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Clockwise from top left: Carole Ann Whitney,
Leslie Whitney, Mary McCabe, Paul Whitney and
Matthew Mayor. Photo via

Thirteen members of a notorious crime family—who dealt heroin and crack around the clock in Liverpool and dominated one area of the English city—have been jailed for a total of 82 years after several dramatic police raids. “Matriarch and banker” Carol Whitney, 53, hid 500 wraps of heroin in a hanging plant in her back yard when cops arrived. She was claiming government benefits despite making a fortune from drugs. Nearby, police chased her estranged husband Leslie through his house and into the back yard as he tried to destroy his own stash. More extended family and associates were arrested elsewhere; young mom Emma McKenzie, 29, tried to hide her dope in a diaper bag. Her baby, meanwhile, was being used as a decoy by McKenzie's own mom, Mary McCabe: the 53-year-old grandmother's car was pulled over and cops found drugs and ammunition under the seat her granddaughter was strapped into. There was also a military assault rifle in the trunk. One family associate, 37-year-old Matthew Mayor, was filmed tossing large packages of heroin from his car window during a high-speed police chase—plumes of powder billowed behind him as the packs burst. Cops say just one of the packs contained dope worth around $75,000. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition, thousands of ecstasy pills, a canister of CS military tear gas, several sets of body armor, and yet more weaponry and heroin, were also seized from the Whitney family hoard. "This was a very dangerous family whose daily business was drugs and guns,” says Liverpool Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Doherty. "They dealt with drugs near to schools. They have nice holiday homes, they go on exotic holidays...My description of them would be 'parasites.'"