Steven Gerrard’s ‘Uncle Bobby’ could now be set to take control of one of the UK’s most secretive and dangerous drug gangs.
The Merseyside-based Huyton Firm gang has for years flooded the UK with cocaine and heroin, making the godfathers who headed it millionaires.
For over two decades Vincent Coggins led one of the UK’s most powerful and secretive drug gangs, with his surname only whispered within criminal circles.
The drug gang used grenades as their calling card, famously leaving one by accident outside the luxury home of then Liverpool FC boss Kenny Dalgish.
But now the leadership of the Huyton Firm has been shattered after police penetrated an encrypted phone network used by the criminals to send messages to each other.
Vincent Coggins, Paul Woodford, Robert Jarvis and Michael Earl are all now serving prison sentences. And a lower level tier of middle managers and street dealers have also been locked up.
In the aftermath there have been two names mentioned as potential leadership candidates to take over the gang, both with connections to some of the biggest names in football.
The first is Robert Gerrard, a second cousin of the famous footballer, who is already well known to the authorities.
Pictured: Steven Gerrard’s second cousin Robert Gerrard cheering the football legend on at a match in 2006, beside Alex Curran and Coleen Rooney. At the time he was wanted in relation to a £1.5m plot to smuggle cannabis from Amsterdam
‘Uncle Bobby’ is understood to be a potential leadership candidate to take over the Huyton Firm
Known as being the footballer’s ‘Uncle Bobby’ despite being cousins, he was photographed next to Steven’s partner Alex during the World Cup in 2006.
Robert had been wanted by police since 1998 in relation to a £1.5m plot to smuggle cannabis from Amsterdam to the UK. Despite this, the drug dealer cheered England along with Alex and fellow wag Coleen Rooney in Germany.
The Liverpool man decided to hand himself in three years after appearing at the match after spending a decade on the run. He admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis resin, a controlled Class B drug and was jailed for four and a half years.
But the sentence was cut by two years after the judge gave him credit for apparently ‘renouncing his life of crime’.
However, in 2017 he was again jailed, this time for 14 years in connection with a £60m drugs plot.
To passersby, the Cafe De Ketel may have seemed like just another Rotterdam coffee shop where you could pop in for a cappuccino and croissant.
But the cafe, which was open for around 18 hours a day, had a buzzer system that ensured only international drug dealers were admitted.
Robert and his son-in-law, Michael Paul Moogan, used the cafe to discuss importing bulk quantities of cocaine into the UK.
However a coordinated strike by elite police targeted the cafe, and officers seized two handguns, more than 100 mobile phones, £250,000 in Euros, a cash-counting machine, radio scanner and expensive watches.
At other addresses in Rotterdam, officers seized nine handguns, two semi-automatic rifles, a cocaine press and a total of £160,000 in Euros.
After the police raid the two men were named as wanted by the National Crime Agency.
Robert handed himself in three years later and admitted conspiracy to import cocaine into the UK.
The plot was said to be worth in the region of £60m.
When he was jailed for 14 years during a hearing at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Patrick Field QC told him: ‘Yours was a highly sophisticated and well planned operation.’
Steven Gerrard’s daughter is also in a relationship with the son of Kinahan mobster Liam Byrne. Lilly revealed to her Instagram followers earlier this year that she is expecting a child with Lee
She is due to marry Lee Byrne (far left, with the Gerrard family)
Robert had plotted a drugs plot with son-in-law Michael Paul Moogan from Rotterdam’s Cafe De Ketel
Pictured: Moogan captured on CCTV. Robert handed himself in and was sent to prison in 2017 but Moogan was in hiding until April 2021 when he was arrested by Dubai Police
Despite being jailed for a second time, his criminal lifestyle continued. Last year, Irish crime journalist Nicola Tallant reported that Robert provided advice to crime boss Thomas Kavanagh.
Kavanagh, who headed up the Kinahan Cartel’s UK operation, was jailed after it emerged he attempted to pervert the course of justice by offering the NCA information about arms dumps in Northern Ireland.
Ms Tallant claimed that Kavanagh was assisted by Robert, who he met at HMP Dovegate, who provided advice to him on how to pervert the course of justice.
Robert, it is claimed, told Kavanagh to replicate the ruse used by John Haase in the 90s, when the heroin boss led the authorities to arms dumps he planted on the outside. Kavanagh apparently sent messages on the Encrochat network which referred to Robert as the ‘scouser.’
Ms Tallant suggested Robert provided casual advice to Kavanagh and was not personally implicated in the conspiracy.
Dublin thug Liam Byrne, whose son Lee is in a relationship with Steven Gerrard’s daughter, was also jailed for his role in the same firearms plot.
Steven’s daughter Lilly announced earlier this year that she is expecting a child with Lee, who has been pictured with the family.
