Eight men have been charged with drugs offences after police executed search warrants across Scotland, Cheshire and North Wales as part of a major investigation.
Officers executed warrants at 10 addresses on Thursday as part of an 18-month North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (Titan) investigation into alleged conspiracy to supply Class A and B controlled drugs.
The operation was carried out with the support of officers from Police Scotland, Cheshire Police, North Wales Police and the National Crime Agency.
Police said that eight people were each charged with four offences of conspiracy to supply cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis and amphetamine.
The men charged south of the border were Steven Roberts, 39, of Cartrefllfliyd, Cefn Uchaf, Cyfflliog, Ruthin, North Wales, Dale Owen, 39, of Deva Close, Mickle Trafford, Cheshire, Steven McEntee, 32, of Egerton Park, Rock Ferry, Wirral and Gary Jones, 41, of Prentice Road, Rock Ferry, Wirral.
In Scotland the men charged were Scott George McAllister, 44, of Abbotsford Court, Cumbernauld, James McLaughlin, 42, of Hazeldene Park, Kilwinning, James Campbell Clark, 42, of Hazeldene Park, Kilwinning, and Steven Clark, 41, of Castle Avenue, Stevenston.
A ninth man arrested, a 34-year-old man from Rock Ferry, Wirral, was released under investigation.
Police said that Jones and McEntee were remanded in custody and will make their first appearances via video link on Thursday October 19.
The remaining six men were refused bail and will appear at South Sefton Magistrates' Court on Saturday October 14.
The arrest phase follows a day of action on September 12 2017, when warrants were executed at a number of properties across the Wirral, Milton Keynes and Bristol areas.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here