A drugs trafficker accused of selling firearms has told jurors that he spent nearly a year in Spain as he was "getting a hard time" from the police.
Kane Omar is currently standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of conspiracy to transfer firearms in relation to messages exchanged on encrypted communications platform EncroChat. He admits that he used the handle "ShallowZoo" in order to facilitate the supply of heroin, cocaine and cannabis, but claims that the device was "shared" with other criminals who were supposedly responsible for brokering documented deals to sell guns.
The 27-year-old, of Alfred Street in Wavertree, gave evidence to the jury from the witness box today, Friday. On the stand, Omar described how he had gained qualifications in plastering at college and had been with his partner Lois Morley for "six-and-a-half years", having two children with her.
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Under questioning from his counsel Daniel Jones, he told the court that he had travelled to Spain in February 2020, and said: "I just decided to move over to just have a different life. I flew there with my older brother.
"He come home, I stayed over there. Then my partner Lois and the children followed behind me, then we decided to stay there."
Omar said they had been staying in Marbella, adding: "When we first went over it was just a rented apartment, then we took a long-term tenancy out where we rented the apartment for six months. Once that ran out we got a new apartment and carried the tenancy on."
When asked whether he "knew other people out there", he replied: "Yeah, there was quite a few people that we knew. Lots of Liverpool people over there that we all knew.
"I had money saved up. I went over there with the money I had saved up, paid for my apartment and stuff.
"Obviously money started running out. Probably after coming to the end of March or April."
Omar told Mr Jones that he "started selling drugs" after this, saying "there was bits of drugs over there, and obviously at home I was selling drugs". Of the Shallow Zoo handle, he said: "There was others using the phone.
"The phone was based in the flat in Marbella where we was all living basically. Not in the flat I was living, where everyone was living over there.
"I lived with my girlfriend and children. The flat was where everyone used to hang around and smoke weed, there was like four to five people that lived in the apartment."
Mr Jones asked: "What about the phone? How did you get to use this phone?"
Omar replied: "Basically, when I went over to Marbella there was people already over there. They already had the phone.
"Once I started drug dealing, everyone was using Encro at the time. I started using the phone with other people.
"I was doing my drug dealing through Snapchat and WhatsApp at the start. Everyone was using Encro at the time.
"No one wanted to deal drugs on Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, stuff like that. [They] just didn't trust the app, didn’t think it was safe enough to use."
Omar said he would use the device "just whenever I needed to use the phone basically, to buy drugs and sell drugs" and that it had been used by himself and "three others". He agreed that "Rugz", who the jury were previously told was his associate Rhys Nze, had been one of the three.
Mr Jones asked who the other two were, but the defendant stated: "I don’t wish to name them people, because I’ve got a family and stuff like that. I don’t want anything to happen to me for being called a snitch or anything like that.
"Everyone just used it when they needed to use the phone, not sitting together as a group or nothing. What they was doing was what they was doing and what I was doing was what I was doing."
Omar said that he had "never dealt in firearms" and "only ever used the phone to deal drugs or collect money". When asked about messages from "RipePower", which allegedly made reference to his sister, he told jurors: "I have no reason to speak to any person about my sister, apart from my family."
Mr Jones also questioned him over a picture from Nze's Instagram page, which was said to have shown him sitting on a sofa beside a handgun. Omar said of this: "I don’t remember it, I don’t remember that picture at all."
He also told the court that he had remained in Spain for "nine to 10 months" in total before flying home via Gibraltar. When asked how often he would use EncroChat while abroad, he said: "Most of the time it would just be like once a day to use it to go and do what I needed to do."
Mr Jones enquired how the "principle owner" was, and Omar responded: "It was just a shared phone. Everyone just used it when they needed to use it, it was just left in that apartment."
He was then cross-examined by prosecutor Ben Jones. He said: "You’ve told the jury you travelled to Spain for a better life."
Omar stated that it had been "just a change of life really", but was then referred to a message in which he told "ShinySky" that he had "flew on my book", or passport, and that he would be "flagged" if he travelled back home. Mr Jones put to him that he was abroad because he was wanted by the police in the UK.
He replied: "I was getting a bit of a hard time from them when I was in Liverpool. I didn’t want them to know where I was in Spain."
Mr Jones also accused him of "writing himself out of responsibility" for messages relating to the sale of firearms, to which Omar said: "I never ever used the phone to deal firearms or any time of ammunition, it’s the next level of criminality from drugs to firearms. I know I've done wrong by selling drugs."
He was asked of his opinion on those who were involved in trading weapons, and said: "They’re not nice people. I had no knowledge of what anyone else was doing on the phone."
When quizzed on whether "Rugz" had been a "firearms dealer", Omar responded "I couldn't tell you". He was further questioned on who had been responsible for sending the messages concerning guns on the Shallow Zoo handle, and said: "It was either one of the other people sharing the phone.
