Drug dealer arrested for big loot made heartbreaking call to his young son

The phone call seemed typical of any loving parent wishing their young son a happy birthday.

Dad said to the boy who was trapped in the office: “Have a beautiful day”, he said “I love you to the moon and back, talk soon.”

But the man was lying. He knew they would not speak again for a long time.

That was because he was Robert Brooks’s boss, and instead of being in the office, he was at the Luton police station, where he was being questioned about a major drug trafficking plot.

The extraordinary call appears in a Channel 4 documentary, The Home Counties Drug Cartel, which follows the Eastern Regions Special Operations Unit’s investigation of Brooks and his network.

It gives a rare on-the-wall insight into the world of a high-level drug lord and the undercover police tactics used to bring him down.

Part-time driving instructor Brooks, 50, had no prior convictions and his wife seemed to have no idea that she was married to a major league drug dealer.

It tried to conceal its operation with a £ 15,000 encrypted phone contract, using the name Jaguar Palace.

But despite his exotic pseudonym, the villain with the belly and fleece was a far cry from the stereotypical image of a drug dealer.

The film, part of the hit series 24 Hours in Police Custody, follows surveillance officers who see Brooks driving his Ford Fiesta, shopping at Marks & Spencer with his wife, and playing golf.

When finally arrested in a dawn raid on his home, Brooks gives his wife one last kiss as the camera focuses on a framed sign that reads, “This House Runs On Love And Laughter.”

But those affected by the violence and addiction that come with illegal drugs know there is nothing funny about the Brooks business.

Someone who has seen the damage firsthand is an undercover officer known only as “Coops.”

He tells the movie: “We all know that the kind of people we follow are dangerous. What they are trying to achieve is very damaging to society.

“I’ve seen what drugs at the bottom end can do and the people at the top of the chain who are reaping the benefits of them never see the children who die from them and that bothers me.”

Although Brooks appears to be a clever criminal, he contributes to his own undoing by filming himself with a dash cam during one of the drug deliveries.

Capture 56-year-old Stephen Capp of Hull working as a courier for the gang.
He was pulled over on the M25 in December 2019 and five kilograms of cocaine were seized from a hidden compartment in his car.

A senior ERSOU investigation officer, known only as Dave to protect his identity, said: “It still amazes me that you were stupid enough to have it in your car.

“Through his complacency he has filmed the conspiracy in action for us in high definition. Without that, we wouldn’t have identified Capp. It was a real watershed moment. “

Detectives were first alerted on Aug.20 last year after Border Patrol officers found heroin hidden in spider hunters in a French port.

Documents later recovered showed that Brooks had overseen 39 separate deliveries of heroin and cocaine to a rented unit at Little Samuels Farm in Hunsdon, East Hertfordshire.

The last two deliveries of the chain were intercepted with the seizure of 45 kilos of heroin and 70 kilos of cocaine.

Taking into account previous deliveries, it was estimated that 1,835
Kilograms of class A drugs had been imported for a total value of between £ 42 million and £ 58 million.

The drugs would arrive in the country from Europe hidden in trucks hidden under the bottom of shipments of cheap plastic products.

Detectives are shown storming Little Samuels Farm, where Brooks had a front business called Happy Days Camping.

A poster of Fonzie, the American comedy star, can be seen on a wall as officers discover the heroin shipment.

Brooks was nailed after officers used evidence from the cell site to show that his encrypted Encrochat phone was with his normal phone wherever he went, proving it was “Jaguar Palace.”

Among the 746 suspects arrested were capos and officers formerly “untouchable” as a result of the infiltration of the underworld “command and control platform” by law enforcement.

The trove of evidence came from French and Dutch law enforcement officers who successfully hacked into the Encrochat system in May.

Officers said the hack occurred after their investigation into Brooks and did not appear in their investigation.

He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of Class A drugs and possession of criminal property between November 2018 and August 2019.

He was imprisoned for 21 years at St Albans Crown Court in September.

Richard Campbell, 49, of Milton Keynes, who was the ‘warehouse manager’ admitted conspiracy to evade the prohibition of Class A drugs and was jailed for 13 and a half years.

Tomasz Wozniak, 28, also from Milton Keynes who was the forklift driver, admitted to controlled drugs for a Class A conspiracy. He was jailed for six years and three months.

Capp, 56, of Hull, who went to the farm 18 times to collect drugs to deliver to the north of England, was sentenced to nine years and six months.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class A drug on 18 visits to the farm. He also admitted possession of Class A drugs with the intention of supplying when he was arrested in December 2019 with 5 kilos of Class A drugs.

Pieter Mannessen received six years in the Netherlands after the seizure of 70 kg of cocaine that was to be delivered to the farm.

The documentary airs on Sunday and Monday nights on Channel 4.