Steven Nicholls had a running balance of £1.3m while selling cocaine but it was his revenge plot against a teenage girl which led to
Drug boss Steven Nicholls arranged for a family’s home to be set on fire
A millionaire drug dealer’s EncroChat messages revealed his plans to “melt” the house of a teenage girl he thought had robbed his niece at knifepoint. Steven Nicholls, aka EncroChat user CubRing, had a running balance of £1.3m while selling “industrial amounts of cocaine”.
Messages he never thought would see the light of day revealed the dad-of-five was selling “industrial amounts of cocaine” and heroin. As well as the hefty running balance, they showed him boasting about buying his partner a £106,000 diamond watch for Christmas.
In one conversation, Nicholls, of Ibbotsons Lane, within spitting distance of Aigburth‘s Sefton Park, claimed: “Lad I just want few mil then am done.” But he also organised two “revenge” arson attacks at the home of a child who he believed carried out a “knifepoint robbery” against his niece.
Nicholls had previously been a member of a massive drugs conspiracy which used dozens of mobile phones to avoid detection. When police eventually carried out a series of raids against the gang, 40kg of heroin and cocaine and £1m in cash was seized.
Nicholls’ lost everything when police ordered him to repay his criminal profits and as soon as he was released he immediately returned to crime to try and earn back his lost fortune. But following the collapse of EncroChat investigators were handed undeniable evidence of his involvement in some of the most serious offences imaginable.
Steven Nicholls sent a picture of the £106,000 diamond watch he said he was going to buy his partner for Christmas(Image: Liverpool Echo)
As part of a weekly series looking back at Merseyside’s criminal history, the ECHO has taken a closer look at Nicholls’ longstanding involvement in illicit activities.
Nicholls previously made more than £2m flogging cocaine and heroin across the UK as part of a “dirty” and “evil” business. Unemployed and on incapacity benefit, he jetted off to the Caribbean, drove luxury cars and loved collecting designer watches.
He even directed a “well heeled” drug conspiracy from a five star hotel in Aruba – before the long arm of the law intervened. In 2012, a court heard Nicholls was part of a north Liverpool gang who spent a fortune on expensive cars, watches, hot tubs and houses.
The network unravelled when police made some huge seizures as part of an investigation codenamed Operation Webber. Over the course of nearly a dozen raids on the gang, officers recovered a loaded semi-automatic pistol with a silencer, 27kg of heroin, 14.6kg of cocaine, 2kg of cannabis, 2kg of amphetamine, 622kg of adulterants for “bashing” the drugs, luxury watches valued at £191,000 and £970,000 in cash.
Before the rise of EncroChat, that gang had used dozens of “burner” mobile phones in a bid to avoid detection by the authorities. One senior member was seen driving as many as 24 different luxury cars in an 18-month period to try and outfox detectives who were tailing him. Surveillance began in late 2010 when that man was seen making trips to Malaga and Amsterdam and later to Geneva with various associates.
One of the gang’s top “lieutenants” was said to be then 32-year-old Nicholls. Nicholls had paid a £40,000 deposit on his four-bedroom house in Uppingham Avenue, Aintree, with profits from his drug dealing and even while in prison continued to pay the £1,107 mortgage in cash.
Liverpool drug dealer Steven Nicholls
Police recovered almost £300,000 in cash from a safe in his house along with 10 luxury watches valued at more than £144,000 and a drugs “tick list” used to keep records of his business. Together with his girlfriend, he enjoyed holidays in the Maldives, at five star hotels in New York and the Caribbean, and paid for cosmetic dentistry and designer clothes.
Nicholls was eventually jailed for seven and a half years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and prevented from leaving the country until six years after his release. His then partner was convicted of money laundering and also received a prison term.
A proceeds of crime hearing ordered Nicholls to repay £200,000 of profits or face more time behind bars. His Aintree home and collection of luxury watches were also seized.
Following Nicholls’ release from prison he returned almost immediately to a life of crime. Adopting the perceived mask of an EncroChat phone, Nicholls dealt with the importers of drugs as he led a 116kg cocaine and heroin plot.
He directed “lieutenant” Dean Deary, who went by the handle “RecoveryMan” – a nod to the recovery business he used as a “cover” for their illicit trade. The business was so successful the gang spoke about hiding their cash under floorboards and in wall cavities. Speaking of his plans for the business, he told one EncroChat user on April 6, 2020: “Lad I just want few mil then am done.”
When EncroChat was hacked by European authorities, investigators were handed evidence that huge amounts of money had been hidden at a safehouse in Everton, where they recovered more than £500,000 in dirty cash hidden under floorboards.
A prosecutor later told Liverpool Crown Court that Nicholls was operating at “the highest level” and enjoyed “rewards” consistent with this “vast” operation.
Photos shared between Steven Nicholls and Dean Deary’s gang of the cash they were making dealing cocaine and heroin(Image: Liverpool Echo)
But Nicholls’ criminality took an even darker turn with a revenge plan plotted out on EncroChat. Messages to Encro users “YNWA-LFC” and “BrutalWhale” showed how he would “melt” the house of a “scruffy little c***”. Liverpool Crown Court would later hear how a “number of males” went to a house in Old Swan on April 26, 2020.
Henry Riding, prosecuting, said: “They smashed the front windows, banged on the front door and shouted ‘give us the bike back’, while threatening one or more of the occupants that if the bike wasn’t returned within the hour, they would ‘cut your ears off’.”
Mr Riding said they also threatened to burn down the house, but when police were called, the woman at the address “declined to endorse a note made in a police officer’s notebook”.
Photos shared between Steven Nicholls and Dean Deary’s gang of the cash they were making dealing cocaine and heroin(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Mr Riding said it was clear from the chat that Nichols and YNWA-LFC were “aware of, if not also involved in” the incident at the house and knew it had been reported to the police.
Mr Riding said: “Fearful that the occupants or the police might have made the connection between him and the incident, YNWA-LFC instructed the defendant not to burn the house down forthwith, but instead to ‘leave it a few months’ and to ‘jib it for now’.”
Later that day, Nicholls provided both a description and photo of the alleged robber, during a chat when he said: “She is only 15 lad. Mate I’m gonna melt the house this week. Tramps lad.”
The following month Nicholls asked another EncroChat user, “SandEgg”, “send me that address again lad”, who replied with the house number. At around 11.15pm on May 25 the first arson attack took place, when an accelerant was poured over the front window in a fire that caused “minor damage”.
Dean Deary(Image: Merseyside Police)
On May 31, just before midnight, Mr Riding said petrol was poured through the letterbox at the house and damage was caused to the front of the property.
Mr Riding said there were no witnesses to either attack and no evidence as to whether anyone was home at the time. However, he said Nicholls was “apparently eager to burn somebody’s house down, as he put it, to ‘melt’ the house down”.
Judge Robert Trevor-Jones jailed Nicholls for 14 years and eight months for his drug and money laundering offences. It was estimated his conspiracy was estimated to involve 112kg of cocaine and 4.5kg of heroin.
Turning to the arson charge, the judge said: “You were persistent in your attempts to set fire to the house concerned.” He said Nicholls wanted to “melt” the house down, and whether or not the occupants were present, there was a considerable risk to those in adjoining properties, some of whom “certainly” were at home.
The judge added an extra two years onto Nicholls’ sentence bringing his total prison term to 16 years and eight months.
Deary, of Pinehurst Avenue in Anfield, was jailed for 12 years and eight months.