How an arms cache plot by Thomas Kavanagh mirrors a con by John Haase

The arms cache plot masterminded by Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh mirrors a notorious con by another career criminal which took in a judge and even then Home Secretary Michael Howard.

Liverpool gangster John Haase was a notorious underworld figure who graduated from armed robbery to orchestrating an international heroin racket which smuggled kilos of the class A drug from Turkey.

But after his plot was dismantled in 1995, Haase appeared to turn supergrass, becoming a high level informant for police and customs officials.

While awaiting sentence for the heroin offences, Haase and Paul Bennett – his nephew and key henchman – began to feed their handlers details of an ‘awesome array’ of guns, explosives, ammunition and drugs.

Police accordingly found 150 handguns, rifles, machine guns, grenades and even blocks of heroin stashed in unoccupied flats and abandoned vehicles across the country.

Liverpool gangster John Haase (above) was a notorious underworld figure who graduated from armed robbery to orchestrating an international heroin racket which smuggled kilos of the class A drug from Turkey

Police mugshot of John Haase from 1999

Weapons recovered after a tip off from drug baron John Haase and his nephew Paul Bennett in the 1990s

Some of the arsenal was thought to be linked to the Provisional IRA – at the time still waging its terror campaign on mainland UK.

Only years later would it emerge that all the weapons were in reality planted by the pair’s criminal associates as part of a conspiracy arranged via smuggled mobile phones.

Both men were initially jailed for 18 years over the drug racket – but in 1996 the very judge who had locked them up secretly wrote to the then Home Secretary, now Lord Howard, recommending the granting of Royal Prerogatives of Mercy.

He agreed, and their sentences were slashed to five years – which meant that after time served on remand had been taken into account, they were free 11 months later.

The pair were expected to be granted new identities to live under witness protection in South America.

Instead Haase returned to Liverpool and went on to form his own security company – but his pledge to go straight proved hopelessly optimistic.

In 1999 he was arrested for drug trafficking and later sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Thomas Kavanagh who has been jailed over a multimillion-pound drug smuggling operation bringing cocaine and cannabis, hidden inside items of machinery, into the UK and which was uncovered following an investigation by the NCA

Kavanagh lived with his family in a lavish fortified mansion, complete with reinforced doors and bulletproof glass, in Tamworth, Staffordshire, from where he ran his criminal empire

Kavanagh (pictured during his arrest) was a key member of the global Kinahan drugs organisation that reaches out from Ireland and the UK to Dubai and with links to deadly cartels in South America

The National Crime Agency uncovered an elaborate plot to acquire firearms and ammunition to help the head of an organised crime group get a reduced prison sentence

Some of the guns which were uncovered as part of the National Crime Agency investigation

In 2004, a Liverpool MP, Peter Kilfoyle, visited Haase in prison and persuaded him to make a sworn statement in which he admitted planting the guns.

After a trial in 2008, both he and Bennett were convicted of perverting the course of justice in what a different judge branded a ‘unique and sophisticated’ plot.

Haase was jailed for 22 years while Bennett – who had been extradited from Portugal – got 20 years.

Finally freed in 2019, Haase – now 74 – was later recalled to prison to serve the remainder of the sentence after torching a house in Sheffield over an unpaid debt.

Earlier this year he was given an additional nine years after being found guilty of arson.

He will now remain behind bars until 2030.