The Rise and Fall of a Crime Family
In the early hours of an April morning in 2023, undercover officers observed a woman loading boxes into a hire car at a retail park near the port of Harwich in Essex. This was part of a larger operation that would eventually lead to the arrest and sentencing of a notorious crime family. The woman, Deborah Mason, known to her family as Gangsta Debbs or Queen Bee, was a grandmother and the matriarch of a criminal network operating across southeast England.
Mason had recruited her four children, her sister, and others close to the family to supply cocaine around the country. Her lavish lifestyle included designer goods for her cat and a £192 Bugatti kettle. On Friday, the 65-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs at Woolwich Crown Court. The rest of the gang received sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years for the same charge.
The Metropolitan Police had been monitoring Mason for seven months after that morning in Harwich. During this time, she and her family-run gang completed cocaine and class A drug pick-ups at ports such as Harwich, Folkestone, and Dover. The pattern was often the same: tightly-wrapped packages of cocaine were collected, divided between supermarket bags, and then delivered to the next person in the chain. Drop-offs occurred in various cities including south London, Cardiff, Bristol, Sheffield, Rotherham, Manchester, Bradford, Southend, Leicester, and Walsall.
One man arrested in Leicester shortly after a handover was found with 10kg of cocaine. Other trips involved collecting their "wages" as they described it. In total, the drugs handled by the gang were worth £25m-£30m at wholesale, with a street value of up to £80m, according to the prosecution during the sentencing hearing.
Communication and Operations
The gang used aliases to communicate with each other and with their supplier, a man known only as "Bugsy," on the encrypted messaging app Signal. Mason had a close relationship with "Bugsy" and even went on holiday with him to Dubai and Bahrain in October 2023. Over a seven-month period, Mason carried out 20 trips transporting at least 356kg of cocaine, as well as delivering and collecting cash.
Judge Philip Shorrock described Mason as having a "leading role" and referred to her as "the site foreman working under a project manager." He criticized her for not setting an example to her children, instead corrupting them. The court heard that Mason did not buy drugs herself but was involved in directing multi-kilo transactions.
Prosecutor Charlotte Hole stated that Mason organized those who drove for her, staying in phone contact from the early hours to ensure they were up and checking in on them during the day. Financial gain was the motivation, and police noted that Mason spent extravagantly on designer clothing, bags, and accessories, including a £390 Gucci collar and lead for her Bengal cat, Ghost.
Lavish Lifestyle and Financial Gain
When arrested, footage showed Mason being handcuffed in her bathroom next to a designer DKNY towel. During the conspiracy, she received £50,000 in benefits, and expressed a desire to go to Turkey for cosmetic procedures. She booked holidays with her sister to Cornwall, Malta, Prague, and Poland, and took her daughters to Dubai where they continued to direct operations in the UK via Facetime.
Family Involvement and Sentences
Mason, whose number was saved in one of her children's phones under the name Queen Bee, involved her three daughters, her son, and two of their partners in the conspiracy. They are all now starting lengthy prison sentences behind bars. A friend, Anita Slaughter, 44, has also been jailed.
Mason's son, Reggie Bright, 24, delivered at least 90kg of cocaine over 12 trips, often traveling alongside his partner, Demi Kendall, 31, or his sister Lillie Bright, 27, as well as his mother. He used the Signal alias "Frank" and was clearly known to and in direct contact with the upstream supplier. The gang were paid about £1,000 per trip by Mason.
Reggie Bright and Demi Kendall were also caught running their own separate drugs line from their caravans in Kent, in breach of a previous suspended sentence order imposed on them for drug-related offences. The prosecution argued that Mason's eldest daughter Demi Bright had a significant role in operations, delivering about 60kg of cocaine, although she was not as active as other family members as she had other sources of income.
Consequences and Reflections
Mason's other daughters, Roseanne Mason and Lillie Bright, were also found guilty. Rosanne Mason, 30, took part in seven identified trips, including to Bradford and Manchester. Lillie Bright made 20 identified trips and the court heard she had a "clear expectation of significant financial advantage."
Lillie Bright involved her partner Chloe Hodgkin, who will be sentenced at a later date once she has given birth. In mitigation, each defense lawyer argued that all involved were "expendable" compared with the wider drug enterprise, and that most of the children were "couriers" making trips across the UK.
Specialist prosecutor Robert Hutchinson described the case as "no ordinary family," noting that instead of nurturing and caring for her relatives, Deborah Mason recruited them to establish an extraordinarily profitable criminal enterprise that ultimately put them all behind bars.
Met Police's Det Con Jack Kraushaar, who led the investigation, described Mason's operation as "sophisticated" and said it was "extremely profitable for those involved." He added that the group were sucked into criminality, selfishly attracted by the financial benefits of drug-dealing to fund lavish lifestyles.
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