John and Rob Dawes were the generals of the Dawes Cartel, based in the Mansfield and Sutton-in-Ashfield areas.
John and Rob Dawes were the generals of the Dawes Cartel, based in the Mansfield and Sutton-in-Ashfield areas. They ran a multi-million-pound drugs empire from a small house in Tudor Street, Sutton-in-Ashfield. Like his pal Colin Gunn, John Dawes eschewed life within the legitimate working world. From 1991 until his arrest in 2005, there is no evidence that John Dawes did a single day's legitimate work. He lived almost exclusively, according to his own accounts, as a jobless man claiming benefits. His hot-headed brother Rob was operating from Spain from 2002 onwards, organising shipments of cannabis resin and cocaine, while the rest of the gang organised wholesale deliveries of amphetamines and heroin, mainly from Liverpool and Runcorn. Until 2001, they operated almost undetected. Then police in Nottinghamshire launched Operation Normality with the help of the National Crime Squad and customs investigators. By 2003, it would receive additional resources with the sanctioning of Oper...