A major crime boss was able to pose as a respectable family man until he was brought down by his own WhatsApp messages.
Robert Andrews Jr adopted the persona of an ‘average guy’ with a partner and children while running a major cocaine empire.
The 34-year-old, from Newport in South Wales, was not even on the radar of officers until they found his WhatsApps on the phone of another dealer, Kerry Evans.
The texts, which the Mail has reproduced in their original form, showed the pair joking how they would either end up as ‘millionaires’ or ‘sharing a cell’.
The messages were the first insight into Andrew’s hidden life and prompted police to begin tracking his movements.
His associate Evans writes at one point: ‘This time next year we be millionaires.’
‘Or sharing a cell lol, I’ll be bottom bunk,’ Andrews replies, prompting Evans to add, ‘Let’s hope not FFS.’
Secret police footage later caught Andrews handing over bags of cash worth £100,000. He is believed to have sold 85kg of cocaine over just nine months in 2023.
Robert Andrews Jr adopted the persona of an ‘average guy’ with a partner and children while running a major cocaine empire
The 34-year-old, seen being interviewed by officers, was not even on the radar of officers until they found his WhatsApps on the phone of another dealer, Kerry Evans
To police who investigated Andrews’ case, nothing about him suggested he was a drug dealer.
He lived in an ordinary terraced house in Newport and did not have a luxury car or wear designer clothing.
The case is another example of the way major drug dealers frequently lead strikingly ordinary lives – unlike the street-level ‘soldiers’ who boast about their life of crime on social media.
Evans, from nearby Merthyr Tydfil, was caught during a separate police investigation and sentenced last year to 14 years and five months in prison.
Undercover officers began tracking Andrews and followed him to a woodland clearing near the M4, where he was filmed carrying out several drug deals.
One of these led to the arrest of Mohammed Yamin, a local taxi driver who was found with 2kg of high-purity cocaine worth £200,000.
Surveillance footage showed him taking a £5 bank note from one man before checking the serial number.
This had been shared with Andrews in advance and showed he was speaking with the right man.
Huge wodges of bank notes seized by Gwent Police during their investigation
Andrews laughed while officers arrest him during a dawn raid on his Newport home
He was later arrested during a raid on his home in December 2023, with footage showing him laughing as police read out the charges.
South Wales Police consider him to be the leader of an organised crime group supplying cocaine and heroin across South Wales.
‘Robert Andrews wasn’t somebody who was dealing on a street corner or to his friends,’ Det Ch Supt Andrew Tuck told BBC documentary Catching a Crime Boss.
‘He was dealing in large quantities, kilo amounts of controlled drugs, which would equate to cocaine the size of a bag of sugar at a time.
Police say Andrews deliberately lived an ordinary live while using his drugs money to build a new home on a secluded patch of land.
Officers who raided his terraced home also found a new kitchen worth £60,000 and lavish furnishings.
He is far from rare in being a high-level dealer who led a life of apparent normality.
A rare insight into this hidden world has emerged in recent years thanks to a string of major drug busts following the successful hacking of EncroChat, an encrypted messaging platform used by organised criminals.
A photo of a branded block of cocaine that Andrews sent to Evans
Evans, from Merthyr Tydfil, was caught during a separate police investigation and sentenced last year to 14 years and five months in prison
This exposed a series of unlikely drug barons who had built vast criminal empires while masquerading as honest businessmen, with those brought to justice including a wealthy haulage boss, a cafe owner and a car dealer.
Those jailed following the EncroChat hack include Thomas Maher, an Irishman living in a suburban home in Warrington.
An apparently thriving businessman with a haulage firm, many neighbours must have glanced in envy at his £200,000 of luxury cars and glitzy lifestyle.
The reality was exposed when messages on EncroChat revealed how he had been running a criminal empire from his living room that oversaw the transport of £1.5million of cocaine from the Netherlands to Ireland.
Another drug boss, Richard Weild, posed as the honest boss of Gas Works Motor Company in Liverpool – while taking to EncroChat under the name Blackable to boast that his secret drugs empire was turning over £30,000 a week.
Messages suggest he directed his associates to use Highways Maintenance vehicles and removal trucks to move drugs around without detection during lockdown – further proof of his ability to disguise his criminal activity.
Weild, who told one contact he was ‘not putting myself out there’ and had an ‘easy life’ is now serving a 19-year prison sentence, while Maher received 14 years.
According to Dr David Holmes, a criminal psychologist, the ability of crime bosses to juggle outwardly ordinary lives with serious offending may be aided by a particular psychological profile.
The EncroChat hack exposed a series of unlikely drug barons, including wealthy haulage firm owner Thomas Maher (left) and car dealer Richard Weild
Maher built up a fleet of luxury cars worth more than £200,000 from his ill-gotten gains
‘Generally speaking these are people with a certain level of psychopathic or schizoid traits – not high level or brutal, but the kind of individual who might just as easily have made money investing or as a very successful business person,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘These are people who may themselves have used drugs socially and been given the opportunity somewhere down the line to get involved in the finance side or import or export.
‘It tends to be something that comes up as an option for making money quickly. They are the similar sort of people who could become addicted to gambling.’
