CHILD killer Thomas Cashman was an enforcer in one of the UK's most powerful and secretive drug gangs, it can be revealed.
Cashman, 34, is now facing dying behind bars for the murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel.
Olivia, just 9, died after Cashman tried to murder gangland rival Joseph Nee in the doorway of her Liverpool home.
A bullet passed through the hand of Olivia's mum and into the schoolgirl.
Today Cashman was found guilty of Olivia's horrifying murder.
He was also convicted of attempted murder, the wounding of Olivia's mum Cheryl and two firearms offences.
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He now faces a whole life sentence.
The Sun can now reveal that Cashman was a feared enforcer for a dreaded drugs mafia rooted in Merseyside.
Police and the UK's FBI have been at war with the gang for the last decade.
The Huyton mafia work with the Kinahan Cartel, the Irish based drug gang now hit with a raft of sanctions by the US government.
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Cashman worked for a crime group which was born in the Stockbridge Village area of Knowsley, Merseyside in the 1990s.
He was their protege, trusted with the task of enforcing the will of feared godfathers.
The paramilitary style crime group was rooted across Stockbridge Village, Huyton, Croxteth Park and West Derby.
The crime gang cannibalised the area, flooding it with drugs and policing the streets with teenage thugs.
SECRET MAFIA
Enemies were tortured to death and family homes blown up.
The house where Olivia was shot dead, in the Dovecot area, was in the heart of their territory, a neighbourhood in the stranglehold of brutal drug dealers.
Cashman's name was first mentioned after a gangland shooting ten years ago.
Karl Bradley's body was found in a garden on Penshaw Close. Just around the corner from Kingsheath Avenue, where Olivia died.
Karl, brother of gangland figure Kirk, was shot in the back yards from his own home. His body was only discovered the following morning.
Cashman was said to be close to the crime but he was not charged with the murder.
Karl Bradley's murder was ordered by godfathers who ran the Huyton mafia, a gang that escaped the attention of the police and media for years.
The drug crew filled the void after notorious drugs king pin Curtis Warren was jailed in Holland in the late 90s.
The crew shunned the publicity that criminals such as Warren and John Haase had attracted over the years.
They avoided petty disputes and the bravado world of nightclubs and security firms.
REIGN OF TERROR
Although the gang was rooted to Huyton the leadership moved to southern Spain in the late 90s.
Enforcers, recruited from Liverpool, were handpicked to work for the gang on the Costa Del Sol where they competed with rival crime groups from North Africa and Eastern Europe.
A Liverpool man, who grew up in Norris Green area, worked for the gang on the Costa.
After a fall out he was tortured to death. Parts of his body later washed up on a beach in 2002.
The horrific circumstances of the death sent a message on a scale used by Mexican drug cartels.
The gang's leadership began a new life in Spain, living in gated, high security compounds.
Their feared enforcer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, did their dirty work.
The notorious individual travelled around Europe carrying out assassinations known as 'red jobs' with automatic weapons for the godfathers.
In 2009 the gang unleashed a wave of terror across Merseyside after two businessmen were accused of 'grassing' to police.
In one incident a hand grenade was left in bushes outside Kenny Dalglish's home.
Thugs had been sent to blow up a family home on Selworthy Road in Birkdale. They had to abort the raid after a security guard spotted them.
The two crooks dumped the grenade outside Mr Dalglish's home which resulted in a major security incident.
Mr Dalglish had no involvement with the criminal dispute.
A few months later the mafia sent more men back to the road. Police had installed a mobile police van in the street to deter attacks.
A thug threw a Yugolsavian grenade over the van and onto the driveway of the home, blowing up the driveway.
Neighbours in the affluent area, just a stone's throw from Royal Birkdale, were aghast after not one but two grenade incidents in a matter of months.
The mafia had paid a young street crew led by thugs Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes to carry out the attacks across the city. Downes and Bradley were later jailed for life.
The following year the Huyton firm sent a hit team to Amsterdam to assassinate a gangland rival.
But British police tipped off their colleagues in Holland, who managed to arrest the gang in the nick of time.
The crew had been armed with machine guns and silencers.
In the same year Liverpool man Nicky Ayers was shot dead on South Cantril Avenue, West Derby.
Sources told The Sun that Mr Ayers had been involved in a row with a Huyton godfather, and had been accused of disrespect.
A young gun man from the area was paid to execute Ayers, who had served time in prison for drug offences.
By this point the Huyton mafia was a major target for police in the UK, including the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
In 2013 SOCA announced a major coup when they seized 400 kilos of cocaine concealed in a shipment of Argentinean beef.
Police, who seized the haul at Tilbury docks in Essex, put the packages back in place but with bricks inside.
The haul was then transported to a cold storage unit in Wigan, when the gang realised they had been double crossed.
But the mafia drafted in a crew of criminals charged with the task of recovering the haul.
The six men were put under heavy police surveillance and later jailed for drug offences.
One of the crew was heard to say that they had to be prepared "to rape" individuals suspected of stealing the haul which was worth around £90M.
POLICE RAID LUXURY VILLA
In 2017 Spanish police launched a major operation against the Huyton mafia in Spain, raiding a stronghold in the Marbella area.
Police released dramatic video footage which showed armed police jumping out of helicopters and storming the compound. Suspects were filmed being led from their beds at gunpoint.
Cashman, a well known figure in the city, also bodyguarded Liverpool businessmen who were friendly with the Huyton firm.
Sources have told The Sun that his presence in a Liverpool nightclub or bar always electrified the room.
But one insider suggested Cashman had "got sloppy" over recent years after the godfathers who ran the mafia had either left the country or been jailed.
The man said: "That kid knows a lot and there will be a lot of worried people out there now.
"Will he want to do a deal to enjoy some fresh air when he is older."
Cashman grew up in the Dovecot area of Liverpool.
A former youth worker from the area said to The Sun: "He was just an ordinary kid. There was nothing unusual about him."
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