Police have launched a murder investigation after two people died in a house fire near Middlesbrough and said they “cannot rule out any links to wider organised crime at this time” following a huge crash on the A66 last week.
Four other people were injured in the incident on Birchington Avenue, Grangetown, on Wednesday morning.
The blaze happened about two miles from the scene of a crash on Sunday that killed seven people, including two police officers.
Cleveland Police said they “cannot rule out any links to wider organised crime at this time” after a total of 17 people were arrested following the huge crash near Middlesbrough.
Officers were called to the street just before 5.30am on Wednesday, with two people later confirmed dead.
A woman remains in the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle in a critical condition, and a further three people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
They are currently receiving treatment in hospital.
Police investigations are continuing into the events surrounding Saturday’s deadly A66 crash after five more arrests were made on Tuesday.
Pc Matthew Blades, 37, and Pc Tom Clough, 38, were killed when the Passat, which had been pursued by police, was driven the wrong way along the dual-carriageway and hit their marked armed response vehicle.
The five people in the Passat, Cole Worthy, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jacob Matusiak, were pronounced dead at the scene at South Bank, early on Saturday.
Cleveland Police have arrested a total of 17 people following the crash on the A66 in which two police officers and five people in a Volkswagen Passat died.
On Tuesday, the force said it had arrested five more people with the assistance of the National Crime Agency and the North East Regional Organised Crime Unit.
The force said they were a boy aged 16, an 18-year-old and a man of 21, all on suspicion of participating in an organised crime group; a 55-year-old on suspicion of assisting an offender and a 23-year-old on suspicion of making threats to kill.
Cleveland Police said two of the 12 people previously arrested have now appeared in court following the horrific crash near Middlesbrough in the early hours of Saturday.
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