Jamie Cassidy – the Liverpool prodigy who turned a cocaine conspirator

He appeared within the dock at Manchester Crown Court docket like a familiar-looking stranger, a vivid reminiscence from a distant previous.

Jamie Cassidy had as soon as been one of the promising younger footballers at Liverpool, England’s most profitable membership, a participant deemed ok to coach along with his nationwide staff forward of the 1996 European Championship.

At the moment, Cassidy was jailed for 13 years and three months for his half in a conspiracy involving South American drug cartels that noticed 356kg (784lb) of cocaine with an estimated avenue worth of £28million ($35.8m) flood cities throughout northern England.

Cassidy, now 46, didn’t have a “pivotal” function like his 50-year-old brother, Jonathan, who acquired 21 years and 9 months, nevertheless it was however “vital”, in accordance with the choose, Sir Ian Dove.

Jamie’s job was to “guarantee issues ran easily” as soon as the medicine arrived in Liverpool from the Netherlands, hidden in modified autos. He acted upon instruction, being paid a wage for his “managerial” enter, which concerned taking good care of collections and deliveries that amounted to round 150kg of the drug.

Enormous income have been laundered each month however the Cassidys’ operation was stopped after the EncroChat messaging service, as soon as the popular device of communication within the legal group, was intercepted by French authorities.

Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed, 51, pleaded responsible final month to conspiracy to import and provide class A medication and to launder cash, whereas Jamie admitted to provide and laundering. Like Jonathan, Ahmed acquired 21 years and 9 months.

Having been held on remand since November 2020, former footballer Cassidy had greater than three years to contemplate his future.

It would clarify why on Wednesday, as he emerged from the steps that led from the cells in Manchester Crown Court docket, he appeared relaxed and targeted, as the dimensions of the fees towards him have been laid naked in a authorized setting for the primary time.

In his closing notes, the choose urged “it appeared seemingly” that Jamie had been drawn by his brother right into a “enterprise” that was additionally described as “refined”.

Every of the offenders will serve half of their sentence earlier than being launched on licence.

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Throughout a listening to that stretched over two days, there was solely a short point out of Cassidy’s life as a footballer whose expertise was so huge that his title typically seems in the identical sentences as true Liverpool greats.

In 1994, two summers earlier than Cassidy lined up with future internationals Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher within the Liverpool Below-18s staff that gained the FA Youth Cup by beating a West Ham United aspect that featured Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, he performed for England as they reached the quarter-finals of Below-16 European Championship within the Republic of Eire.

As a centre-forward, the regard wherein he was held was mirrored by the actual fact he was given the No 10 shirt in that England squad whereas Emile Heskey, who six years later would be a part of Liverpool from Leicester Metropolis for a document £11million payment, needed to make do with No 12.

Carragher turned a legendary determine at Liverpool, making 737 appearances, second on the membership’s all-time record behind Ian Callaghan’s 857. But when it got here to England junior choice, Cassidy was referred to as up forward of him and David Thompson, who later featured in 56 Liverpool first-team video games earlier than fruitful spells within the midfields of Coventry Metropolis and Blackburn Rovers.

Thompson got here from Birkenhead, which is separated from Liverpool by the River Mersey. Within the early Nineteen Nineties, Cassidy and Carragher, born in the identical faculty yr, have been thought to be one of the best two younger gamers within the metropolis for his or her age group.

Whereas Carragher got here from Bootle and went to Savio Salesian School, representing Sefton Boys, Cassidy performed for Liverpool Boys having attended the Alsop complete the place future Liverpool supervisor Gerard Houllier taught when he lived within the metropolis within the late Sixties and early ’70s.

Cassidy’s house turf was Walton and the warren of streets close to Metropolis Highway, near Everton’s Goodison Park stadium, which turned notorious in 1993 due to its proximity to the outdated railway line the place two-year-old James Bulger was murdered by two 10-year-old boys.

A lot 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 little consideration or sympathy given to a district that had been in contrast, in a paper revealed by the European Union, to among the poorest components of southern Italy and the outdated East Germany.

Earlier than he joined Liverpool, Cassidy performed for a Sunday league staff affiliated with a pub referred to as The Pacific. This introduced him into contact with Carragher for the primary time, as a result of he was signed to a different staff in the identical league, Merton Villa. Different younger boys from The Pacific, corresponding to Jon Murphy, Ged Hennigan and Dominic Morley, would make it into the youth techniques of Liverpool and Everton. But Cassidy went the furthest.

In his early years with Liverpool, he performed up entrance with Carragher. The pair have been so good that the coaches at Liverpool allowed them to play two years above their age group, regardless that they knew they weren’t fairly bodily robust sufficient. This meant that, typically, one would change the opposite at half-time.

