The English Soccer Prodigy Who Became a Cocaine Conspirator

He seemed within the dock at Manchester Crown Court like a familiar-looking stranger, a shiny reminiscence from previous.

Jamie Cassidy had as soon as been one of the promising younger footballers at Liverpool, England’s maximum a hit membership, a participant deemed just right sufficient to coach along with his nationwide workforce forward of the 1996 European Championship.

Today, Cassidy was once jailed for 13 years and 3 months for his section in a conspiracy involving South American drug cartels that noticed 356kg (784lb) of cocaine with an estimated side road price of £28million ($35.8m) flood towns throughout northern England.

Cassidy, now 46, didn’t have a “pivotal” position like his 50-year-old brother, Jonathan, who won 21 years and 9 months, nevertheless it was once nonetheless “significant”, in step with the pass judgement on, Sir Ian Dove.

Jamie’s process was once to “ensure things ran smoothly” as soon as the medication arrived in Liverpool from the Netherlands, hidden in changed automobiles. He acted upon instruction, being paid a salary for his “managerial” enter, which concerned taking good care of collections and deliveries that amounted to round 150kg of the drug.

Huge income had been laundered each month however the Cassidys’ operation was once stopped after the EncroChat messaging provider, as soon as the most well liked device of verbal exchange within the prison group, was once intercepted through French government.

Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed, 51, pleaded to blame final month to conspiracy to import and provide magnificence A medicine and to launder cash, whilst Jamie admitted to provide and laundering. Like Jonathan, Ahmed won 21 years and 9 months.

Having been hung on remand since November 2020, former footballer Cassidy had greater than 3 years to imagine his long run.

It would possibly give an explanation for why on Wednesday, as he emerged from the stairs that led from the cells in Manchester Crown Court, he gave the impression at ease and targeted, as the dimensions of the fees towards him had been laid naked in a felony environment for the primary time.

In his final notes, the pass judgement on recommended “it seemed likely” that Jamie have been drawn through his brother right into a “business” that was once additionally described as “sophisticated”.

Each of the offenders will serve half of in their sentence prior to being launched on licence.

Across a listening to that stretched over two days, there was once just a transient point out of Cassidy’s lifestyles as a footballer whose ability was once so huge that his identify every so often seems in the similar sentences as true Liverpool greats.

In 1994, two summers prior to Cassidy covered up with long run internationals Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher within the Liverpool Under-18s workforce that received the FA Youth Cup through beating a West Ham United aspect that featured Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, he performed for England as they reached the quarter-finals of Under-16 European Championship within the Republic of Ireland.

As a centre-forward, the regard through which he was once held was once mirrored through the truth he was once given the No 10 blouse in that England squad whilst Emile Heskey, who six years later would sign up for Liverpool from Leicester City for a document £11million price, needed to make do with No 12.

Carragher become a mythical determine at Liverpool, making 737 appearances, 2d at the membership’s all-time checklist in the back of Ian Callaghan’s 857. Yet when it got here to England junior variety, Cassidy was once known as up forward of him and David Thompson, who later featured in 56 Liverpool first-team video games prior to fruitful spells within the midfields of Coventry City and Blackburn Rovers.

Thompson got here from Birkenhead, which is separated from Liverpool through the River Mersey. In the early Nineties, Cassidy and Carragher, born in the similar faculty yr, had been thought to be the most efficient two younger gamers within the town for his or her age crew.

While Carragher got here from Bootle and went to Savio Salesian College, representing Sefton Boys, Cassidy performed for Liverpool Boys having attended the Alsop complete the place long run Liverpool supervisor Gerard Houllier taught when he lived within the town within the past due Nineteen Sixties and early ’70s.

Cassidy’s house turf was once Walton and the warren of streets close to City Road, as regards to Everton’s Goodison Park stadium, which become notorious in 1993 as a result of its proximity to the previous railway line the place two-year-old James Bulger was once murdered through two 10-year-old boys.

Much of the reporting that adopted painted an unremittingly bleak image of the world and an “urchin” tradition the place kids roamed freely after darkish, inflicting havoc. There was once little consideration or sympathy given to a district that have been when compared, in a paper printed through the European Union, to one of the crucial poorest portions of southern Italy and the previous East Germany.

