A man who lives in an affluent gated community in East London where properties sell for more than £700,000 has been revealed as a ruthless enforcer for an organised criminal group. After a National Crime Agency investigation, debt collector and enforcer Peter Cordwell was sentenced to 11 years and six months in prison.
He admits to being concerned in the supply of of cocaine and amphetamine. Cordwell, 49, was notorious in the criminal world for his heinous involvement in an Essex-based organised crime ring. He was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 1998 and battery in 2014.
His texts suggest that he was involved in the supply of multi-kilo volumes of high-purity cocaine between November 2019 and August 2020. He confessed to charges involving at least 32 kilos of cocaine with a street value of roughly £2.5 million and 90 kilos of amphetamine.
In one of his EncroChat conversations, he told his contact that he needed to collect £112,000 from a customer for the “last 4 tops,” which referred to four kilogrammes of cocaine. In another, he claims to offer cocaine with a purity of more than 80%.
Cordwell was arrested on August 9, 2022. He was interviewed four times and answered “no comment” to all questions asked. NCA operations manager Dean Wallbank said: “By dismantling Cordwell’s crime group, we have put an end to the harm it was bringing to UK streets.
“These men were supplying substantial quantities of Class A drugs across Essex, and further afield as far as Cornwall. As well as organising drug deals, Cordwell was known as a feared criminal enforcer in Essex. The NCA works in the UK and around the world to fight the class A drugs threat and protect the public from its impact.”
