A former drug dealer sold heroin and cocaine for more than five years as he chased a celebrity lifestyle.
Hermen Dange, 28, was locked up but has now turned his life around and launched two successful businesses including Fussy Kitchen, in Wavertree. Herman also spends a lot of time talking to children in schools and has made it his mission to educate young people about life after school and college.
Hermen was part of a gang called the Manchester Boys, or Manx, which ran drugs between Manchester, Southampton and Winchester. The now 28-year-old first got involved in drug dealing when he was 16 and by the age of 22 was behind bars.
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He told The ECHO : “I was 16 (when he started drug dealing), everyone was so lost at the time and all we wanted was money – not knowing that we could be potentially hurting other people. It wasn’t until I was in court the prosecution said we were killing people or hurting people I realised what I was doing.
“I can’t speak for the others but I was all about the money, I just wanted money fast and didn’t want to work for it. I saw the celebrity lifestyle and people going on holidays and that was what I wanted.
“I bought designer clothes and went on holiday, I wasn’t saving the money to do anything. I just wanted the lifestyle.”
The teenager was forced out of the house by his mum when she got wind of what her son was doing. Hermen said at the time this gave him ‘more freedom’ and meant he was able to hide and “protect” his mum and little sisters from what he was doing.
The full scale of Hermen’s crime was uncovered when he got into a fight while selling drugs in Southampton. Police rushed to the scene and arrested Hermen on assault charges.
Officers asked why Hermen was in Southampton and, when he said he was “working”, officers didn’t believe him and began to investigate. One month later, he was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to supply cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin, as well as money laundering.
Hermen said in the month before he was arrested, he and a friend realised how “deep” they were and tried to turn their lives around. The then 20-year-old applied for a job at a call centre but, looking back, said it was “too late”.
He said: “I didn’t realise there was an operation following me, it was just too late and that’s when I was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. I remember being taken from court to Strangeways and I was in the reception area and they tell you what you can expect.
“The officer opened the cell door and that’s when you realise that you are really on your own and you are alone when you go in there. It’s a really scary place to be in that respect.”
Looking back at his time in prison, Hermen said he can understand why people do go back to a life of crime due to “the pressure” of what you’re going to do when you are out.
He said: “You really do feel the pressure when people start asking you what you’re going to do when you get back out. People see you having this lifestyle and all this money and wonder how you’re going to get that back.
“I can see why people do go back to it but I decided while I was in prison that I wanted to use my transferable skills from being in a gang to creating my own business.”
(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
Eventually Hermen moved to an HMP Thorn Cross open prison in Warrington and looked into what courses he could study in jail. When he was released from prison in 2020 after three years, exactly half of his sentence, his mum bought him his first van so he could set up a removal firm.
Once this business was off the ground, he then set his sights on setting up a street food business called Fussy Kitchen, which is based in Picton Road. Hermen believed if he didn’t set up his own business, he would have struggled to find work coming straight out of prison.
As well as having his own businesses in transport and food, Hermen is now a mentor at youth centres and schools, talking to the younger generation about “life after high school”. He is also hoping to launch a workshop with his business partner for people who are interested in creating their own legitimate businesses.
He said: “I have been out for two years now and my aim is not to be rich – but to be successful and to help others as much as I can. I changed the life of one person, who may have damaged hundreds of people’s lives (by selling drugs), like I did in the past.
“The way I keep myself alive now is to talk to people.”