Before he joined Liverpool, Cassidy performed for a Sunday league workforce affiliated with a pub known as The Pacific. This introduced him into touch with Carragher for the primary time, as a result of he was once signed to some other workforce in the similar league, Merton Villa. Other younger boys from The Pacific, reminiscent of Jon Murphy, Ged Hennigan and Dominic Morley, would make it into the adolescence programs of Liverpool and Everton. Yet Cassidy went the furthest.

In his early years with Liverpool, he performed up entrance with Carragher. The pair had been so just right that the coaches at Liverpool allowed them to play two years above their age crew, although they knew they weren’t somewhat bodily sturdy sufficient. This intended that, every so often, one would substitute the opposite at half-time.

To his circle of relatives, Carragher continues to be “James”. He is simplest referred to as “Jamie” to the broader global as a result of Steve Heighway, Liverpool’s academy director, began relating to him and Cassidy as “the two Jamies” after they had been each decided on for Lilleshall, the FA’s residential School of Excellence within the Midlands.

Upon returning to Merseyside from a talk over with to Lilleshall in 1995, Heighway wrote in his Liverpool match-day programme column, “Both boys are super players.”

David Thompson, Jamie Cassidy, Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher, Liverpool 1996 @Carra23 pic.twitter.com/CmHI8RTIaF

— Angies Liverpool (@angiesliverpool) April 15, 2020

Cassidy was once additionally ‘Cass’, a participant team-mates sought after on their aspect as a result of his refined management qualities. His presence supplied reassurance as a result of his consistency and his adulthood. Some regarded as much as him, now not simplest as a result of his ability but in addition as a result of his get dressed sense.

His soccer friends from the time – all of whom spoke to The Athletic on situation of anonymity because of the severity and scale of his prison case – describe Cassidy as an “elegant” footballer, with a shot as ferocious as his tackles. If a problem was once there to be received, he relished it. In conversations, comparisons are made with Steven Gerrard, then 3 years his junior, and now one of the most biggest gamers in Liverpool’s historical past.

While he was once just right within the air and an ready runner, Cassidy was once additionally left-footed, which gave him an added grace. Those who watched the adolescence groups at the moment describe a footballer who had all of it — one just right sufficient to be invited to coach with England’s senior squad, below Terry Venables, within the build-up to Euro 96.

The Liverpool workforce who received that FA Youth Cup is described through Carragher in his autobiography as a gaggle of “scallies”, now not essentially prime on ability however filled with need. Cassidy fitted proper in, albeit taking part in at the left of midfield. That luck was once well timed for Liverpool for the reason that first workforce was once below fireplace because of their efficiency in an FA Cup ultimate defeat to arch-rivals Manchester United. Over the months that adopted, Cassidy, Carragher, Owen and Thompson all were given extra publicity to senior coaching. Their performances had been rewarded with new contracts, emerging from £250 to £750 per week.

Jamie Cassidy at an England coaching consultation with Terry Venables

In December 1996, elderly 18, Cassidy was once given a squad quantity (22) and was once decided on at the bench for first-team sport at Anfield towards Sheffield Wednesday. Though he didn’t get on that day as Liverpool misplaced, 1-0, he was once getting nearer to a first-team debut.

Some of the coaches at Liverpool known that he was once other to Carragher and Thompson, who had been obsessives. Carragher would deal with coaching classes like they had been full-scale video games and Thompson would inform senior figures within the squad that he was once coming to take their position. Cassidy may well be competitive at the pitch however his another way calm manner ended in questions over his frame language.

Did he care sufficient? His team-mates idea so. This was once evidenced when he flew right into a take on all through a reserve sport now not lengthy after snapping his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). A leg destroy intended he spent 18 months out in general, with the ones accidents having an have an effect on on 3 seasons, simply on the level his friends had been breaking into the primary workforce and organising themselves.

There was once some trust that this era brought about him to lose a backyard of tempo, in particular harmful as soccer on the best possible degree was once changing into extra about physicality, particularly in midfield. One individual with an figuring out of Cassidy’s place describes him as being “really, really unlucky”.

After some other lengthy length out, team-mates would stare at Cassidy’s legs at Melwood, the membership’s former coaching flooring. Above specialist shin pads, which seemed like they had been shatterproof, it gave the impression as even though one among his knees had doubled in dimension.

Owen become an international famous person as a result of his performances with England on the World Cup in 1998, and through the summer season of 1999 he had represented Liverpool 86 instances.

Carragher, in the meantime, had made it to 70 appearances, and Thompson had 25. Gerrard had additionally emerged from the adolescence ranks, taking part in in 13 video games within the 1998-99 season.

