Hucknall man part of gun-toting drugs gang that boasted of crimes in music videos

Kiefer Smith, 28, formerly of Dallman Close, Hucknall, was a member of the gang who flaunted their wealth in increasingly lavish music videos but were finally brought down by a combination of covert police work and their own arrogance.

The gang, which sold vast quantities of cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin on the streets of Nottinghamshire, came to the attention of police after a series of shooting incidents in late 2018 and early 2019.

In one incident in May 2019 a member of a rival criminal gang was shot in the neck as gang leader and aspiring ​drill music star Akeem Chand fired multiple shots into his car as it travelled along a residential street ​in the early evening.

Between July 2018 and June 2019 the gang made ​extremely large sums of cash which they flaunted with the purchase of expensive jewellery, designer clothes, holidays and the production of music videos, in which they boasted about their drug-funded wealth.

At one point in March 2019 several members of the gang – who had almost no legitimate income between them – flew to Mexico’s Caribbean coast where they stayed in a lavishly-appointed private villa and even hired a luxury motor yacht.

Both were used as locations ​for a professionally-produced music video, recorded on the trip.

In it, the gang bragged about dealing drugs, posed with their jewellery and boasted about how they needed a ‘money counter’ to count their profits.

In another video – published on YouTube under Chand’s stage name Brutz – members of the gang were filmed in and around a block of flats at in Bestwood that they used as a safe house for storing drugs and guns.

Detectives were further helped by high-definition aerial drone footage of the location.

After falling under police suspicion the gang became the subject of an extensive covert police operation, during which a listening device planted in a car caught the gang openly discussing the sale of drugs and the shooting of rivals.

After a trial lasting more than 15 weeks the music finally stopped at Nottingham Crown Court when Chand and all seven members were convicted of multiple drugs and weapons offences.

Smith, and fellow members Akeem Chand, 27, formerly of Melbourne Road, Aspley, Orlando Escoffery, 26, formerly of Fenton Road, Basford, Quarnell Simpson, 23, formerly of Nuthall Road, Aspley, Devante Neufville, 24, of no fixed address and Alexsandro Woolery, 27, formerly of Portland Road, Carlton were all convicted of conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life and conspiracy to possess ammunition without a certificate.

Each of them had previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply class A and class B drugs.

Another man, Ravan Mather-Simpson, 25, formerly of Mansfield Road, Nottingham, also pleaded guilty before the trial to conspiracy to supply class A and class B drugs.

All will be sentenced on October 25.

Additionally, Sarah Aplin, 27, of Wyton Close, Bestwood, had previously admitted to a charge of allowing a premises to used for the supply of controlled drug and will be sentenced on the same date.