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A BRITISH arms dealer living in a luxury villa on the Costa del Sol plotted to ‘melt’ a rival’s face with acid before his arrest last year.
Gangster Philip Waugh, 40, was a mysterious figure operating in the dark known to British police only as ‘Aceprospect’.
The Liverpool native had previously been convicted of domestic assault on a spouse. He operated his criminal enterprise from abroad while UK crime groups perpetrated violent crimes using his weapons.
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He was selling military-grade guns, including AK47s and Uzi machine guns to organized crime groups in the UK while operating out of rented properties located in Benahavis or Thailand.
In one scheme, a crime boss conspired alongside a Liverpool gangland enforcer in order to permanently disfigure the victim of a horrific acid attack.
“Just need him blind and face melted,” Waugh wrote in one message to his accomplice Jonathan Gordon, before instructing him to ‘double the dose’ and ‘cook’ the intended victim with acid.
Police officers in Liverpool spotted Gordon the day before the attack. His car was seized. He fled.
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Waugh had sparked huge concern among UK law enforcement in 2020 when investigators discovered an unidentified British crime boss was advertising a notorious weapons list on the encrypted platform EncroChat under the handle ‘Aceprospect’.
Two AK47s, a Skorpion Machine Gun, an Uzi Machine Gun, a variety of pistols, and hundreds of rounds were among the arsenal available.
Waugh smuggled guns into the UK, where his right hand man Robert Brazendale (38), took them in and distributed them to various organized crime groups throughout the country.
In a series of interconnected investigations, dangerous offenders in Britain were jailed after conspiring to purchase and transfer weapons on Waugh’s List.
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Investigators from the National Crime Agency worked for five years in vain to trace and unmask Waugh. They eventually identified him as the man who was behind the handle.
Waugh lived in Thailand for a while before he moved to Spain. When Thai authorities alerted NCA and Spanish National Police to his move, the breakthrough was made.
In a coordinated international effort, officers from both forces arrested him on his Malaga Province villa in September last year.
Waugh, who was extradited from Spain in April 2011, appeared before the Liverpool Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to a number of firearms offenses and one count for conspiring to cause grievous bodily injury.
The sentence was 26 years, eight months of prison. A third of the sentence was taken away because he pleaded guilty.
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Brazendale had been in prison for 11 years, three months, for transferring weapons from Waugh’s gun list.
He was sentenced to an additional 11 years, four months for new gun crimes committed with Waugh.
He also confessed to conspiring to cause serious injury or death to the victim.
Gordon, 37, from Kirkdale, Liverpool, who used the EncroChat handle ‘Valuedbridge’, was a member of Liverpool’s notorious Deli Mob gang.
The NCA and policing colleagues recovered two AK47s and Uzi and Skorpion Machine Guns, a Grand Power Automatic Pistol, a Smith and Wesson handgun, and hundreds rounds of ammunition.
Ben Rutter (NCA senior investigator) said that Waugh was only concerned about his financial gain. He sold a wide range of semi-automatic weapons and automatic guns to offenders planning horrifying crimes, with no regard for public security.
He did not care about anyone who could be killed.
When we found Waugh’s weapon list, the NCA and our policing partner went into overdrive. We did everything in our power to find them and seize their guns.
The Olive Press offers Costa Del Sol News.