To his household, Carragher continues to be “James”. He’s solely referred to as “Jamie” to the broader world as a result of Steve Heighway, Liverpool’s academy director, began referring to him and Cassidy as “the 2 Jamies” once they have been each chosen for Lilleshall, the FA’s residential Faculty of Excellence within the Midlands.

Upon returning to Merseyside from a go to to Lilleshall in 1995, Heighway wrote in his Liverpool match-day programme column, “Each boys are tremendous gamers.”

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

— Angies Liverpool (@angiesliverpool) April 15, 2020

Cassidy was additionally ‘Cass’, a participant team-mates wished on their aspect due to his refined management qualities. His presence offered reassurance due to his consistency and his maturity. Some appeared as much as him, not solely due to his expertise but in addition due to his costume sense.

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

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

The Liverpool staff who gained that FA Youth Cup is described by Carragher in his autobiography as a bunch of “scallies”, not essentially excessive on expertise however stuffed with need. Cassidy fitted proper in, albeit taking part in on the left of midfield. That success was well timed for Liverpool as a result of the primary staff was below hearth as a result of their efficiency in an FA Cup last defeat to arch-rivals Manchester United. Over the months that adopted, Cassidy, Carragher, Owen and Thompson all acquired extra publicity to senior coaching. Their performances have been rewarded with new contracts, rising from £250 to £750 per week.

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

A few of the coaches at Liverpool recognized that he was completely different to Carragher and Thompson, who have been obsessives. Carragher would deal with coaching periods like they have been full-scale video games and Thompson would inform senior figures within the squad that he was coming to take their place. Cassidy may very well be aggressive on the pitch however his in any other case calm manner led to questions over his physique language.

Did he care sufficient? His team-mates thought so. This was evidenced when he flew right into a deal with throughout a reserve recreation not lengthy after snapping his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). A leg break meant he spent 18 months out in whole, with these accidents having an affect on three seasons, simply on the level his friends have been breaking into the primary staff and establishing themselves.

There was some perception that this era triggered him to lose a yard of tempo, notably damaging as soccer on the highest stage was changing into extra about physicality, particularly in midfield. One individual with an understanding of Cassidy’s place describes him as being “actually, actually unfortunate”.

After one other lengthy interval out, team-mates would stare at Cassidy’s legs at Melwood, the membership’s former coaching floor. Above specialist shin pads, which appeared like they have been shatterproof, it appeared as if certainly one of his knees had doubled in dimension.

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Owen turned a worldwide famous person due to his performances with England on the World Cup in 1998, and by the summer time 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 youth ranks, taking part in in 13 video games within the 1998-99 season.

Following a succession of setbacks and operations, Cassidy, aged 20, was nonetheless ready for his first-team debut. All of this was taking part in out towards a backdrop of huge cultural change at Liverpool instigated by supervisor Houllier, who was driving extra skilled requirements. That shift in the end led to some gamers, no matter earlier standing, transferring on.

In response to directors on the membership, main academy figures thought-about Cassidy to be an enormous expertise, although he was by no means fairly in the identical bracket as Owen and Carragher. These sources have advised The Athletic that they can not keep in mind him inflicting any issues for the coaches, pointing solely in the direction of accidents as a purpose he ultimately left.

There was shock, nonetheless, when he signed for Cambridge United, a four-hour drive away, in 1999. Cambridge have been preventing to remain within the third tier of English soccer; many at Liverpool believed Cassidy might have made a recent begin at the next stage, incomes respectable cash, for instance, in Division One (now the Championship — England’s second tier).

Rapidly, Cassidy misplaced contact with the gamers at Liverpool with whom he’d spent his teenage years. A lot of the band of brothers who had gained the FA Youth Cup in 1996 all of the sudden had much less in frequent, and whereas some fell into the non-League system at golf equipment corresponding to Barrow, Droylsden and Vauxhall Motors, others turned related to the sport’s beginner scene in Liverpool.

Having entered a relationship with a girl, Cassidy slipped off the radar totally. Some puzzled whether or not he was too embarrassed or proud to attempt to work his method again up the soccer ladder, given how extremely rated he had been.

If he misplaced his love for the sport, he didn’t present it at Cambridge, however he made little impression on a dressing room dominated by senior professionals.

He stood out primarily as a result of he was a Scouser, far-off from house. Although it was apparent in coaching periods he was technically glorious, he couldn’t emulate team-mates corresponding to Trevor Benjamin and Martin Butler, who would each signal for golf equipment larger up the meals chain in Leicester Metropolis and Studying.

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

He didn’t strike certainly one of Cambridge’s most senior gamers on the membership as a foul lad. “Fairly the other, I preferred him — a very nice child,” he stated.

Nonetheless, he continued, he appeared the kind of participant “that may want a rocket up his a**e from time to time”.

