turner and Anthony Morgan’s drugs gang.
READ MORE: Inside the cocaine dealing ring run by Leon and Anthony Cullen’s nephew
July 19 2018
Another undercover investigation by police, Operation Fullbacks, culminates in a flat on Biggin Court in Padgate being raided.
Among the items seized are 2kg of high purity cocaine and an encrypted mobile phone.
A piece of paper also found in the address details the password to this phone – the same password which protected a number of other of devices, including one used by Turner.
August 1 2018
A quantity of class A drugs is transferred from the Golborne area to the home address of Wesley Williamson on Grasmere Avenue in Orford.
Wesley Williamson
After the drugs were dropped off by Utku Tig – who, alongside Williamson, was a member of the Fullbacks organised crime group – contact is made with Turner.
Utku Tig
The same evening, the occupants of a black Vauxhall Astra are seen speaking to Williamson a short distance from his house.
This car had previously been seen outside Morgan’s home on Densham Avenue in Longford, with the meeting believed to be connected to the handover of illicit substances.
Police raid the Grasmere Avenue address, and around 150g of cocaine is found inside.
A ‘dealer’s list’ also discovered details four ounces of coke having each been purchased by ‘Clint’ and ‘Lew’ – aliases of Morgan and Turner.
September 22 2018
Turner buys a safe from Argos in the Cockhedge Centre, paying in cash.
October 2 2018
A listening device is planted in Turner’s 16-plate grey Audi S3 by detectives without his knowledge.
Over the next nine days, a number of incriminating phone calls are overheard, including one claiming to have ‘the best cheap flake’ for sale – flake being a slang term for cocaine.
Lewis Turner
In another conversation, he was heard bragging about seriously assaulting a man who had ‘tried to come on to his bird in town’.
Turner states that he ‘obliterated’ the victim and ‘left him for dead’.
The bug also captures him racially-abusing another motorist during a ‘despicable’ road rage incident.
October 11 2018
Turner’s car is seized by police after he is held on suspicion of driving without insurance.
A set of keys to the safe is found inside the vehicle.
At midday, a search warrant is executed at Paul Ratcliffe’s ground floor flat on Bewsey Park Close.
The safe is found inside the property with 117g of ecstasy inside, packaged for onward supply and coming with a street value of up to £6,720.
Kayvon Allen’s fingerprints are discovered on the contents.
January 16 2019
The home of Julie Morgan, Anthony Morgan’s grandma, on Windermere Avenue in Orford is raided by police.
Around £3,600 of cocaine – cut with paracetamol – is seized, as is £1,590 in cash and drug paraphernalia.
She later claims that the money found was for paying employees of her husband’s taxi business, and that she had bought the drugs for personal use for £700 the previous September.
Morgan also states that a set of scales was used for weighing food, while latex gloves uncovered were for dying her hair.
Judge Brian Cummings later rejects these suggestions as ‘wholly implausible’.
January 18 2019
A covert surveillance operation is watching over a house on Armour Avenue in Longford, the home of Maria Beeby and Katie Newton’s dad.
Beeby was the girlfriend of Anthony Morgan.
Both women enter the property, with Newton seen carrying a Footasylum bag.
They leave the address on foot minutes later without this bag, which is found in the living room when the house is raided by police the same afternoon.
Inside this bag is another Build-a-Bear Workshop bag containing £50 of drugs, snap bags, scales and plastic gloves.
Also within the bag is a cardboard box addressed to the home of Morgan’s mum under his pseudonym of Price.
Two packages are found inside the box, one containing 233g of cocaine at a 68 per cent purity and with a street value of up to £70,910.
And the second has various quantities of the class A drug inside, worth as much as £59,010.
January 24 2019
Lewis Turner is arrested over an unrelated matter in a licenced premises.
His mobile phone is seized and examined, with an outgoing text message to a contact listed as ‘Lil Alex’ reading: “Raw flake here bro.”
July 10 2019
Most of the defendants are arrested during a series of raids across Warrington.
Cannabis with a street value of up to £7,710 is seized from Anthony Bond’s home on Lower House Lane in Widnes.
Anthony Bond
He says he is storing the class B drugs – which are thought to be unrelated to the rest of the conspiracy – for ‘someone called Mark’.
May 28 2020
Members of the gang are jailed for a combined total of 24-and-a-half years at Liverpool Crown Court.
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