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  "path": "/news/blackpool-news-drug-gang-dressed-police-officers-cannabis",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-04T04:16:25.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "'Confident fraudster' jailed after using 'superficial charm' to steal more than £800k",
    "Multiple people injured and knifeman arrested next to school as police and air",
    "Winston Churchill statue restored to former glory after being defaced with pro-Gaza graffiti",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\nA drug gang in Lancashire grinned and posed for photos in police uniform to raid cannabis farms.\n\nLancashire Police said it found the photos as they raided the Blackpool headquarters of the \"Ozone\" Organised Crime Group (OCG), who operated an \"Amazon-style\" drug warehouse and distribution operation.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nA December 2024 search conducted by police of their phones showed OGC members Marc Kirkwood and Cole Muir wearing police jackets, and posing for photos.\n\nThe gang would don police uniforms in order to burgle other cannabis farms.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\nThe nine-strong gang, who were jailed for their crimes last week, used Telegram to advertise drugs, before using WhatsApp to complete the sale.\n\nThe gang even threatened to firebomb a woman's house as they stormed in and demanded \"where the weed was\" in March 2024.\n\nKirkwood and two other men arrived to the victim's home at Poulton-Le-Fylde wearing face coverings and gloves and wielding a machete-style knife and a baseball bat.\n\nThey were told to do so by leader of the gang, 33-year-old Joshua Shaw.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThe woman, with her children upstairs, was told the gang was looking for a box with a tracker that was showing her address.\n\nLancashire Police said it found an open cardboard box which contained polystyrene and empty plastic bags in the victim's front garden addressed to a different woman in Blackpool from a man in the United States.\n\nThe box, which did have a tracker tag inside, had been disposed of by the woman's partner as a favour to a friend and was labelled to contain a \"coffee table and stools\", the court heard.\n\nThe gang has now been slapped with sentences as high as 15 years behind bars for crimes including blackmail, conspiracy to supply and produce cannabis, and conspiracy to commit burglary.\n\n### LATEST CRIME NEWS:\n\n\n\n\n  * 'Confident fraudster' jailed after using 'superficial charm' to steal more than £800k\n  * Multiple people injured and knifeman arrested next to school as police and air\n  * Winston Churchill statue restored to former glory after being defaced with pro-Gaza graffiti\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nLancashire Police executed a warrant to an address on Whitegate Drive where officers found the \"Amazon-style\" warehouse where the criminals sent out \"a vast amount of cannabis\".\n\nInside the warehouse was space for storage, producing, packaging, and preparing the supply of \"multiple types\" of cannabis and cannabis products.\n\nWhen searching phones seized by the gang, the police found messages which included delivery routes and addresses.\n\nThe messages were used to identify other members of the gang, including Joseph Adams, 34, John Card-Mina, 41, Joseph Oakley, 33, and Craig Quinn, 50.\n\nAfter being charged, Shaw was remanded to HMP Liverpool where he continued to communicate with the gang through a mobile phone found in his cell.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nShaw, the leader of the drug-dealing gang - of no fixed abode - was sentenced to 15 years in jail after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis and importation of cannabis, and was also found guilty of blackmail.\n\nKirkwood, 29, was found guilty of assisting an organised crime group and blackmail following a trial and pleaded guilty to further charges of conspiracy to supply and produce drugs, as well as conspiracy to commit burglary.\n\nHe was sentenced for a total of eight years and six months in jail.\n\nMuir, 27, was sentenced to 42 weeks behind bars after he pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis and conspiracy to commit burglary.\n\nSix other men were sentenced, four of whom received suspended prison sentences.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards:The GB News Editorial Charter **",
  "title": "Grinning drug gang dressed up as police officers to raid cannabis farms"
}