DRUGS IN CABS
OVER NINE YEARS’ JAIL FOR KIRKBY PH DRIVER WHO USED PHVs AS COVER FOR DEALING DRUGS
A drug dealing private hire driver, who partied in Ibiza, used private hire vehicles as a cover for cocaine, cannabis and ketamine plots. The Liverpool Echo reports that Anthony Lonergan traded 76kg of cannabis, 3.8kg of cocaine and 3kg of ketamine between March 2020 and June 2020 alone on EnrcoChat. As lockdown rules made keeping a low profile more difficult, he arranged handovers from PHVs to avoid the attention of police. But the young private hire driver was busted as a result of the EnrcoChat hack and revealed as the man behind the handle “PalacePuma”. Detectives were able to nail him thanks to other dealers talking about his day job and Lonergan chatting about a holiday he’d booked to Ibiza. And photos from his social media show him later enjoying a pool party on the Balearic island. Liverpool Crown Court heard the 25-year-old, from Kirkby, was involved in the “lucrative” plots to supply Class A and B drugs even while serving a community order for his involvement with a cannabis farm. Police recovered his encrypted messages between March 26, 2020 and June 4, 2020 as part of the EncroChat hack. However, the “notes” section from the “PalacePuma” profile showed “tick lists” and “ledgers” dating back to November 9, 2019. A note created that day set out deals for “flake” - slang for cocaine - and “ket”, which is short for ketamine. That note was modified on December 29 that year, when Lonergan recorded “flake” transactions of £25,745. Charles Lander, prosecuting, explained in court documents that Lonergan had 29 contacts stored on his device. In January 2020, he created a note recording deals for “pols” and “haze” - cannabis and cannabis resin - totalling
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£16,000. Prosecutors said Lonergan used his Encro- Chat device to buy drugs, then sold them on in smaller amounts using a separate “graft” phone. Sometimes he would send associates to carry out han- dovers but he also carried out deals himself, as he supplied increasing amounts of cannabis from January to March 2020.
Mr Lander said: “Of note, the defendant was licensed as a private hire driver and the messages suggest that he uses, on occasions, other private hire vehicles to conduct certain transactions. “As the court will be aware, the begin- ning of the national lockdown commenced towards the end of March 2020 and therefore the roads were particularly quiet save for essential key worker travel, and the use of taxis would be less likely to attract the attention of the police.” Court documents showed for example on March 26, 2020 he spoke to EncroChat user “FrostFortress” and arranged the sale of five kilos of “pols”. A post code was given and Lonergan arranged for an associate to attend in a “blue Audi taxi”. Detectives examining Lonergan’s mes- sages saw other dealers referring to him as “Ant” or “Tony” and mentioning he was a taxi driver, while PalacePuma was wished “happy birthday” on April 4, 2020 - Lonergan’s birthday. Mr Lander said: “PalacePuma also refers to the fact that on June 4, 2020, he had booked a holiday to Ibiza and records confirm that the defendant
booked a holiday to Ibiza that day.” The court heard Lonergan had one previous conviction for producing cannabis and abstracting electricity, relating to a cannabis farm police raided in Redwood Way, Kirkby on September 2, 2018. He was handed a 12-month community order, including unpaid work, on May 5, 2020.
Mr Lander said police tried to find Lonergan to arrest him for the plots, but it wasn’t until October 21, 2021 that he attended Walton Lane police station in connection with an unrelated matter and was arrested, before he gave a no comment interview. Lonergan admitted conspiracies to supply cocaine, cannabis, cannabis resin and ketamine.
He pleaded guilty on a basis, accepted by the prosecution, that he regularly sourced 4.5 ounces of cocaine, which he then sold on via his “graft” phone, rather than source or supply multi kilo quantities of that drug. Lonergan also entered his pleas on the basis that while his profits were “signif- icant”, they weren’t “vast”. David Birrell, defending, told the court his “remorseful” client was still a young man, it would be his first prison sentence, and he was assessed by the Probation Service as being a low risk of re-offending. The judge, Recorder Ian Harris, said Lonergan had played a “leading role” in the drug plots. Recorder Harris said he would have sentenced Lonergan to 14 years in prison after a trial. But giving him full credit for his guilty pleas, he reduced this by one third, to nine years and four months. Speaking after the case, Detective Inspector Mike Dalton from Mersey- side Police said: “Our work to find those responsible for supplying Class A and B drugs across Merseyside continues.”
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