AWAY from the hushed silence and relative calm on the snooker tables at the World Championships there are fears a brutal gang war is breaking out just a stone’s throw from the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
It comes after Benjamin ‘Benji’ Ramsey was shot multiple times on Easter Sunday – the latest victim, it is claimed, in a brutal drugs feud.
He’s now out of hospital after being put under armed guard but police fear there could be reprisals and more bloodshed.
The Daily Star Sunday can reveal ruthless gangs in Sheffield are at war over the lucrative cocaine and cannabis trade.
Albanian gangsters control the multi-million pound industry but attempts to muscle in have sparked bloody reprisals.
Underworld sources the shooting of Benji – he was blasted three times in the legs – was a targeted gangland attack.Days earlier it is claimed one of his family members house was firebombed.
Ramsey survived and was on a 24-hour police watch in hospital.South Yorkshire Police are hunting Albanian Zak Khalifa over the shooting and issued a wanted plea.
But there is concern that more violent robberies and tit-for-tat shootings could hit the city hosting the World Snooker Championship in the coming weeks.An underworld source said: “There’s going to be more bloodshed and there’s some big people involved.”
Sources say there has been a long running feud between local and Albanian gangs.In December 2023, Benji’s cousins Lester Ramsey and Leon Waite were part of an armed gang who tried to rob an Albanian-run cannabis farm.
It’s believed there was a standoff with weapons and the gang fled.Sitting in his car with his brother near the crop house was 19-year-old Slovakian dad-of-two Kevin Pokuta.
One of the gang, Jake Brown, mistook him for someone else – believed to be an Albanian linked to the cannabis farm – and rode up on an e-bike and shot him dead.Brown, then 23, was jailed for 36 years for the murder and Ramsey and Leon Waite for four years each for conspiracy to commit robbery.
After another fatal attack, another cousin – Noel Ramsey – was jailed for manslaughter for stabbing Fahim Hersi, 22, to death in a fight outside a cinema in December 2018.
The feud simmered but in October, a 32-year-old man believed to a gang member was shot dead after a house was shot at.South Yorkshire Police Superintendent Martin Simcock said on the Easter Sunday shooting: “We will not tolerate firearms crime in our communities, but we need the help of our communities to stamp it out.“This was a disgusting attack that could have led to another senseless death.”
The Daily Star Sunday understands Somali gangs are also vying for territory of the drugs trade in Sheffield.
After a rival gang was jailed for the murder of Somali dealer Abdullah Hassan in January, South Yorkshire Police’s Det Ch Insp Andy
Knowles said “Gun crime and drugs are inseparably linked, with disputes over supply, territory, and profit often spiralling into violence, and in this case, murder.
“This dangerous connection does not only affect those directly involved, it creates volatile situations where innocent people can tragically be caught in the crossfire.”