Jamie Cassidy, who turned into a drug kingpin, could head to prison over a cocaine operation
Ex-Liverpool player Jamie Cassidy faces life in prison over his involvement in a drug operation, Sam Smith reports for Express UK
Jamie Cassidy was once tipped for the Liverpool first-team by ex-Reds youth team-mate Jamie Carragher but now faces life in prison over his involvement in a multi-million-pound drug operation. Cassidy was highly rated by both Liverpool and England staff but saw his chances of a professional career derailed by injuries.
The 46-year-old has admitted his role in an operation that transported industrial amounts of cocaine from South America into Europe. A group was led by Jamie’s older brother, Jonathan, 50.
They were found to have transported hundreds of kilograms of drugs into Liverpool. Consignments were disguised in modified vehicles and came via Amsterdam from Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Bolivia.
Once the cocaine had arrived in Liverpool, Jamie would liaise with several trusted couriers to transport it around England and Scotland. Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said Cassidy played an operational and managerial role in the cocaine importation business run by his brother and Jonathan’s business partner Nasar Ahmed, 51.
In six weeks from April to May 2020, just months before their arrests, the Cassidy brothers organized deals that brought drugs worth more than £ 28 million to the UK. They laundered their money through a property business.
The company invested the money by buying several sites in Liverpool, including a former cinema. However, detectives in France collapsed the operation by busting the group’s encrypted communications system, EncroChat. Subsequently, thousands of criminals were exposed.
Prosecutors believe they could only uncover a brief glimpse of the operation, which they suspect may have been running for years.
“The devices were used to arrange the purchase, importation, sale, and distribution of multi-kilo quantities across the north of England. The linked conspiracy to transfer criminal property relates to the movement of close to £10m in cash in three months.”
Following the EncroChat bust, Jonathan fled to Dubai and regularly monitored news stories about criminals who had been caught and jailed. He returned to the UK in October 2020 with a false sense of security and was arrested at Manchester Airport. Jamie was subsequently detained a month later.
Cassidy was once one of England’s brightest football talents. He was a regular scorer in Liverpool and England’s youth teams. In his autobiography, iconic former Reds defender Carragher wrote that Cassidy “would have been a certain Liverpool regular if he hadn’t suffered so much with injuries.”
Cassidy won the 1995-96 FA Youth Cup with a team that included Carragher and Michael Owen. They beat a West Ham side that included Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand. After struggling with injuries, Cassidy was released by Liverpool aged 21 in 1999 and joined Cambridge before falling into non-league.
