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A medicine kingpin who ran a UK-wide operation has been jailed after police found his id via encrypted messages he despatched to his contacts about his well-known father.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) mentioned Thomas Hooton used the messaging service EncroChat to deal medicine value about £1.3m and focus on his father Peter, the lead singer of indie stalwarts The Farm.
The 30-year-old, of Victoria Road West in Crosby, Merseyside, pleaded responsible to conspiring to provide heroin, cocaine, hashish and ketamine at Liverpool Crown Court.
He was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in jail.
The NCA mentioned Thomas Hooton was concerned within the provide of 93lb (42.5kg) of hashish, 7lb (3.25kg) of heroin, 22lb (10 kg) of cocaine and 2lb (1kg) of ketamine and brokered “high level deals”.
A pressure consultant mentioned he had messaged 41 totally different contacts below the identify Ownraptor on EncroChat, a messaging service that was infiltrated and brought down in 2020 by a European taskforce.
Detectives discovered he had a drug provide operation which ran to Scotland and England’s North-East and South.
Police mentioned one of many key particulars to discovering Thomas’ id was an image of his father with the Champions League trophy, which had been despatched through EncroChat.
He additionally spoke within the messages about driving a black Audi A3, stating that his “arl fella'” organized the insurance coverage for him.
Official checks confirmed Peter Hooton, whose band had eight high 40 singles and a primary album within the Nineteen Nineties, insured a automotive of that make and mannequin for his son Thomas.
The encrypted chats additionally revealed Thomas was in possession of about £400,000 and owed others £258,000.
Speaking after sentencing, Det Ch Insp Lynsay Armbruster mentioned it was clear Hooton was “involved in organised crime for a long time before he was charged”.
“His criminal and geographical reach will have taken considerable time to establish,” she mentioned.
“His drug supply operations were on an almost daily basis, they were sustained and spanned the UK working with high-level criminals.”
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