Liverpool drug gang boss used G-Star Raw’s UPS account to smuggle £16m haul to UK
Francis Coggins, 60, was co-leader of the Huyton Firm drug gang and based in the Dutch town of Zandvoort, where he organised the importation of over a tonne of cocaine and heroin into the UK
The co-leader of the Huyton Firm, Francis Coggins, orchestrated the shipment of at least a tonne of class A drugs from Europe to the UK via UPS parcels. Based in the Dutch town of Zandvoort, 60 year old Coggins, who led the organised crime group (OCG) alongside his younger brother Vincent, liaised with international suppliers to purchase class A drugs and ensure their seamless delivery into the UK.
From his residence at The Spinney in Stockbridge Village, Coggins dispatched cocaine and heroin from mainland Europe to North Wales using a “considered and sophisticated system”. The drugs were packaged and placed into parcels with attached UPS waybills.
These packages were sent using legitimate account numbers, primarily for clothing company G-Star Raw, with the waybill indicating that the receiver would cover the shipping costs. The parcels were then addressed to actual homes within the area served by UPS’s Deeside depot in North Wales.
However, a corrupt worker intercepted these parcels and passed the drugs onto couriers for distribution to other UK gangs. In just one year, Francis Coggins imported over a tonne of class A drugs, boasting a minimum wholesale value of over £16m.
However, the criminal enterprise crumbled in June 2020 when nine gang members including Vincent Coggins were nabbed and jailed after law enforcement penetrated the encrypted EncroChat messaging platform, reports the Liverpool Echo.
Francis Coggins stayed on the continent until Dutch police collared him in June this year for being drunk and disorderly. He was shipped back after his identity was uncovered.
Alex Langhorn, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday: “The OCG which were engaged in sourcing, storing and supplying wholesale, multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine and diamorphine, more commonly known as heroin. They sold to people locally on Merseyside, across the country, and up to Scotland.
“Francis Coggins, based in the Netherlands, organised the importation of drugs being supplied by the group…Vincent Coggins, although kept up to date with when importations were due to arrive, was focused on the domestic operation, the supply of cocaine and diamorphine in England and Wales.
“Francis Coggins was also involved in this aspect of the business and negotiated directly, and via others like Paul Fitzsimmons and Edward Robert Jarvis, deals for the supply of cocaine and diamorphine, approving the giving of credit and the prices to be charged.”
Prosecutors revealed the two brothers operated as “equals, each with their own areas of responsibility, albeit those working for them in the United Kingdom, such as Mr Fitzsimmons and Mr Jarvis, appeared to have deferred to Francis Coggins as to the prices that should be charged”.
Messages demonstrated that both Coggins brothers were addressed as “gaffa” or “headmaster” by fellow gang members.
Francis Coggins, operating under the aliases “TallCanine” and “MixedJet” on EncroChat, communicated with his brother, “MoonLitBoat”, to coordinate shipments and discuss other gang associates.
In one exchange the pair branded Jarvis “the weak link”, whilst in another, they questioned Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s killer Thomas Cashman’s request for heroin, with the younger brother remarking: “I like Tom but he shudnt no wot we doing (sic).”
Through the encrypted platform the Coggins operation orchestrated and executed numerous transactions involving massive amounts with other criminal enterprises.
Over a three-month span during spring and early summer 2020, throughout the first Covid lockdown, they distributed approximately 350 kilos.
The gang amassed enormous quantities of cash, with police establishing they accumulated over £880,000 in just a fortnight. However, on 23 May 2020, one of the gang’s hideouts, located on Croxdale Road West in West Derby, was raided and £1m worth of cocaine was nicked.
The court heard that in the days following, “it was Vincent Coggins who took the lead in seeking to identify the culprits and recover the money”, blackmailing and threatening the family he believed were behind the robbery to hand over cash and property.
Mr Langhorn told the court: “Vincent Coggins was the driving force behind the conspiracy to blackmail, and whilst Francis Coggins did not encourage his brother to use violence, nor did he dissuade him from doing what they considered necessary to recover the drugs counselling him on how they might identify those responsible. He was also kept up to date by others about what had occurred and what was known about the robbery.
