Ian Stanton plotted to flood the streets with 400 kilos of cocaine when the haul was intercepted
Ian Stanton was Merseyside’s most wanted(Image: NCA)
A drug trafficker who was once Merseyside’s most wanted man plotted to flood the streets with 400 kilos of cocaine smuggled into the UK in frozen Argentinian beef. Ian Stanton was wanted by the National Crime Agency (NCA) over his role in a conspiracy to import and distribute £140m of cocaine.
Some 16 holdalls full of high-quality cocaine were intercepted by Border Force officers in May 2013 at Tilbury Docks in Essex. The cocaine, in 400 compressed blocks with the logo “Burro” – Spanish for donkey – on the side, was removed after the find by officers and replaced with dummy packages of bricks.
NCA undercover detectives later watched and listened as Stanton and his gang met with members of his crime group to try and piece together what had happened to their stolen haul. Stanton would eventually flee to Europe when he realised he was being watched, but was captured on a European arrest warrant.
He was returned to the UK and jailed. Just a few later he was back before the courts in connection with a separate plot that included a different group of conspirators including his own son. As part of a weekly series looking at Merseyside’s criminal history, the ECHO has taken a closer look at Stanton – the notorious figure who was once the man in all of law enforcement’s crosshairs.
The beef conspiracy
The plot was in part orchestrated by David McDermott, a drug lord who “lived like an African king” after he married the daughter of the governor of Ghana’s Central Bank. The cover load of beef was purchased by Croston man Anthony Short, while Stanton himself was near the top of the conspiracy.
After the NCA intercepted the shipment in May 2013, the load was delivered as planned to Wigan (Cold) Storage Ltd but with the bricks and video and audio equipment installed. One of Stanton’s criminal associates, Kirkby courier James Mossman, opened the holdalls which he abandoned when he realised the drugs were not inside.
Footage of the Aintree Retail Park surveillance
Car dealer Stanton, formerly of Merrilocks Road in Blundellsands, was part of the crime group that planned a violent mission to recover the cocaine, not knowing it had been seized by law enforcement officers. Undercover detectives watched and listened as he met with members of the group at the Aintree Retail Park.
They discussed the use of violence against anyone who had information. Stanton was described as the “controlling influence” over the search and rescue mission, which also included Anthony Saunderson – a heavyweight crime figure who is serving a 35 year sentence for EncroChat offences.
Stanton was enlisted to recover the missing haul of drugs which he wrongly believed to be worth up to £3.2m. However, it was later established if sold on the streets at 10% purity the drugs could have generated around £140m. Judge Alan Conrad KC would tell Stanton during his sentencing: “If you had been successful you would have been tracing a very considerable quantity of cocaine at high purity in order to put it into circulation. You were high up the ladder of involvement.”
Ian Stanton was named by police as Merseyside’s most wanted
When Stanton saw his conspirators being rounded up, he fled the country. He was added to an NCA and Crimestoppers most wanted appeal, with detectives believing Stanton, who had connections in London, Holland and Spain, could be lying low on the Costas.
However, he was later captured at a house in Rotterdam by a team of officers from the Dutch Police after a European warrant for his arrest was executed in December 2013. Over 20,000 Euros, a drug press and numerous mobile phones were recovered. He was extradited and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine.
Greg McKenna, NCA branch commander, said: “Stanton was a fugitive who thought he could evade capture and continue drug trafficking but we tracked him down and now he’s behind bars where he belongs. This amount of cocaine could have caused devastating damage had the crime group succeeded. They were willing to use extreme violence but as a result of close working with our national and international partners their plan failed.”
Anthony Short
Three of Stanton’s criminal associates from Merseyside – Mossman, formerly of Delaware Crescent, Kirkby; Gary Keating, formerly Danette Hey, Stockbridge Village, and Francis Oakford, formerly of Baron’s Hey, Stockbridge Village were sentenced to a total of 20 years. Mossman and Keating both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine while Oakford pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail.
