A gangland boss who armed organised crime groups around the UK after sending a notorious weapons list on the encrypted platform EncroChat has been brought to justice following a National Crime Agency investigation.
In 2020, NCA officers and colleagues in policing worked relentlessly to protect the public when it was discovered an unidentified British crime boss was advertising a list of military grade weapons to UK crime groups.
The information was discovered in Operation Venetic – the NCA-led response to the takedown of EncroChat by European partners.
An offender using the handle Aceprospect, who was operating from abroad, offered: two AK47 firearms, a Skorpion machine gun, an Uzi machine gun, a range of pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
A series of linked investigations have seen dangerous offenders across the country jailed for conspiring to buy and transfer the weapons.
NCA investigators worked tirelessly to unmask and trace Aceprospect.
And on 12 September last year they joined colleagues from the Spanish National Police to arrest Philip Waugh, 39, at a villa he rented in Benahavis, Malaga. He was extradited last month and remanded to custody.
Today (Friday 11 April), Waugh, from Warrington, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court and admitted a range of firearms offences and a count of conspiring to inflict grievous bodily harm in which he instructed an accomplice to throw acid in a victim’s face.
Waugh smuggled the guns to the UK where his right-hand man Robert Brazendale, 37, took possession of them and provided them to customers from various organised crime groups.
In February 2022, Brazendale, of Selworthy Drive, Warrington, Cheshire, was jailed for 11 years and three months (later reduced to 10 years on appeal) for transferring other firearms from the gun list. Today, he admitted new firearms offences committed with Waugh.
Waugh, who has a previous conviction for domestic assault of a partner, plotted with gangland enforcer Jonathan Gordon, a member of Liverpool’s Deli Mob, to blind a man with acid.
Waugh told Gordon, 37, of Kirkdale, Liverpool, and who used the EncroChat handle Valuedbridge, to “double the dose” and “cook” the intended victim with acid.
“Just need him blind and face melted,” Waugh messaged Gordon.
On the day Gordon was due to carry out the attack, police patrol officers approached him in Liverpool and he ran off and the car was seized and attack prevented.
Brazendale also admitted conspiring to inflict GBH on this victim.
Waugh and Brazendale will return to court for sentencing on 27 June.
The NCA and policing partners recovered two AK47s, Uzi and Skorpion machine guns, a Grand Power automatic pistol, a Smith and Wesson pistol and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Ben Rutter, NCA senior investigating officer, said: “The NCA worked for five years to trace, locate and bring Philip Waugh to justice under Operation Venetic.
“He supplied an array of terrifying automatic and semi-automatic weaponry to offenders who were planning horrific crimes. He didn’t care at all about who might be killed in the process, he only cared about money.
“He is an extremely dangerous offender.
“The NCA will continue to do everything we can with partners at home and abroad to prevent organised crime groups trafficking firearms.”
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