“It would seem that whilst he wanted to know what was going on he was content to let his brother deal with the issue, not least as in the context of messages being exchanged about new information someone had been able to find on their police records for them Francis Coggins asked his brother, ‘how man more peopled we terrorism there all terrified off you really (sic)’.”
Vincent Coggins and eight other members of the criminal organisation, including Jarvis, financial controller Fitzsimmons, muscle Paul Woodford and narcotics dealer Michael Earle were nabbed in June 2020 during a North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (NWROCU) probe, dubbed Operation SubZero.
All are currently serving substantial jail terms, which could only be disclosed after Jarvis’s conviction following trial in May last year.
Meanwhile Francis Coggins was captured in the Dutch seaside town, near Amsterdam, in early June this year and was extradited back to the UK in August.
Coggins had previously admitted guilt to two charges of conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of controlled class A drugs (heroin and cocaine) between May 2019 and October 2020.
He also confessed to two charges of conspiracy to supply class A drugs (heroin and cocaine) between March and June 2020, and two charges of conspiracy to supply class A drugs (heroin and cocaine) outside the jurisdiction of England and Wales, namely in Scotland, on those same dates.
In mitigation, Sam Blom-Cooper, defending, told the court that his client’s responsibility in the “bleak coastal town” in the Netherlands was the “physical handling of drugs, inspection of drugs, giving customers an idea of the quality of drugs and putting the into the UPS system in the Gibney scheme”. Mr Blom-Cooper argued to the court that his client ranked beneath Vincent Coggins in the criminal organisation’s pecking order.
He stated: “The overall decision maker was Vincent Coggins. Vincent Coggins himself says ‘boss of the Huyton Firm, aren’t I’. If there was a case of joint decision making it is not a comment he would have made. It is clear he is at the pinnacle of the group.”
Mr Blom-Cooper continued: “[Francis Coggins] is physically there, he is exposing himself to a level of risk that Mr Gibney (who organised the North Wales importation plot) and Vincent Coggins did not do. You don’t have Vincent Coggins engaging physically with the drugs in the same way Francis Coggins is…he is there on his own because part of his role is to roll his sleeves up and deal with the drugs physically.”
However, Judge Robert Trevor-Jones told Francis Coggins, who appeared before the court via video link from HMP Manchester, that he rejected the mitigation and ruled his position was at the helm of the crime group alongside his younger brother.
During sentencing, the judge declared: “In conclusion, you were directing or organising the buying and or selling of these drugs on a commercial scale. You had substantial links and influence on others in a chain and you had an expectation of a substantial financial advantage.”
Francis Coggins, donning a grey prison-issue sweatshirt and glasses with greying brown hair, was handed an 18-year prison sentence. The father, backed by a large contingent of his family in court, murmured “thank you” upon hearing his sentence.
Sources previously informed the ECHO that the Huyton Firm liaised with international drug suppliers including the Kinahan OCG and South America’s super cartels. DCI Worthington, the lead investigating officer of Operation SubZero, told the ECHO: “To understand that, I think you have got to look at the quantities they were bringing in.
“I think that’s indicative that they were dealing at source with crime groups abroad to bring drugs in. I think where Francis was based and doing his business, that will be indicative that he’s conducting international business to ensure the drug supplier.”
He added: “We have taken out the heads of the crime group and we’ve taken out some real key, significant players within that group that were well trusted and well organised. I do feel like we have dismantled the group.”
The rest of the gang members were locked up for a combined total exceeding 155 years. Vincent Coggins, 59, from Woodpecker Close in West Derby, received a 28-year sentence after admitting to conspiracy to supply class A drugs and blackmail.
Gibney, from Grenadier Drive, West Derby, operated under the aliases “Hastyshark” and “Lobsterball” on EncroChat whilst orchestrating the North Wales smuggling operation. He received a 21-year prison sentence alongside three accomplices in 2024.
Francis Coggins’ 40 year old son Francis Parker, who went by the EncroChat username “FigZoo”, is still on the run and sought by the NWROCU.
