Gang Member Pays £42k Despite £125k Heroin Conspiracy Benefit

A member of an organised crime gang exposed following a former police officer’s arrest has been ordered to pay £42,000 despite benefiting by £125,000 from a £7m heroin conspiracy.

Christopher Heaney, 48, was part of the group brought down when Steven Creasey, 67, from Cardiff, was stopped by police in Scotland on 12 May 2022. Creasey had driven from Cardiff to Liverpool that day before heading to Fife.

A drugs dog discovered a professionally installed hide under the passenger seat of Creasey’s car containing 5kg of heroin and one kilogram of adulterant. A burner phone led to the discovery of other gang members based in Liverpool.

Operation Solon revealed Creasey was a Cardiff-based professional courier engaged by Liverpool OCG heads Christopher Brannan, 38, and Stephen Hopkins, 59, who collected wholesale heroin amounts. This was distributed across the UK by Heaney, Creasey, Kevin Thomson, 45, and Jeffrey Hickson, 61. Brannan laundered profits through his partner Kirsty Murphy’s bank account.

Raids in Cardiff, Liverpool, Scotland and Northumberland in late 2022 uncovered expensive jewellery, heroin, cocaine, adulterants, opium, cannabis and metal moulds for pressing powder into blocks.

Heaney, of Cunzie Street, Anstruther, Fife, was convicted on 6 February 2024 for conspiracy to supply heroin and sentenced to nine years and five months in prison. Creasey was convicted on 17 March 2023 and sentenced to 12 years and seven months.

A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Wednesday heard Heaney benefited £125,876 from his offending but only has assets worth £42,229. Judge Lucy Crowther ordered him to pay that sum within three months or serve an additional 18 months imprisonment in default. ⚖️