It wasn’t only good old-fashioned police work that eventually led to the unraveling of a drug ring in Blackpool, England. It was also a chronic social media obsession—combined with a loose-lipped parrot named Mango who had been trained to talk like a street-level drug dealer.
I know. It sounds precisely like the hacky twist of a movie or cartoon that you either have seen a thousand times or have long been familiar with, thanks to pop cultural osmosis. But it actually happened.
The bird, featured in videos now in evidence, was taught to say simple drug dealer vernacular, like “two for 25,” a way for dealers to inform prospective buyers that they could buy two, uh, units? Pieces? Of the drug for 25 pounds.
The parrot belonged to Shannon Hilton, the girlfriend of Adam Garnett, a man who somehow managed to run a drug empire from a prison cell between 2023 and 2024. When police raided Garnett’s cell, they found phones, Wi-Fi routers, and footage of Mango playing with wads of drug money.
English Drug Gang Taken Down Thanks to a Snitching Parrot
With Garnett as the kingpin, detectives followed the breadcrumbs from his prison to his inner circle. That included Hilton, who not only filmed Mango dropping the “two for 25” quote in front of a kid but also seemingly found the whole thing hilarious. Other lieutenants included Dalbir Sandhu, who documented drug deals like he was filming a documentary on his criminality, and Jason Gerrand, some other guy.
The whole gang seemed so social media-pilled that they all found unique ways to create cold, hard, irrefutable evidence of their crimes. Yet even amongst a group of criminal documentarians, one man stood head and shoulders above the rest: Gareth Burgess.
His videos showed him strolling through Blackpool flashing stacks of cash while rapping about the various crimes he had committed. These people had so thoroughly burned through every possible way they could wrap themselves out that they even started teaching parents how to squeal on them.
It would be a travesty if the police didn’t release every single video these fools made of themselves to the public for our amusement.
All told, 15 members of the gang pleaded guilty in court. Garnett earned himself 19 years and six months. Hilton got 12. And the rest of the collected sentences ranged from five to ten years.
Two members—Chloe Stott and Ryan Black—skipped sentencing, which now makes them wanted fugitives. Until they rob a bank on a Twitch livestream or tweet out their exact coordinates.
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