GANGSTERS are using lottery tickets to flood a UK city with crack cocaine and heroin – making £400,000 a day.
Rival gangs are battling for control of the “county line” swamping Derby with Class A drugs.
Derby is a picturesque cathedral city, but it has a seedy underbelly[/caption]
A rival cocaine ring in Derby made £400,000 a day[/caption]
A cabbie-turned-crook was caught giving out orders by his own taxi’s dashcam[/caption]
Last month four men from the “21” gang were jailed for a total of 25 years for running an Oliver Twist-style network of teenage drug dealers in the quaint cathedral city.
They had wrested control of Derby’s underworld after cops rumbled the dominant “Eddie” gang led by Albanian brothers Edmund and Edward Haziri.
At the height of their power, the Haziris sold drugs to 145 customers a day – often disguised in folded lottery tickets.
Cops raided their hideouts in “simultaneous strikes” in March 2022, finding a huge casino complete with poker and blackjack tables in one basement.
Edmund, Edward and their cronies were jailed for more than 70 years, letting the “21” gang move in on their turf in Derby.
The Haziris had themselves profited from the downfall of the Hussain family, who ran a huge cocaine ring from their home in the leafy suburb of Mickleover.
Brothers Hassan, Zunaib and Danny Hussain ran the county line while their dad Saghir Younis oversaw a team of delivery drivers.
Their empire started unravelling when cops tried to stop a VW Passat driven by gang member Mudasar Hussain in April 2021.
The reckless crook rammed a police car before speeding down a pavement, smashing into two cars head-on and finally wrapping the Passat around a lamppost.
Months later cops raided the Hussains’ home in Mickleover, finding piles of drugs alongside wads of cash and arresting seven gang members.
In a shocking twist, one of the brothers was also convicted for his part in a heroin and cocaine ring run by a rival gang.
Derby’s gangs have even hired registered taxi drivers to ferry drugs to young people bullied and intimidated into working as dealers.
Last year, cops stopped more than 87 cabs thought to be linked to county lines and “child criminal exploitation” – sparking calls for compulsory CCTV in Derby’s taxis.
It was his own dashcam that did for cabbie-turned-crook Shahid Iqbal, recording his detailed instructions to young dealers – as well as his threats to have them beaten up if they botched deliveries.
Cops found the footage when they pulled Iqbal over, sealing his fate and giving them a map of the crack dens his gang used as bases.
One Derby gang even hired accountant Manraj Johal to keep an Excel spreadsheet detailing cocaine profits of up to £400,000 a day.
What do locals think?
LAW-abiding residents are devastated about what has happened to Derby.
Rosie Philipson, 47, told The Sun: “Some of us living here are too scared to leave home, particularly at night.
“I’ve lived here all my life and it used to be such a lovely, safe place.
“But it’s gone downhill, and got worse after the Covid lockdown. It makes me feel sad.
“I don’t feel safe here any more but it’s no bloody wonder with everything going off here.
“There’s muggings, robberies, assaults happening right here. I’ll only come out to do my shopping in the daylight.
“Anyone could be a victim here.”
Pointing at a nearby tower block, Rosie said: “Residents living over there, including quite a few single young women, daren’t come out at times.
“You hear stories of people going to the cash point and getting robbed.
“It’s the offenders who are getting more money than us lot who are actually going out to work. It p****s me off!
“Derby’s a small city compared to others, and there are far bigger cities and towns across the country.
“But it has a high rate of crime and much bigger than you’d think for its size.”
Pensioner Marsha Harrison, 73, said: “I think to myself it’s gone down the tip!
“There’s a bit more fear now when you are going around town. It has got worse since lockdown.
“We’d never go down to St Peter’s near Primark, it’s too dangerous. It’s always been a bad area with a many drug addicts and drunks.
“In the homes nearby in Gower Street people are too frightened to come out and if they do venture out they get abused or attacked.”
Marsha’s husband Cyril, 73, said: “There are more shoplifters, more opportunists, more attacks.
“It makes the older generation, like us, feel vulnerable when we should feel safe whether indoors or outdoors.”
Violence between gangs has spilled over on Derby’s streets, terrifying locals.
One Sunday morning in September 2021, masked teenager Tarick Ahmed chased and stabbed a man in front of terrified shoppers in the city centre.
Ahmed, who had a previous conviction for possession of crack cocaine with intent to supply, was released immediately after completing his two-year sentence on remand.
Judge Shaun Smith said: “This was broad daylight on the streets of Derby while motorists and pedestrians went about their everyday business.
“Here is a man with two knives going around stabbing someone.
“There is a background, and clearly this was not a random attack on the street.
“But you were armed with knives on the street and there you were disguised and tooled-up.”
Last August four people were injured in a mass brawl between two gangs at a kabaddi tournament in Derby – with gunshots fired and one man reportedly slashed with a sword.
After yet another county line was rolled up in 2022, a local judge warned of “turf wars between gangs wishing to control the lucrative trade – with violence is often the result”.
DEMOLITION DERBY
Perhaps the most shocking twist of all in Derby’s drug wars has been the number of reformed ex-gangsters drawn back into the underworld.
Carlus Grant, 34, the former boss of the ultra-violent A1 Crew gang, was recalled to prison in 2019 – just four months after telling the BBC that a ten-year jail stint had helped him turn his life around.
Derby dad Jermain Hutchison spent more than a decade as a youth worker keeping kids off the street – before cops caught him last year with a handgun, ammunition and £7,000 of crack cocaine.
Jailing him for seven years, Judge Shaun Smith KC said: “You have supported young people and become a well-respected part of the music and arts scene.
“But then tragically, during Covid, your life started to unravel and you eventually went back to what you knew.
“This has been a significant downfall for you. In your letter to me you say you are deeply ashamed and I believe you.”
Locals are steering clear of the city centre after stabbings and brawls in broad daylight[/caption]
A cocaine ring hired accountant Manraj Johal to chart their profits in an Excel spreadsheet[/caption]
Local Rosie Philipson is terrified of Derby’s gangsters[/caption]
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