Convicted Drug Dealer Sentenced For Drug Dealing In Prison
A convicted drug dealer who continued to control a multi-million pound trafficking operation between Merseyside and Scotland from his prison cell has today been jailed. Christopher Welsh, 37, from Wirral, was already serving almost 17 years for leading a previous drugs conspiracy alongside his dad, Christopher Welsh Snr, 58, from Liverpool, when he was caught again. Today (Monday, 21 December) Welsh Jnr was jailed for a further 12 years, along with 10 other people from Merseyside, Manchester, Glasgow, Lancashire and Cumbria who formed part of a conspiracy which stretched across the United Kingdom. This sentence is to be served consecutively to his current 17 year jail term. The 90 years handed down to the 11 defendants at Liverpool Crown Court comes on top of a total of 23 years given to five others from Merseyside, Middlesbrough, North Wales and Bolton after detectives successfully implicated them in the drugs supply chain. The joint investigation between ‘Titan’ (the North-west regional organised crime unit) and their counter-parts at Police Scotland established that Class A and B drugs with an estimated street value of £3,000,000 were moved from Merseyside to the other regions between July 2013 and September 2014. The key members of the Merseyside and Glasgow crime groups were arrested during two sets of coordinated operations in June and October 2014. Detective Superintendent Jason Hudson, head of operations at Titan, the North-west regional organised crime unit, said: “The audacity of Christopher Welsh and his associates is astounding but it has ultimately been his downfall and for that he is now paying a very heavy price indeed. “It came as no surprise to us that a man like him would try to continue to orchestrate his drug dealing from behind bars and we were proved absolutely right. “He and his criminal friends went to great lengths to smuggle drugs, mobile phones and SIM cards into the various prisons where they were already serving time for drug dealing so that they could continue that trade. “However, the investigations by Titan and Police Scotland into this organised crime group did not stop when together we put thirty of them in prison for almost 300 years back in 2012. We kept looking at them to see who else key people such as Welsh had links to both inside and outside of prison. "We established that not only were Welsh’s Merseyside-based gang supplying Class A drugs to John Reid’s organised crime group in Glasgow, but also supply routes had been forged with criminals in Workington in Cumbria, Middlesbrough in Cleveland and in North Wales. This was enabling criminals in those areas to profit from bringing drug-fuelled crime and misery to those towns and it needed to stop. “By going after Welsh again, we have also managed to put influential associates such as Neil Sutemire, John Reid, Stephen Wigham and Stephen Bennett before the courts and today (Monday 21st December) they and the others are staring bleakly at very lengthy sentences indeed. “Mr Welsh in particular is facing a huge amount of time in prison as he had barely made a dent into the 17 years he was already serving and, at 37, will be considerably older and far-less highly regarded by other criminals when he eventually gets out. People say that leopards can’t change their spots and Christopher Welsh has certainly proved that is the case and yet again, more of his criminal associates have joined him in prison.”