Woah!
The farmer’s wife has gone on the run, charged with being the “Godmother” of a major Welsh cocaine syndicate and facing restitution payments of £26,000 should she be successfully run to ground.
52 year-old Lynne Leyson led a secret double-life for many years as the leader of a crime gang, which she administered from behind her cover of being an everyday farmer making her living from the land in a sleepy Welsh village. She fled on the eve of being thrown in jail for a nine year sentence. After almost a year on the run, the UK’s police services have decided to up the game by circulating her mugshot and suspected alias.
The Leyson family was taken down last year after a long investigation. After a raid on their farm, police discovered a stockpile of knives, guns, and a pack of untrained Doberman Pincers, all of which they had used to threaten their neighbors to keep quiet the secret of the goigs-on at the remote Carmarthenshire, Wales farm. Police also recovered cocaine and cannabis with a street value of over £65,000 and a £17,000 cash horde, the latter of which the family claimed were proceeds from the sale of real estate.
The raid also led to the arrest of some of the family’s dealer network.
Stephen, Lynne Leyson’s 55 year-old husband, and their son Samson, were thrown in jail last July, following the police raid on the farm. Stephen received an 11 year sentence, and Samson a six year sentence. Lynne herself was sentenced to nine years in abesntia.
All three Leysons were judged guilty of conspiracy to supply Class B and Class A drugs.
Most of Lynne Leyson’s neighbors saw her as just a respectable farmer’s wife, and yet beneath the facade she was managing the flow of multi-kilo quantities of cannabis and cocaine from the family’s smallholding. She was described during the trial as the “dominant force” who had a “leading role” in the family’s secret business.
