FIVE suspects have been charged after a series of dawn raids in a police operation targeting organised crime in Warrington.

Search warrants were executed Several properties in the town – as well as in Rochdale and the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester – in the early hours of yesterday, Wednesday.

And Cheshire Police’s serious and organised crime unit have now charged four men and one woman with drug offences in connection with the raids.

Thirty-one-year-old Ryan Baker, of Bridgewater Avenue in Latchford has been charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

Matthew Parrack, aged 39 and also of Bridgewater Avenue, faces the same charges.

And 29-year-old Thomas Rayment, of Brookvale Close in Burtonwood, is charged with these two counts as well as possession of a Taser.

Nadia Khatib-Shahid, a 32-year-old woman from Manchester, and 37-year-old Sheldon Simpson, of no fixed address, are also charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

All defendants are expected to appear before Warrington Magistrates Court today, Thursday, and have been remanded into custody.

Police have stepped up patrols in the area near to the raided properties in order to ‘provide reassurance to the community’.