by The remote Welsh village of Capel Dewi is a quiet, sleepy community. There are painting classes, a craft market and sometimes a pizza night in the village hall, but it is mainly for pensioners and dairy farmers. Up a narrow country lane you’ll find Pibwr Farm, a collection of cabins and huts with signs warning of CCTV and guard dogs.
It was once home to Lynne Leyson, 52, who looked like a normal middle-aged wife and mum of three. According to neighbors, she always had her hair “done up great”. But Leyson led a double life, as the powerful matriarch behind one of Wales’ biggest organized crime families, supplying cocaine and cannabis from the family farm.
This week, Leyson has been placed on the UK’s “most wanted” list, after going on the run more than a year ago. Her mugshot and aliases have now been released to all police forces in the UK, and Crimestoppers is offering up to £1,000 for information leading to her arrest. It sounds like something from Ozark or Badly brokenbut how did this respectable member of a rural south west Wales community become one of the country’s most hunted fugitives?
Although the village was shocked when police with sniffer dogs raided the Pibwr farm in the early hours of October 27, 2021, there were always signs that it was not your typical holding. Residents of Capel Dewi later reported that they noticed large dogs guarding the property, smelled cannabis from time to time and often saw high-speed cars entering the farm, especially at weekends. Some claim to have seen polytunnels where the cannabis was growing, but if the locals had their suspicions, no one had any idea of the scale of the operation.
But the police recovered 592g of cocaine with a street value of up to £60,200; 1.4kg of cannabis with a street value of £15,615; and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun hidden in a canvas bag in a cavity in the cabin ceiling. It is believed to be the first firearm of its kind ever found in the Dyfed-Powys Police area. Most of the drugs were hidden in a dog shed and a green suit in the corner of a field. Also found were assets including a £9,550 Tag Heuer Formula 1 watch and £17,190 in cash. The Leysons – who initially denied any wrongdoing – claimed the money came from “the sale of a house”.
“The Leyson family are an organized crime group who sought to make a quick buck by selling large quantities of cocaine and cannabis to sub-dealers across south-west Wales,” Dyfed-Powys Police detective chief inspector Rhys Jones said. “We hope this case sends a clear message that we are working continuously to disrupt the supply of illegal substances in our force area and that anyone who tries to spread their vice through our communities for financial gain will be prosecuted .”
In July 2023, Lynne’s husband Stephen Leyson, now 56, was jailed for 11 years and her son Samson, 25, was jailed for six years. The police investigation – code-named Operation Hilston – led officers to two dealers living in Pembrokeshire who were selling drugs to the family, including one nicknamed Mr Pickles, who was also in prison.
But Lynne was not on bail after the trial and disappeared before she could be sentenced. The judge, Catherine Richards, said Lynne was a “dominant force” who played a “dominant role” in the drug enterprise by “directing events from the farm”. In September, she was sentenced to nine years in absentia.
One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “They seemed like a normal farming family… a bit rough around the edges like a lot of people from the country. Lynne actually looked very normal – not a cocaine dealer like she was. It’s all very strange.”
Lynne Leyson grew up in Swansea and attended the now closed Dinevor School, whose alumni include Harry Secombe, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and Conservative MPs Nigel Evans and Julian Lewis.
She married Stephen in 1998 and he worked as a carer but she was prosecuted for theft after stealing from one of her clients. Stephen – described by his lawyer at his trial as a “hopeless cocaine addict” – served a string of sentences and time in Cardiff prison for GBH.
The Leysons had three children and first lived in Kilwachter – 15 miles from Chapel Dewi – where neighbors reported they sold drugs from an ice cream van. “He would drive and she would serve, but they were serving more than ice cream, put it that way,” said one.
Stephen inherited the farmland on the outskirts of Cépil Dewi from his father in 2019. It must have seemed like the ideal remote location from which to expand the family business.
Judge Richards said she was “pretty confident” that Lynne Leyson – known to use the alias Annelyn Caldicot – would be arrested and brought before a court “at some stage”. Police are now searching a number of addresses across south Wales previously linked to the Leysons, but Lynne has disappeared.
There is a suggestion that she may be in Thailand, as her father – who died in 2023 – had property there. She also has family in West Yorkshire, but they are estranged from her.
“I didn’t know anything about this. I haven’t seen her in decades, not since she was a child of 15,” said her half-brother Patrick Brooke, 56. “No one was involved with her. No one even knew about the court case. I didn’t even know she was married. My father had a place in Thailand. It is in a village. Not one of the main towns, I couldn’t tell you where it was. She might be going to Thailand. She won’t be coming to us, that’s for sure.”
Meanwhile, life seems very quiet around Piper Farm now – rolling hills, a few sheep. It seems like a very long way from guns, drugs and gangsters. But as the Leysons proved – looks can be deceiving.
