Brother of ex-football prodigy and his business partner can't stand it in jail after their £26m racket is brought down
Jonathan Cassidy and his business partner Nasar Ahmed launched an appeal
Two gangsters involved in a huge plot to import cocaine from South America into the UK have had their bids for less jail time thrown out.
Jonathan Cassidy and his business partner Nasar Ahmed were behind the importation of about £26m of cocaine hidden in modified vehicles. Cassidy’s younger brother Jamie, a former Liverpool FC star, was also locked up for his part in the racket.
They were caught out when law enforcement were able to infiltrate the EncroChat communications network. A sentencing hearing at Manchester Crown Court last year heard that the outfit were responsible for the ‘purchase, importation, sale, and distribution’ of multi-kilo quantities of the drug across the North of England.
Once the drugs, sourced from South America, had arrived in the UK after arriving in lorries from Amsterdam, Jamie Cassidy, who played alongside Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen in Liverpool’s youth team, distributed it across the country through a network of trusted couriers.
Jonathan Cassidy, said to be the head of the gang, had fled the UK after the infiltration of EncroChat was revealed. He was arrested on his return to home soil.
Police believe he returned after becoming ‘emboldened’ as he believed the authorities were not tracking him. Jonathan Cassidy had originally left the country on July 8, the same day he read Manchester Evening News articles including: “Locked up in June: The criminals put behind bars in Greater Manchester in June”, and “The text message that spelled the end for Manchester’s Gangsters”.
Cassidy’s messages revealed he had been looking at buying a £2m villa, along with a £22,000 bed. Police seized £24,430 in cash, a Rolex watch and designer clothing from his home in the Wirral, which contained an outdoor gym.
Ahmed, said to be the ‘financial arm’ of the outfit, owned a modest semi in Bury but also spent months each year in Dubai. Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed were sentenced last year. Jonathan Cassidy, 50, of Warren Road, Crosby, was jailed for 21 years and nine months.
Ahmed, 51, of Moreton Drive, Bury, was jailed for 21 years and nine months.
Jamie Cassidy, 46, of Knowsley Lane, Knowsley, was jailed for 13 years and three months. His case did not feature in the appeal hearing.
Lawyers acting on behalf of Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed argued that their sentences, ed by Judge Nicholas Dean KC, the Honorary Recorder of Manchester, were too long.
But in a written judgement, Lord Justice Fraser, Mr Justice Hilliard and Mr Justice Constable rejected their appeals. Legal arguments pursued by Cassidy and Ahmed’s barristers, rejected by the appeal judges, included claims that Judge Dean had not granted them enough credit for their guilty pleas.
The Cassidy brothers and Ahmed each pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply class A drugs, and conspiring, to transfer criminal property. Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed pleaded guilty to conspiring to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of class A drugs.