"I can’t name the people. I’ve helped as much as I can by picking out which messages were me, I never sold firearms on the phone."
Mr Jones also asked Omar about the picture of him found on social media, which he said showed a "handgun within inches" of him. He replied: "I don't remember that image."
The prosecutor continued: "That must have been a shock to you. The fact that you were in an apartment with what appears to be a firearm."
Omar said: "I can't remember the image getting taken, or seeing that on the couch."
Mr Jones put to him: "Your memory is deliberately patchy because you’re trying to disassociate yourself from firearms."
Omar responded: "I’m not. I don’t deal firearms.
"It would have been a shock to me if it was a real firearm. I’m on my phone.
"I’m not paying attention to what Rugz is doing. I can’t remember seeing it."
Omar was further asked about "running out of cash in Spain", and said: "Before I moved to Spain, I was just selling bits of weed. When I started running out of money, there was easier money to be made – if you got a kilo of class A, you could earn £1,000 to £1,500 on it."
He also said he had a "friend at home" who was working on his behalf. Mr Jones put it to him that "disputes" concerning the supply of drugs can be "policed by the use of firearms", to which he said: "Maybe with other people, but not me.
"It's never come to that with me. I’ve always done my deal, I’ve been paid for what I've done."
Omar meanwhile denied having been party to a "conversation about getting people smoked up" with Ripe Power. Mr Jones said that he had been "controller of that phone" and said he had "written a script to explain away the firearms messages", to which he replied: "I’ve just chose the ones that was me, I didn’t deal firearms."
Mr Jones told a jury of eight men and four women during the prosecution's opening earlier this week that Omar was linked to the Shallow Zoo username after the service was infiltrated by law enforcement authorities in 2020. In one chat with "LeadFern", he was said to have stated that his girlfriend was the daughter of fellow user "IndelibleOsprey" – or Ms Morley and her father Joseph Morley, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs in relation to his activities on EncroChat last month.
Other users were meanwhile said to have stored the Shallow Zoo handle in their phones under the names "Kane" or "KL8" – the latter of which matched his Snapchat username, this being a reference to the postcode of his previous home of Toxteth. Mr Jones said it was accepted by the prosecution that the account had been used by Omar's "close associate" Nze on two "very limited" occasions in May that year, but said that he had identified himself by his nickname "Rugz" or "Ruggez" during these sequences.
Both men were said to have been located in Malaga while the messages put before the jury were being exchanged, with Omar also being pictured on this friend's open Instagram page sitting on a sofa beside what was alleged to be a handgun. Jurors were read a selection of Shallow Zoo's messages, including one exchange with "SheBat" in which the profile was used to send a picture of what appeared to be two Glock pistols alongside the message: "75 ton each if you can get rid of them bro."
SheBat went on to respond "get on it", which was said to have been an "indication of interest" in the weapons, and asked "no silents?". Shallow Zoo then replied: "Not with them ones bro, and Rugz asked Matty or something can they get weed down these ways."
Mr Jones told the jury: "The user of Shallow Zoo has clearly identified himself as not being Rugz at that time, Rugz being a name for Rhys Nze. Clearly, at the time these messages were sent, Kane Omar and Rhys Nze were in company with one another in Spain.
"Who was sending those messages other than Kane Omar?"
The same image was also sent by Shallow Zoo to another user, Golden Bat, after the latter asked: "Any hand tings bro? For one of me mates laa."
Shallow Zoo responded by sending the photograph, accompanied by the caption "7,500 each if any good". Mr Jones said that another discussion concerning the sale of firearms had been "immediately" preceded by the other party involved, "RipePower", making a reference to Omar's sister.
The handle was also used to discuss the supply of Glock 17 and Glock 19 handguns with "LeadDog". This user was said to have identified Omar as being behind the Shallow Zoo handle during a conversation with "WinterMuffin".
The court also heard of another series of messages in which "AwareFern" had sent a picture of an automatic assault rifle along with the message "that's there if you know anyone bro". Shallow Zoo then asked for a price and forwarded the image to Golden Bat before being told it would cost "11-and-a-half k", after which he stated that he would "ask around".
The handle was also used to ask "LeadFern" whether he could "get any men for a glock". Lead Fern replied: "Small 9s or Lugers I think get off me mate, how many you need mate?"
Shallow Zoo requested "one of each" and enquired of the price. Lead Fern then said: "Think mate has spare.
"Let you know. Have to go Speke."
In further messages around a week later Lead Fern asked whether his contact "still needed them sweets", which Mr Jones said was a "reference to ammunition". Shallow Zoo then responded: "Yeah man, can you sort for us mate?
"Need soon as really. I'll get them picked up if you could sort please mate."
Omar has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine and cannabis but denies conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited firearms and ammunition. The trial, before Judge Stuart Driver KC, continues.
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