Gang leader made 45,000 calls to run drugs empire from his prison cell

 A jailed gang leader ran a drugs empire from his prison cell by using his illegal mobile phone 45,000 times in six months - but was cleared of arranging a gangland murder.

Gareth Curtis, from Stretford, made or received more than 246 calls or texts a day.

Curtis made the calls using handsets and 'trimmed down' SIM cards which had been smuggled in. 

Astonished detectives discovered the sheer scale of the telephone traffic while they were investigating a gangland shooting in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Curtis and seven others were found not guilty of conspiracy to murder at Preston Crown Court yesterday. 

But he admitted the telephone calls and said he was on the phone six or seven hours every day - but chit-chatting, not arranging a murder.

The jury which acquitted him knew he was behind bars, but they were not told he was serving 16 years for gun crimes and an assault.

In 2004, he was jailed for 13 years for gun crimes. The sentence was on top of a three-and-half-year jail sentence for smashing a bottle over a reveller's head in a nightclub.

A friend of Curtis was handed a life sentence for shooting the victim dead at Oldham's Caribbean nightclub.

Curtis was described at the time as a 'well-trusted confederate of a heavily-armed gang'.  Police uncovered the scale of the calls to and from Curtis' phone thanks to cell-site analysis, which showed when and roughly where the calls were made or received.

The findings showed he was using his mobile virtually non-stop in his cell at Rye Hill prison, Coventry, and then at his cell in Whitemoor prison, Cambridgeshire.

When prison authorities seized one phone, his service provider allowed him to continue with another phone with the same number as he was considered a 'premium' customer. 

Staff at Preston prison where he was being held searched his cell and found eight SIM cards hidden in a roll of toilet paper.

Curtis, a leader of Manchester's Old Trafford Crew, which was linked with the notorious Doddington gang, used the phone to chat and even - he admitted - to organise drug deals.

During the Preston trial, the Crown alleged Curtis arranged a gangland hit on behalf of Baber Qasam, a drug dealer doing six years at another jail.

Curtis' cell-mate Gary Powell, also serving time for gun crime, had previously shared a cell with Qasam at another prison and brokered a deal between the pair.

Qasam, according to the Crown, wanted 19-year-old fellow drug dealer Suheal Patel dead.  Curtis was accused of organising the shooting from his cell, recruiting three Manchester hitmen and guiding them to their target on February 15 last year.

Gunmen fired two shots at Patel as he was sitting in his car in Blackburn, but missed.

Two shells from the scene revealed the gun, which has never been found, was a Russian-made 9mm Baikal which had probably been hired. 

Forensic analysis demonstrated it had been fired on at least six other occasions in Manchester and twice in Oldham.

The eight defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy to murder: Craig Monaghan, 23, of Garfield Avenue, Timperley; Ibrahim Choudhury, 22, of Armitage Close, Oldham; Baber Qasam, 29, of Chestnut Walk, Blackburn; Yasser Khan, 25, of July Street, Blackburn; Gary Powell, 29, of Drayton Walk, Old Trafford; Gareth Curtis, 31, of Milton Close, Stretford; Ashley Duhaney, 21, of Maher Gardens, Old Trafford; David Corbett, 22, of Redbrook Road, Timperley..