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

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

Cash was tight at Burscough, and gamers have been paid small sums, money in hand. But the membership have been growing a repute as a spot the place gamers might trampoline into the skilled ranks, because of the supervisor John Davison, who labored as a schoolteacher, and his assistant, Peter King, who got here from Liverpool and had a powerful grip on a neighborhood soccer panorama the place Burscough may naturally recruit.

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

Cassidy, nonetheless, by no means actually acquired going. One participant thinks he arrived carrying a again damage. Had he been extra established on the membership, possibly he would have been despatched to a specialist however he believes Burscough didn’t have the means to deal with him.

After one coaching session, Cassidy appeared to vanish for some time. His absence was by no means defined. Although he returned to the squad, his keep on the membership was in the end transient. Though he did play, some team-mates wanted to be reminded of the info to show it — he barely made an impression.

Elsewhere, Carragher and Owen have been now Champions League gamers, having gained their first trophies at Liverpool, lifting the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup (at present’s Europa League) within the 2000-01 season. Cassidy, nonetheless, pale out of sight and thoughts.

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It’s thought Cassidy turned to the constructing commerce, the place he labored along with his father.

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

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

In April 2020, one other EncroChat person going by Whisky Wasp engaged a contact by sending {a photograph} of his tv display. He was on Netflix, watching El Chapo, a dramatised TV collection a couple of Mexican drug lord. Whisky Wasp joked that they shared the identical birthday. He was, in truth, Jonathan Cassidy.

Choose Dove would later describe the comparability as a “silly exaggeration”, albeit “one not so removed from the reality to be fanciful”.

In response to the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Jonathan was the “main” determine behind a cocaine import operation that delivered portions of the drug on an “industrial” scale.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that, between March and April 2020, the Cassidy brothers have been utilizing EncroChat nearly daily.

After Jonathan brokered agreements with suppliers within the Netherlands, Jamie “acted on route” in his “operational function”, making certain the medicine made their method across the north of England. From there, a 3rd man, Nasar Ahmed, who was sitting beside the Cassidys’ within the dock at present, handled the cash. On a minimum of one event, an trade was made utilizing a reusable bag from the Asda grocery store chain.

It was revealed that when certainly one of Jonathan’s couriers was stopped by police as he met a provider, “it didn’t dent his enthusiasm for the subsequent deal”, and the next day, he went to work on EncroChat once more.

When a consignment arrived in England, Jamie, as Nuclear Canine, despatched his brother an inventory of shoppers and their shares. He was, in impact, the book-keeper within the operation. Subsequent correspondence suggests the pair thought-about utilizing one other encrypted gadget supplied by the Sky organisation on the finish of the April, however any change of route at that time would have been too late to keep away from the authorities.

On June 13, an administrator at EncroChat advised customers that the corporate’s area had been seized by a “authorities entity” and that the service might now not assure safety. That entity turned out to be the French intelligence companies.

On the identical night, on-line information confirmed investigators that Ahmed looked for Emirates airline flights to the United Arab Emirates. He was arrested in Bury, within the north of Higher Manchester, the next morning.

On July 8, Jonathan used his iPad to learn an article about Mark Fitzgibbon, a Liverpool fugitive who had been arrested in Portugal following 16 years on the run. He additionally learn tales on the Manchester Night Information’ web site about police operations within the metropolis.

That night, he drove to Manchester Airport and flew to Dubai, the place he advised an property agent that he had a price range of £2.3million to spend on a villa, which was 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 title, after he had briefly left the UK. Investigators established that he was looking for out whether or not Jamie had been arrested.

It appeared the pair have been within the clear however, the next month, Jonathan was arrested on arrival at Manchester Airport after coming back from Dubai, telling officers that he “didn’t know what they have been speaking about”.

Jamie was arrested a month later. His defence tried to argue that he was the primary of the three males to confess his half, but this admission solely got here solely after an extended battle to attempt to show the EncroChat proof as inadmissible.

The smashing of EncroChat has in the end helped the Nationwide Crime Company perform “the UK’s greatest regulation enforcement operation”, one which has since “dismantled whole organised crime teams”, resulting in 746 arrests and the seizure of £54million in money and greater than two tonnes of medication.

On remand, Cassidy was described by jail officers as a “constructive function mannequin for his friends”. Within the three years since his arrest, he had taken on a task for the Samaritans and one letter partly learn out in courtroom heard how he had “listened to others in disaster, serving to stop callers from taking their very own lives”.

Amid the jail inhabitants, he lived with drug customers, coming to know the affect of his choices as a vendor. He admitted to being “ashamed” of what he had completed and, in sentencing, the choose eliminated two years from Cassidy’s time period as a result of his “redemptive behaviour”.

Cassidy will, in time, have the prospect to rebuild his life, however for individuals who keep in mind him from his early days, there may be simply remorse at how a particular expertise was derailed.

(Prime photograph: Liverpool have fun profitable the 1996 FA Youth Cup, with Jamie Cassidy circled; Aubrey Washington/EMPICS through Getty Pictures)