Short, who organised the importation using a bogus company and a false identity and twice flew to Holland ahead of the smuggle, received a sentence of 22 years, while McDermott was jailed for 13 years after he spent three years on the run. Stanton, who claimed to have realised “the stupidity of his actions”, received a 12 year sentence.
Judge Conrad told the gang: “On a daily basis this court hears cases where peoples’ lives have been blighted as a result of the trafficking of controlled drugs. The addicts who suffer misery, illness and sometimes death; the victims of the crimes committed by addicts to finance their addiction – crimes such as a robbery and burglary.
David McDermott, from Ormskirk, arrested in Ghana over £140m plot to smuggle cocaine into the UK in Argentinian beef
“The crimes committed between rival dealers to gain control of drug business which can result in serious violence and even cases where firearms are used. It is a thoroughly evil trade.” The judge added he was satisfied the plot was to be the first in a series of importations using the method.
Stanton took his case to the Court of Appeal, where his lawyers argued his 12 year sentence was too long. Stanton’s team said their client would have received a sentence of 18 years if he did not admit his role, which was too close to the 22 year term given to Short.
But giving judgment and dismissing his appeal bid, Mr Justice Nicol said the role Stanton was actually to play was important. The judge said: “In our judgment, the judge was entitled to consider the role which he played.
“He analysed the evidence which came from the audio transcript and accurately ascribed a significant, indeed in some respects a leading role, to the appellant for the part which he was expecting to play in the attempt to recover this cocaine. It was a significant role in recovering a very large quantity of very high purity cocaine.”
The north east conspiracy
Stanton was back in court just a year later when he was jailed for his role in a £20m plot to smuggle cocaine and amphetamine from Liverpool to the north east. The operation was run by Stanton, but when he fled the country to evade capture over the Argentinian plot, his son Shaun stepped up his criminal activities.
Investigating officers pulled together evidence from 20 “key dates” – which included seven drugs seizures of high purity cocaine and amphetamine. A sophisticated amphetamine factory was also uncovered in Hornby Boulevard, Bootle.
Judge Peter Armstrong, sitting at Teesside Crown Court, called the drugs haul a “snapshot” of dealing on a “significant and commercial scale”. If the amphetamine was sold at street purity of 1% at £10, the total amount would have been worth more than £8m.
Shaun Stanton
But the true scale of other deals likely to have taken place could have seen Teesside immersed with tens of kilos more of drugs, worth many millions of pounds. National Crime Agency Branch Commander David Norris said: “What we uncovered here was a number of inter-connected organised criminal groups working together to source drugs, sell them, and then launder the profits.
“They were extremely well organised, transporting large quantities of drugs across the country with large sums of cash going in return. Some members of this network had spent virtually their whole lives trying to stay under the radar of law enforcement. It took an incredibly complex and professional investigation spanning several years to bring them to justice.”
Jailing the gang, Judge Armstrong said: “It’s not often that drug dealers at the top of groups are caught. Courts frequently deal with end users who make a sad sight. In this case the police got to the very top. That was all as a result of the excellent work that they did and the work they carried out in this operation.”
Joiner-turned-drugs collector and supplier John Knowles, formerly of Litherland Road, Bootle, was jailed for seven and a half years, Paul Wilson, formerly of The Orchard, Huyton, was locked up for six years, and John Parry, formerly of Hornby Road, Walton, was sentenced to 42 behind bars.
“Facilitator” Wilson went to a “criminal meeting” at the Harrods luxury department store in London, while Parry operated his home as a safe house and collected materials for the gang’s amphetamine factory. Scaffolder Michael Moore, formerly of Lisburn Lane, Old Swan, was jailed for six years and eight months, while foster carer Melanie Lawrenson, formerly of Higher End Park, Bootle, was sent down for three years.
Moore was the keeper of a Volkswagen Passat car specially modified to smuggle drugs and money. It delivered kilos of amphetamine in 10 cross-Pennine trips. Lawrenson wept in the dock after the court heard she helped bank the gang’s money and recovered incriminating phones as the police searched homes.
Stanton was jailed for 16 years while his son Shaun was sentenced to five-and-a-half years.