Following a succession of setbacks and operations, Cassidy, elderly 20, was once nonetheless looking forward to his first-team debut. All of this was once taking part in out towards a backdrop of huge cultural trade at Liverpool instigated through supervisor Houllier, who was once using extra skilled requirements. That shift in the end led to a couple gamers, irrespective of earlier standing, shifting on.

According to directors on the membership, main academy figures regarded as Cassidy to be an enormous ability, even though he was once by no means somewhat in the similar bracket as Owen and Carragher. These assets have advised The Athletic that they can not bear in mind him inflicting any issues for the coaches, pointing simplest against accidents as a reason why he sooner or later left.

There was once surprise, on the other hand, when he signed for Cambridge United, just about 200 miles away, in 1999. Cambridge had been preventing to stick within the 3rd tier of English soccer; many at Liverpool believed Cassidy will have made a recent get started at a better degree, incomes first rate cash, for instance, in Division One (now the Championship — England’s 2d tier).

Cassidy at Cambridge United (PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo)

Quickly, Cassidy misplaced contact with the gamers at Liverpool with whom he’d spent his teenage years. Most of the band of brothers who had received the FA Youth Cup in 1996 had much less in commonplace, and whilst some fell into the non-League device at golf equipment reminiscent of Barrow, Droylsden and Vauxhall Motors, others become related to the sport’s newbie scene in Liverpool.

Having entered a dating with a girl, Cassidy slipped off the radar solely. Some questioned whether or not he was once too embarrassed or proud to check out to paintings his long ago up the soccer ladder, given how extremely rated he have been.

If he misplaced his love for the sport, he didn’t display it at Cambridge, however he made little influence on a dressing room ruled through senior execs.

He stood out basically as a result of he was once a Scouser, a long way clear of house. Though it was once obtrusive in coaching classes he was once technically superb, he may just now not emulate team-mates reminiscent of Trevor Benjamin and Martin Butler, who would each signal for golf equipment upper up the meals chain in Leicester City and Reading.

In a season when Cambridge completed two puts and 4 issues above the relegation zone, Cassidy began simply 4 league video games, with some other 4 appearances from the bench.

He didn’t strike one among Cambridge’s maximum senior gamers on the membership as a foul lad. “Quite the opposite, I liked him — a really nice kid,” he mentioned.

Nonetheless, he endured, he gave the impression the kind of participant “that might need a rocket up his a**e now and then”.

Cassidy’s occupation was once over by the point he was once 23. After transient spells at non-League facets Cambridge City and Northwich Victoria, he reappeared at Burscough, a sixth-tier membership in west Lancashire, 18 miles north of Liverpool, partway thru pre-season in the summertime of 2001.

A tournament programme on the finish of the following marketing campaign suggests he made simply 5 appearances for the membership, with 3 of them begins.

Money was once tight at Burscough, and gamers had been paid small sums, money in hand. Yet the membership had been growing a name as a spot the place gamers may just trampoline into the pro ranks, because of the executive John Davison, who labored as a schoolteacher, and his assistant, Peter King, who got here from Liverpool and had a powerful grip on an area soccer panorama the place Burscough would possibly naturally recruit.

Those who flourished at Burscough tended to be strikers, reminiscent of Michael Yates (who went to Dundee within the Scottish Premier League), Ryan Lowe (Shrewsbury Town), Robbie Talbot (Morecambe) and Lee McEvilly (Rochdale).

Cassidy, on the other hand, by no means actually were given going. One participant thinks he arrived sporting a again damage. Had he been extra established on the membership, perhaps he would had been despatched to a consultant however he believes Burscough didn’t have the way to regard him.

After one coaching consultation, Cassidy appeared to disappear for some time. His absence was once by no means defined. Though he returned to the squad, his keep on the membership was once in the end transient. Even even though he did play, some team-mates had to be reminded of the knowledge to turn out it — he slightly made an influence.

Elsewhere, Carragher and Owen had been now Champions League gamers, having received their first trophies at Liverpool, lifting the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup (these days’s Europa League) within the 2000-01 season. Cassidy, on the other hand, pale out of sight and thoughts.

Michael Owen with the 2000-01 FA Cup (Tony Marshall/EMPICS by means of Getty Images)

It is assumed Cassidy grew to become to the construction industry, the place he labored along with his father.

