Police continuing work to make Island a 'hostile environment' for criminal networks

27-year-old receives longest prison sentence handed down for drug offences

Police on the Isle of Man say they will continue to do everything they can to make the Island a ‘hostile environment’ for criminal networks.

That’s according to the chief constable who says he is ‘absolutely committed’ to investing resources to tackle serious and organised criminality.

Yesterday 27-year-old Kyle Brian Molyneux, who also uses the surname Johnson, was jailed for 20 years for ‘orchestrating’ an organised crime group from behind bars at the Isle of Man Prison.

It’s the longest sentence handed down for drugs offences in the Manx courts.

Twelve people, from the Island and the United Kingdom, have now been jailed for almost 70 years in total for their parts in importing heroin, cocaine and cannabis to the Isle of Man.

They were caught as part of Operation Achilles – a three-year operation which started in February 2020, just before the Coronavirus pandemic, and which concluded in April this year.

Almost £100,000 worth of drugs were seized including nearly half a kilogram of heroin– the equivalent of around 3,230 separate street deals.

Fifty-thousands pounds in criminal cash was also recovered.  

The longest sentence was reserved for Molyneux who police have described as the ‘ringleader’ and someone who ran the on-Island ‘criminal enterprise’ from his cell at the Isle of Man Prison.

The constabulary says his involvement in the organised crime gang involved ‘partaking in drug supply, money laundering, enforcement-based violence, intimidation, exploitation of vulnerable persons and organisation of drug shipments’.

Detective Inspector Jamie Tomlinson, from the Drug and Organised Crime Unit, told Tessa Hawley Molyneux was the ‘common denominator’ who linked to every other member of the organised crime group: