Merseyside drug gangs

Apparently they are all over the freaking universe. I thought the activities of the Scouse crime firms were very local, but according to this article these nutters have spread to other parts of the world

Being from the city of Liverpool I feel obliged to respond to this.

Sure, there are notorious gangs or people from the city who are big time players not just in the UK but further abroad. Ties have been made, reportedly, to cartels in South America and the like. I'm not sure of too many others in the UK who have branched out that far.

Curtis Warren is the biggest name to spring to mind. Was and is an extremely intelligent man who made hundreds of millions. Currently incarcerated.

There have been about 25 fatal shootings in 6 or 7 years, and considering Liverpool isn't a massive city ( relatively so for the UK yes, compared to many other big cities in other countrie no ) then it seems alot.

It's a beautiful city to live in though, and like most places it's just a small minority.

Thnx for the response
I've been to Liverpool once and I too thought it was a great city with an extremely nice atmosphere and hospitable and friendly people. Never felt threatened and I don't think that as a tourist you will have a big chance of being a victim of violent crime. 'Safe' however doesn't necessarily mean 'crime free'. Because there are lots of safe European cities where there's easily as much organized crime as in a big American city ( London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Palermo,...all come to mind).
I've researched all about Cocky Warren. He indeed seemed to be a very clever guy. I also did some search on other Liverpool gangland figures like Steven French, the Bromley family, Colin Smith, etc...
There's something about British organized crime that fascinates me. I have yet to find the exact reason for that

You seem to know quite a bit mate. Stephen French was known as The Devil, because he was so brutal. Colin Smith was shot dead outside a gym a few years back. But yes, as a tourist you won't get hurt. Liverpool in fact has the lowest crime rate of any big city in the UK, contrary to belief.

The way British crime works is rather odd, but yes it is fascinating because it doesn't always take a traditional route. Liverpool of course benefits criminals becuase of the docklands, which criminals from all over the country will look to exploit but not without people from here getting something out of it, so some are involved by proxy.

British crime also kind of reminds me of the organized crime in the Netherlands. The criminal activities are mostly conducted by a lot of smaller crews instead of a few main organizations as it is the case in Italy and the Balkan.
In the Netherlands for instance there are small crime firms of different ethnic origins : ethnic Dutch people, Dutch Antillians, Moluccans, Surinamese and Moroccans. Sometimes a group consists of these people together. These smaller cells sometimes cooperate with each other, but also sometimes go to war with each other or with criminal gangs operating in the Netherlands but based in another country ( mostly Turkish, Kurdish, Chinese, Serb or Albanian ).
I think that's also the way it works in England and Scotland, but I could be mistaken.