Brothers waged vicious underworld war as their debt spiralled out of control

A drug kingpin and his debt-ridden brother plotted to have their rivals killed during a vicious underworld war.

Alan and John Tobin saw their drug empire demolished when police intercepted a van carrying £20m of cocaine on the M6.

The loss of a the 90% pure consignment led to John being shot over debts he owed to a mysterious accountant.

According to the ECHO the brothers had supplied hundreds of kilos of narcotics to notorious gangs across the UK and EncroChat messages showed older brother Alan was also left feeling the pressure.

Desperate drug lord Alan helped hatch a brutal plot to have a father and son shot on their doorsteps - by gunmen disguised as pizza delivery drivers. And he conspired with an alleged gangland boss to get another enemy "carved up" in prison.

For the first time, the ECHO was able to publish secret conversations that exposed how Alan Tobin went from dreaming of making millions to finding himself in a conflict involving some of the North West's biggest gangland figures.

Alan and John Tobin led a "sophisticated, highly profitable and well-organised business" on a national scale. But the duo didn't run a legitimate firm - they supplied vast amounts of cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis to gangs in England, Wales and Scotland.

Older brother Alan, 52, had risen from humble beginnings as a forklift truck driver, Liverpool Fruit Market worker and Royal Mail sorting office employee to become a respected mental health nurse, based at Rathbone mental health hospital's low secure unit.

Living in affluent estate Regency Park in Widnes, the dad-of-five married beautician Helen Hartley, 35, aka Ellie Tobin, at Lake Garda in Italy, followed by a two-week £10,000 honeymoon.

However, the veneer of