When he was once arrested in 2020, a month after his brother Jonathan was once apprehended after touchdown at Manchester Airport following a flight from Dubai, officials discovered an encrypted phone with an Estonian SIM card in a seek of his belongings.

On EncroChat, the place drug offers had been organized with traffickers within the Netherlands who had connections to cocaine cartels from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, it was once established through investigators that his person identify was once Nuclear Dog.

In April 2020, some other EncroChat person going through Whisky Wasp engaged a touch through sending {a photograph} of his tv display. He was once on Netflix, staring at El Chapo, a dramatised TV collection a few Mexican drug lord. Whisky Wasp joked that they shared the similar birthday. He was once, actually, Jonathan Cassidy.

Judge Dove would later describe the comparability as a “stupid exaggeration”, albeit “one not so far from the truth to be fanciful”.

According to the United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Jonathan was once the “leading” determine in the back of a cocaine import operation that delivered amounts of the drug on an “industrial” scale.

On Wednesday, it was once published that, between March and April 2020, the Cassidy brothers had been the use of EncroChat nearly on a daily basis.

After Jonathan brokered agreements with providers within the Netherlands, Jamie “acted on direction” in his “operational role”, making sure the medication made their manner across the north of England. From there, a 3rd guy, Nasar Ahmed, who was once sitting beside the Cassidys’ within the dock these days, handled the cash. On no less than one instance, an change was once made the use of a reusable bag from the Asda grocery store chain.

It was once published that after one among Jonathan’s couriers was once stopped through police as he met a provider, “it did not dent his enthusiasm for the next deal”, and tomorrow, he went to paintings on EncroChat once more.

When a consignment arrived in England, Jamie, as Nuclear Dog, despatched his brother an inventory of purchasers and their stocks. He was once, in impact, the book-keeper within the operation. Subsequent correspondence suggests the pair regarded as the use of some other encrypted software presented through the Sky organisation on the finish of the April, however any trade of route at that time would had been too past due to keep away from the government.

On June 13, an administrator at EncroChat advised customers that the corporate’s area have been seized through a “government entity” and that the provider may just now not ensure safety. That entity grew to become out to be the French intelligence products and services.

On the similar night time, on-line data confirmed investigators that Ahmed looked for Emirates airline flights to the United Arab Emirates. He was once arrested in Bury, within the north of Greater Manchester, the next morning.

On July 8, Jonathan used his iPad to learn an editorial about Mark Fitzgibbon, a Liverpool fugitive who have been arrested in Portugal following 16 years at the run. He additionally learn tales at the Manchester Evening News’ web site about police operations within the town.

That night time, he drove to Manchester Airport and flew to Dubai, the place he advised an property agent that he had the cheap of £2.3million to spend on a villa, which was once later furnished with a mattress costing £22,000.

By the tip of the September, he searched the web once more, this time for his brother’s identify, after he had in short left the United Kingdom. Investigators established that he was once looking for out whether or not Jamie have been arrested.

It gave the impression the pair had been within the transparent however, the next month, Jonathan was once arrested on arrival at Manchester Airport after coming back from Dubai, telling officials that he “did not know what they were talking about”.

Jamie was once arrested a month later. His defence attempted to argue that he was once the primary of the 3 males to confess his section, but this admission simplest got here simplest after a protracted fight to check out to turn out the EncroChat proof as inadmissible.

The smashing of EncroChat has in the end helped the National Crime Agency perform “the UK’s biggest law enforcement operation”, one that has since “dismantled entire organised crime groups”, resulting in 746 arrests and the seizure of £54million in money and greater than two tonnes of gear.

On remand, Cassidy was once described through jail officials as a “positive role model for his peers”. In the 3 years since his arrest, he had taken on a task for the Samaritans and one letter in part learn out in court docket heard how he had “listened to others in crisis, helping prevent callers from taking their own lives”.

Amid the jail inhabitants, he lived with drug customers, coming to know the have an effect on of his choices as a broker. He admitted to being “ashamed” of what he had achieved and, in sentencing, the pass judgement on got rid of two years from Cassidy’s time period because of his “redemptive behaviour”.

Cassidy will, in time, have the risk to rebuild his lifestyles, however for many who bear in mind him from his early days, there may be simply be apologetic about at how a distinct ability was once derailed.

(Top picture: Liverpool rejoice profitable the 1996 FA Youth Cup, with Jamie Cassidy rotated; Aubrey Washington/EMPICS by means of Getty Images)