EXCLUSIVE The matriarch kingpins running Britain's drugs gangs: Why more women are turning to a life of organised crime as the masterminds behind family underworld empires

Daily Mail​

25-07-2025

Feigning surprise as she's arrested in a dawn raid, 65-year-old drug baron Deborah Mason tells an officer reading out the charges: 'Me? No, come on!'
The grandmother and mother to seven children would be exposed in court as the head of a £80million cocaine trafficking network.
As her comment suggests, Mason hardly resembles your typical kingpin.
But she is less rare than you might think, with the Londoner only the latest of a string of women over 50 to end up in jail for overseeing major drug empires.
They include Farzana Kauser, 54, who was locked up last week for smuggling £14.4m of cocaine into Britain using her four sons, daughter, and daughter-in-law.
Also behind bars is 52-year-old Lynne Leyson - a seemingly respectable mother described by prosecutors as the 'dominant force' of a pistol-wielding crime clan.
Professor David Wilson, a leading criminologist, insisted we 'should not be surprised' by the phenomenon of female gang bosses.
And far from being a disadvantage in the brutal world of organised crime, he believes their gender is a major asset.
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Deborah Mason, 65, revelled in her status as a cocaine kingpin, instructing her own family, whom she recruited as drug runners, to call her 'Gangster Debbs' and 'Queen Bee'
'We often seem to feel that we should be shocked when a woman has committed a murder, sexually abused a child, or is running an organised crime group, but we shouldn't be,' he told MailOnline.
'The underlying personality or skill set of a female organised crime boss isn't any different from a man's. Often, it's just obvious that the person who is most suitable to lead a gang just happens to be a woman.
'It's always an attribute to be a woman in crime because people find it surprising, and they can use that surprise to their advantage. Female bosses can escape detection for longer because of the gender assumptions that we make about them.'
Mason revelled in her underworld status, instructing her own family - whom she recruited as drug runners - to call her 'Gangster Debbs' and 'Queen Bee'.
The grandmother recruited her sister, four of her children, their partners and friends to ferry around a metric tonne of cocaine worth £80m from ports such as Harwich to make deliveries in Bristol, Cardiff, London, Leicester, Birmingham, Rotherham, Sheffield and Bradford, paying relatives £1,000 a trip.
Last week, she and her 10-strong family gang from Islington, North London were jailed for more than 100 years at Woolwich Crown Court.
Prosecutor Charlotte Hole told the court that in many of the drug runs between April and November 2023, Mason brought her grandchildren as young as two who sat in a child's car seat amongst cardboard boxes stuffed with 5kg blocks of cocaine.
With the profits of her drug empire, the mother-of-seven splashed out on lavish holidays to Dubai and Bahrain, designer clothing, handbags and a £400 Gucci cat collar and lead with 9ct gold engraved name tag for her beloved Bengal cat called Ghost.
The expensive collar and leash that Mason ordered for her cat using money from drug sales
Mason, who was claiming over £50,000 a year in benefits, planned to make £90,000 in profits by the end of the year which she intended to pay for plastic surgery in Turkey.
Judge Philip Shorrock referenced her parental role during sentencing, saying: 'As a mother you should have been setting an example to your children, not corrupting them.'
Bradford mother Farzana Kauser also exploited societal expectations to her advantage, with officers who investigated her describing how neighbours assumed she like any other 'thoughtful, loving mum'.
When she was arrested while meeting her four sons, daughter and daughter-in-law at Birmingham Airport in November 2024, she insisted she was merely collecting them in her car to take them home.
In reality, they were carrying 180kg of cocaine with a street value of around £14.4m after picking it up in Cancun, Mexico.
The plot saw the relatives book short one or two-night trips to Amsterdam or Dublin, where they would travel without any luggage.
They then timed their return to coincide with flights from Cancun where a corrupt insider placed suitcases stuffed with cocaine onto the Birmingham-bound flights for them to retrieve at baggage collection.
Some of it was due to be passed to a courier from another organised crime group, with the remainder taken back to Kauser's home on Waterlily Road in Manningham, Bradford, before being distributed.
Kauser was on Friday jailed for 13 years and four months at Birmingham Crown Court
Her youngest son was just 17 when she 'encouraged' him to courier drugs on her behalf in what prosecutors called a 'sophisticated and well-planned operation' involving high-purity cocaine.
Rick Mackenzie, from the National Crime Agency, said Kauser was 'very well practised in her life as a high-end cocaine trafficker'.
He added that 'to her friends and people who thought they knew her', the gangster 'was a thoughtful, loving mum who seemed very normal'.
The same could be said for Lynne Leyson, who presented herself as a respectable, rural grandmother while living a double life as a multi-million pound drug runner.
The 52-year-old operated her empire from Pibwr Farm in quiet Capel Dewi, Carmarthenshire, aided by relatives including her husband Stephen and his son Samson.
But Leyson disappeared before she was due in court to face justice - and was jailed for nine years by a judge in her absence.
She stayed on the run for 14 months while on the Most Wanted list, evading a major police search by changing her name by deed poll, obtaining a fake passport and posing as a neurologist working for the NHS.
The 'gangster godmother' was finally caught after 429 days at large when police were waiting when she returned to her farm to check on her beloved Rottweilers.
After she finally faced justice last year, one neighbour said: 'We just couldn't believe it.
'They seemed like a normal farming family, well a bit rough around the edges like a lot of country people.
'Lynne seemed very normal really - not a cocaine dealer like she was. It is all very odd.'
While some female dealers oversee sprawling operations, others attempt to stay under the radar by peddling smaller amounts.
They include Julie Cobley, 62, who funded her enviable middle-class lifestyle in the Northamptonshire village of Deanshanger by dispensing wraps of cocaine from the doorstep of her £400,000 semi-detached home.
A court heard how neighbours in the quiet, leafy street initially took Cobley at face value but at least one grew suspicious at the constant stream of visitors who would turn up at any time of night and approach her house - without ever going in.
Those living in the village would regularly see her out walking her Dachshund and terrier dogs or driving her £30,000 Jaguar
It emerged that she had been leaving packages of drugs by her bins and in small bags taped just inside her letter box for her clients to collect, dropping off notes of cash in exchange.
After a police raid uncovered £8,500 of cocaine inside her home, she was convicted of possession with intent to supply a Class A drug and handed 18 months' imprisonment, suspended for a year.