A drugs baron who features in the Sunday Times Rich List was was today sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Curtis ‘Cocky’ Warren, 46, and five members of his gang were convicted last October of a plot to smuggle £1 million worth of cannabis into Jersey, the Channel Islands.
The former Liverpool street dealer, who became Interpol’s most wanted man, appeared by video link from Belmarsh Prison in South East London for his sentencing at the Royal Court in St Helier, Jersey.
He showed no reaction as Judge Sir Richard Tucker passed sentence.
Judge Tucker said: “We do not sentence him because of his record or notoriety.
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“Nevertheless he has been shown to be the mastermind behind the planned importation.”
The failed operation was held just weeks after Warren completed a 10-year jail sentence at a Dutch prison for drug trafficking, firearms offences and manslaughter.
But as he resumed his criminal activities, the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency was following his every move as part of a “lifetime offender management” programme.
Police surveillance teams watched Warren and his gang’s every move.
The trial jury heard one conversation where Warren described the plot as “just a little starter”.
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The judge told him: “After being released from prison in Holland it was a very short space of time before you embarked on this drug trafficking enterprise.
“It was you who provided the contacts in Holland and the source of supply.”
Warren and his gang members planned to buy 180kg of the drug in Amsterdam and transport it to Jersey via France. The street value of drugs in Jersey is around three times higher in than in the UK. Warren was caught following a surveillance operation by police in the UK, Netherlands and Jersey.
In his sentencing remarks today, the prosecutor said: “Warren is a prolific drugs trafficker who has operated at the highest levels of the international drugs trade.
“Warren orchestrated this conspiracy. He knew and had direct contact with the main coordinators in both Jersey and Holland, from source to distributor.
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“He had the necessary clout and influence to direct them. He was the link between the two.”
Warren started off as a small-time street dealer in Merseyside, and went on to build a massive drugs empire, amassing millions of pounds along the way. He was arrested in 1996 in his house in Netherlands after millions of pounds worth of cocaine were found in Rotterdam and traced to him. He is said to have owned more than 300 houses in his home town and properties across Turkey, Holland and Bulgaria.
Fellow gang member John Welsh, 43, originally from Liverpool, who was described in the trial as the “willing purchaser” of the drugs, was sentenced to 12 years.
Welsh, who invested £18,000 in the plot, was the target of an illegal bugging device which Jersey police used when he travelled to Holland to negotiate the purchase of drugs.
The bug recorded him discussing the plot in explicit terms and was crucial to the prosecution.
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He was already a police target after being jailed on the island for ten years in 2000 for the largest heroin seizure in the Channel Islands.
James O’Brien, 45, from Glasgow, received a 10 year sentence for agreeing to pilot the boat which the smugglers planned to use.
Jason Woodward, 22, of Dartford, Kent, Paul Hunt, 27, and Oliver Lucas, 23, both from St Helier, Jersey, who were also investors in the scheme, received five-year terms.
Ultimately, the plot floundered when those three were unable to raise their part of the cash to pay for the drugs.
All six were found guilty of conspiracy to import a controlled drug by a unanimous jury of six men and five women following a three week trial in the Channel Islands earlier this year.
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Criminally rich pickings
Thomas “Slab” Murphy, 60, former chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, was said to have amassed a personal fortune of about £40 million from smuggling petrol and counterfeit goods across the Irish border. A year ago he reached an agreement with UK and Irish authorities to hand over £1 million in assets
John Palmer, 59, from Bath, Somerset, was convicted of a timeshare fraud involving properties in Tenerife in 2001. He is reputed to have £300 million. He was jailed for eight years and a confiscation order for £35 million was made against him. At the height of his wealth he was said to have owned a West Country mansion, a French chateau, a £750,000 yacht, Porsches, Ferraris, restaurants, a Lear jet and a fleet of helicopters
Brian Wright, 62, is serving a 30-year jail term for cocaine smuggling. At the height of his career his wealth was estimated at £100 million and he had a box at Ascot and a flat in Chelsea Harbour
Terry Adams, 59, has had his wealth estimated at £50 million, although he once declared that he had only £50. When police raided his £1.6 million home in 2003 they recovered stolen art and antiques worth more than £500,000