Two Maltese brothers, 53-year-old Carmelo Anthony Abela and 42-year-old Gino Abela, have been sentenced by the British courts over their involvement, along with three others, in the UK’s largest ever cannabis prosecution case, which saw the importation of 20,000 kilos of cannabis worth £80 million.
It is not entirely clear if the two brothers, who live respectively in Tameside and Manchester, are of Maltese descent or if they are Maltese emigrants to the UK. But one thing is for certain: the pair used the cash they made to pay for properties in Malta, as well as houses in Greater Manchester, expensive executive cars and a catering business.
The British police now hope to claw some of this money back and have identified financial assets of the defendants which they want to strip from them under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
On Friday, Carmelo Abela was sentenced to 12 and six years imprisonment for two counts of conspiracy to supply a Class B drug to be served concurrently, while his brother Gino Abela was sentenced to nine and five years to be served concurrently. The Abela brothers were linked to a fake transport company used to transport the cannabis.
The operation was one for the biggest cannabis smuggling operations in UK history. The drugs gang smuggled 20 tonnes of what is a Class B drug in the UK, valued to more than £80 million, stored under piles of frozen meat.
The operation was uncovered in December 2011, when police seized around 50 kilos of cannabis, worth £422,450, from a vehicle on the M67 and raided an address in Manchester linked to the gang.
In the police investigation that followed, dubbed Operation Bizarre, officers discovered commercial premises in Manchester from where the cannabis was supplied.
The trail led them to a cold-storage company in County Durham where a 1.8 tonne shipment of cannabis, valued at nearly £7.2million was discovered at the cold store hidden in a load of frozen meat.
Detectives at Greater Manchester Police launched a surveillance operation and arrested the gang members.
Further investigations by West Yorkshire Police led officers to identify 13 previous shipments that could have contained as much as 20 tonnes of cannabis with an estimated street value of more than £80 million.
Police said the convictions came after a two-year investigation, which involved DNA analysis and painstaking work to create an “overwhelming amount of evidence against the defendants”. Four men from Bradford and a man from Milton Keynes have already been sentenced for their part in the large-scale cannabis ring.
Temporary Detective Inspector Phil Little, of West Yorkshire's Crime Division, said, “This was a long and complex investigation with officers conducting inquiries throughout the UK and Holland in order to gather the evidence necessary to show the full extent of the defendants' criminality.
“These men were involved in the distribution and supply of million of pounds worth of cannabis and the action taken has made sure that a significant amount of the Class B drug will not be sold on the streets of north England. The judge said this was the largest ever prosecution for cannabis supply in the UK.
“In addition to the lengthy custodial sentences which these individuals now face, we are also making sure their crimes will not pay by stripping them of the profits and assets of their offending under the Proceeds of Crime Act.”