The other potential well placed to assume a leadership position with the feared Huyton mob is Mark Quinn.
Quinn, whose brother Micky once played for Everton FC, had strong links to the worlds of football and boxing.
Everton legend Duncan Ferguson recently spoke of his close friendship with Mark Quinn and other members of the Huyton Firm, who were close to him during his playing career at the blues.
Ferguson said he felt a degree of ‘protection’ from the friendship with the gangster who had a neck ‘like Mike Tyson.’
Lee, the son of Kinahan gangster Liam Byrne, has been welcomed into the Gerrard family, here posing with one of the Gerrard’s dogs and Steven’s wife, the model Alex Curran
Ferguson told of how Quinn, a feared individual in Liverpool, once punched a doorman out who disrespected him.
However sources on Merseyside have told the Mail that Quinn and other members of the Huyton firm often carried weapons with them in the city, and were dreaded by nightclub operators and bar staff who had to deal with them.
Ferguson, on watching a BBC documentary about the Huyton gang said: ‘I nearly dropped dead. I knew every one of them, I drank with every one of them, I played pool with every one of them. Some had been at my wedding.
‘They all looked after me. They were my mates. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the programme. I was in shock.’
Quinn was also a well known boxing coach on Merseyside, and helped guide former professional boxer Tony Bellew during his career.
Bellew in his own autobiography told of how Quinn ‘taught him to box.’ However insiders have claimed Quinn’s quick temper also caused problems ahead of Bellew’s clash with Nathan Cleverly.
Nathan’s dad Vince claimed he was provoked by Mark Quinn, which led to a fracas at the Marriott Hotel in Cardiff.
Mark’s older brother Michael ran the Black Angus pub in Stockbridge Village, which police linked to drug dealing and crime.
Liverpool City Council’s Licensing Sub-Committee heard that staff at the pub had often watched drug deals take place in plain view.
Licensing Officer Stuart Moore, from Merseyside Police, said: ‘We believe that the Black Angus played a significant role in relation to the supply of class A drugs in the Stockbridge Village area.
‘CCTV did not act as a crime prevention tool and wasn’t a deterrent for drug deals taking place within the pub.’
Hugh Derbyshire, representing licencee Michael Quinn, told the hearing that the licensee felt ‘victimised.’
Despite the issues at the pub there was no suggestion that Michael Quinn was linked to his brother’s more serious criminality.
The other person well placed to assume a leadership position with the feared Huyton mob is Mark Quinn (pictured)
The boxing coach, pictured right at a panel, is said to have taught professional boxer Tony Bellew during his career
The Black Angus pub, where drug dealing was said to have taken place in ‘plain sight’
However The Black Angus was in the heart of a postcode very much controlled by the Huyton Firm – most of its senior members had grown up in the area.
Quinn, from the Croxteth area of the city, was implicated in a plot to flood Scotland with Amphetamine and named as a wanted man.
At one point his mugshot was circulated in Spain by Crimestoppers in an attempt to highlight British fugutives thought to be hiding out on the Costa Del Sol.
He was eventually arrested in Maastricht and extradited to Scotland when he was jailed for seven years. The Mail understands he is still serving out his sentence in Scotland.
A source who knows Mark Quinn said to the Mail: ‘When he comes out Mark will be the biggest name in Liverpool.’
The source told the Mail that Quinn had distanced himself from Class A drugs in the past due to the risks involved and had invested most of his money into property ventures. Quinn’s son Jordan is also a well known drug dealer.
The Huyton Firm drug gang held Liverpool in a vice like grip over recent decades, using sadistic violence to protect their interests.
Vincent Coggins and his associates used their drug money to corrupt the communities across Merseyside.
Cash was handed out to street gangs and scrambler yobs, who could then be used to target and intimidate the mob’s enemies.
Local drug dealers such as Nicky Ayers and Karl Bradley were shot dead in the street. Both men had been drawn into disputes with the Huyton Firm prior to their deaths.
For years the Coggins crime firm seemed beyond the reach of the police, until the Encrochat hack which represented a major breakthrough.
While Coggins and Woodford are now expected to grow old inside the prison system, police also managed to compromise the middle managers who worked for the crime bosses.
Paul Fitzsimmons acted as a ‘banker’ for the gang and stored dirty cash for the organised crime group.
Kevin Rimmer, Dean Borrows, and Darren Tierney were couriers, delivering drugs and money across the UK for Jarvis and Fitzsimmons.
Paul Glynn lived in and controlled the stash house where the firm stored over £1m worth of cocaine. Glynn and his son were both attacked during the stash house raid.
The Mail understands that Robert Gerrard was released on licence in 2023.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: ‘Offenders released on licence are subject to strict conditions and can be sent back to prison if they break the rules.’
