NIGERIAN GANGSTER! Oluwatobi Sunmonu, who modelled himself after Don Corleone in The Godfather, jailed nine years
A Nigerian gangster has been jailed nine years and three months by a Harrow Crown Court for conspiring to supply guns and class A drugs to London gangs.
26-year-old Oluwatobi Sunmonu modelled himself on Don Corleone in The Godfather and sold “assassin’s kit” to gangs by exploiting a loophole in the law which allowed him to buy working guns legally online.
Described by online reports as the head of a criminal network, Sunmonu – who is a qualified accountant – bought antique guns from bona fide dealers and then manufactured home-made ammunition that turned them into lethal weapons.
The Nigerian admitted to eight charges of firearms and ammunition conspiracy offences and two offences of intent to supply class A drugs.
According to the UK’s Evening Standard, authorities seized a Colt Model 1877 “Thunderer” revolver, the preferred weapon of Billy the Kid, a Colt single-shot Derringer and a Russian Makarov self-loading pistol.
The paper said, Sunmonu modelled himself on fictional and real-life gangsters, including Don Corleone.
It said,
When police raided a hotel room in Queensway they found four £1,900 Louis Vuitton holdalls containing six guns, a silencer, £152,000 of heroin and cocaine and a fake driving licence in the name of Thomas Corleoni.
Detectives from the Trident gangs team also found images of Tony Soprano from The Sopranos on Sunmonu’s laptop and references to US gangster John Gotti.
In a safe in his rented flat in Woolwich, officers found a book called The Supreme Team, detailing the activities of a violent Eighties New York cocaine syndicate. Detectives said he used the book as a self-help guide on how to run a gang and often referred to his organisation as the “supreme team”.
Police said Sunmonu was a Svengali-type character who preyed on vulnerable young girls and exploited them to pack and store drugs and guns before he distributed them to London gangs.
His girlfriend Toni Ferry, 23, of Islington, was convicted of similar charges after a two-week trial and jailed for 13 years. Another gang member Iyisha Levine, 29, of Notting Hill, was convicted of possession of class A drugs with intent to supply and jailed for five years.
Officers found that several firearms had been delivered to Ferry’s home in Islington and that she and Levine would often stay in hotel rooms for days, preparing and packaging drugs, and the team paid £28,000 to rent a room at the Queens Hotel for several months. Detectives seized six guns in the hotel raid, including a silencer, but suspect as many as seven more could be in the hands of London gangs.
