Police are intercepting the smuggling racket whose knife killed Yousef Makki – but is it enough to stop another tragedy?

A new police operation which is preventing hundreds of deadly knives reaching the streets of Manchester is ‘a start’, according to the family of Yousef Makki – but they fear it won’t go far enough as young online buyers aren’t being prosecuted.

Yousef, 17, a talented Manchester Grammar School pupil from Burnage, was stabbed through the heart on Gorse Bank Road in Hale Barns on March 2.

He was killed by a flick-knife costing £3 that had been imported from China, by one of his friends, using the shopping website wish.com.

Thousands of knives just like the one that killed Yousef – all believed to be from the same city and the same factory in China –  have now been seized by GMP’s Operation Concept.

The lethal flick-knives, hunting blades and Samurai swords – frequently marketed and boxed up as garden tools – were bound for the streets of Greater Manchester before being intercepted.

The operation has come too late to save Yousef, who was killed by a knife being held by his friend Joshua Molnar.

A jury unanimously found Molnar, from Hale, not guilty of murder and manslaughter in July following a trial at Manchester Crown Court.

He told the jury Yousef pulled a knife first and said he acted in self-defence.

The knife which inflicted the fatal injury had been purchased by a friend of the pair referred to in press reports from the trial as Boy B or Boy Two, as he cannot be named for legal reasons.

The trial heard Boy B told police officers during his interview he had purchased two flick-knives for £2 or £3 each via the California-based shopping website wish.com.

He used a false name and had them delivered to the home of an unwitting friend.

Wish.com now say they are rooting out listings of illegal knives.

But in the months since Yousef’s death, a staggering number of imported Chinese weapons, all bought via Wish.com, have been seized en route to addresses in the region.

The number of blades being intercepted numbers about 100 a week.

And the purchasers are frequently children, who, officers visit, with the aim of educating them, rather than prosecute.

Yousef Makki’s family welcome the operation – but fear there is no ‘deterrent’ if those who buy knives in this way are not prosecuted.

Yousef’s older sister Jade Akoum, told the M.E.N: “We are glad that GMP are taking such action against the purchasing of knives online.

“Although too late to save Yousef, it may save someone else.

“The knife that killed Yousef was purchased by Boy B on this very app Wish.

“If he hadn’t made this purchase, it’s likely Yousef would still be alive today.”

Mother-of-three Jade, who is campaigning for tougher knife crime sentences, added: “I feel youths are well aware knives such as this are illegal, hence (Boy B) having it posted to a friend’s address not his own.

“Regarding how the police handle these interceptions is crucial.

“If they do not receive some kind of consequence, there is no deterrent and they will simply acquire one through other means.

“Knife crime is a very complex issue which needs a huge multi agency approach.

“However, I feel this is a start.

“If it saves one family from the suffering we live with daily, then it is worth it.”

In the hours before the fatal stabbing, Boy B said the three pals had been playing with the ‘sick’ imported knives in the car park of upmarket grocer Booths in Hale.

Boy B, 17, was cleared of perverting the course of justice by allegedly lying to police about what he had seen, but he admitted possession of the second flick knife which had come from China, and was detained for four months.

Joshua Molnar, 18,  is currently serving an eight-month detention and training order after he admitted possessing the knife which inflicted the fatal injury and perverting the course of justice by lying to police at the scene.

Both teenagers were cleared of conspiracy to rob .

Knife crime had already been acknowledged as an increasing and serious problem in Greater Manchester by the time of Yousef’s death in March, but it was only in that month that government funding was secured to launch Operation Concept from Stretford police station.

Co-ordinated by GMP’s Violence Reduction Unit, it is being run in partnership with the Royal Mail and the Border Force.

Supt Chris Downey said: “The area of knife crime that has risen the most is possession.

“It suggests there is a big problem around the sheer volume of knives available.

“We are recovering knives that have not come out of the kitchen drawer – they are combat knives.

“In this country, we have laws that prevent the sale of flick knives, lock knives.

“Yet we are stopping young people with them.

“We are good at preventing the sale of knives to people under 18 in this country.

“Then suddenly, this kind of stuff started appearing, which I know you can’t buy in stores in Manchester.

“So we started investigating where they were coming from, working with the Royal Mail and Border Force.

“At one sorting depot in the Midlands, they now seize and intercept all weapons coming into this country.

“They are all coming from the same place – China.

“It comes in the same packaging, from the same place.

“It doesn’t say flick knife, it will say garden tools or gadgets – a real crude attempt to disguise it.”

Supt Downey explained why children may swerve a prosecution even though they have been caught importing a knife.

He said “It could be a young child who is being intimidated who wants to carry a knife for self-defence.

“It is about asking questions as to why someone wants to buy a knife, then we will decide on our response.

“Often when we visit them at home we get ‘I didn’t know it was illegal’.

“It is so easy to obtain them, you could be forgiven for thinking it is not a criminal offence.

“One child bought a knife because he thought it was really cool.

“There is nothing on the websites to suggest they were illegal.”

He added: “Knives seem to be more available around the country.

“Knife crime has risen by 45 per cent nationally since 2016.

“If we come across a young person on the periphery of knife crime, or involved in knife crime, instead of just criminalising them, we want to do something different.

“Will putting them before a court change their behaviour?

“Probably not.

“We are looking for early intervention.

“It is about changing the behaviour of that young person.”

A wish.com spokesman told the Manchester Evening News : “We take the listing or sale of illegal knives on our UK platform very seriously.

“Such listings violate our merchant terms of service.

“We have been, and will continue, to deploy reactive measures to remove listings of illegal knives.

“We are pleased to have had positive conversations with Greater Manchester Police about how we can work together to tackle this issue.”