'Festive Ape' unmasked as cocaine dealer with £9m gang after 'nightmare' arrest

A cocaine dealer who worked with a organised crime gang which laundered £9 million in dirty money in just three months has been locked up for almost a decade. Nathan Powell, 31, was unmasked as the man operating the EncroChat handle 'Festive Ape' when law enforcement were able to hack in to the previously untraceable messaging network.

He was linked to drugs boss Leon Atkinson, a friend of cop killer Dale Cregan who was found to have prison letters from the murderer when police raided his home. Powell, from Openshaw, and another man, 37-year-old Adam Marsden, acted as 'distributors' below 'regional' cocaine supplier Atkinson.

Atkinson, 44, was linked to at least 28 kilos of cocaine. Marsden was linked to 12 kilos and Powell to 13 kilos. Atkinson took on 13 kilos of the 30 kilos robbed in an underworld heist at the stashhouse of a notorious Liverpool gang.

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After the Cox crime family struck in Merseyside, Powell picked up the drugs on Atkinson's behalf in a handover near Manchester City's training ground. Two other men acted as couriers for the outfit. 'Hard up' Rochdale taxi driver Romiz Ahmed laundered nearly £2 million for crime bosses, and Abdul Ghafar, 46, was linked to almost £6.5 million.

"In the period covered by the indictment, Mr Atkinson, Mr Ghafar, Mr Marsden and Mr Powell were part of a network of organised criminals and crime groups involved in the supply of substantial quantities of class A controlled drugs, in particular cocaine," prosecutor Richard Wright QC said earlier this week.

"Those involved in the conspiracy to transfer criminal property