Workmen in their high-vis jackets are caught digging up roads and pavements in part of an astonishing covert criminal network fuelling illicit drug profits worth millions.
Operating under the cover of a legitimate company, the professional-looking Elev8 Civils and Utilities vans use barriers to illegally cordon off areas, dig up pavements and splice into cables to provide direct feeds into cannabis farms run by Albanian gangs.
Their audacious daylight robbery enabled electricity worth millions of pounds to be abstracted into producing at least £21million worth of drugs, investigators confirmed yesterday.
As well as being criminal, their actions – which covered 32 different police force areas across the UK – were also highly dangerous.
On a mobile phone belonging to Elev8 Civils and Utilities director Andrew Roberts, 42, police found a shocking image of him with his face purple and singed, apparently caused by one of the cables they cut into blowing up.
Meanwhile footage seemingly filmed by a concerned householder showed small explosions as the gang dug into electricity lines on a street in Middlesbrough.
As Roberts and his co-conspirators were jailed today, a judge slammed their ‘greed’ – and said they had operated their cynical deception in ‘broad daylight and in plain sight’.
Yesterday, eight men were jailed for their roles after an unprecedented police investigation which revealed they had operated in 32 different police force areas across the UK between 2020 and 2024.
Premises turned into illegal drug factories included a former hotel, shops, a nightclub, a pub and an empty department store.
The group was headed by Roberts, from Wigan, Greater Manchester, and fellow company director Ross McGinn, 33 from Huyton, Merseyside.
Both men had LinkedIn profiles in which they posted photos of apparently legitimate work to promote the company.
In 2023 McGinn posted: ‘If we can help you with any civils work from fibre to utilities in the northwest we have lads ready with full digging kits etc all accreditations.’
In another post he wrote that it had ‘been a busy week of call outs for the Elev8 team, digging out and locating faults’.
Detective Chief Inspector Zoe Russo said the reality was that the men ran a ‘highly sophisticated but dangerous operation’.
