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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Dan Haygarth

Curtis Warren's plot to flood island with drugs landed him in prison

Curtis Warren spent 14 years behind bars after attempting to smuggle cannabis worth £1million into Jersey.

Warren, who was once dubbed 'Target One' by Interpol, was released from Cambridgeshire's HMP Whitemoor on November 23. Now he is free, he is subject to many restrictions, including being banned from possessing more than £1,000 in cash and using instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

The ECHO has been told that Toxteth-native Warren moved back to Liverpool after his release, while reports in national newspapers suggested he told associates of his plans to return to his hometown before his release.

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Warren, who is now 59 and was once included in the Sunday Times Rich List with a £200million fortune, has spent most of his adult life in prison. He was jailed in Holland in 1996 for a £125million cocaine importation scheme.

While in the Dutch Nieuw Vosseveld jail, Warren killed fellow prisoner Cemal Guclu by kicking him in the head, after the Turkish convicted killer launched an unprovoked attack in the prison yard.

Warren was convicted of manslaughter after the incident, giving him four more years in jail. He briefly became a free man when he was released in 2007, returning to the UK.

Only five weeks passed before Warren was arrested again, this time over the plot to smuggle cannabis to Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. As soon as Warren returned to the UK from his Dutch incarceration, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) began trailing him and watched as he travelled the North West just to use public phone boxes.

A handout mugshot of Curtis Warren from October 7 2009 (PA)

On June 30, 2007, he boarded a flight to Jersey. Warren was watched by detectives over CCTV as he checked in for his flight - they told police in Jersey he was en-route.

After landing, plain-clothes officers from Special Branch officers as he waited to collect his luggage. A detective constable asked what his business in Jersey was and according to a court judgement, Warren was alleged to have replied: "I could take Britain back and could take Jersey easily".

It was the beginning of Warren's plot to smuggle £1million of cannabis from the Netherlands to Jersey, via speedboat. Warren and his associates were to buy the drugs in Amsterdam before being driven to the French coast and then shipped to Jersey.

The plan involved Warren's old friend John Welsh, who himself was already under surveillance by Jersey Police. Welsh was to travel to contacts of Warren's in the Netherlands and arrange the deal.

However, matters did not exactly go to plan. The cannabis shipment did not materialise, as the two locals recruited by Welsh to find money to finance the deal didn't show up in Holland.

Additionally, Welsh's car had been bugged by police in Jersey. Jersey Police decided to bug the hire car as Welsh travelled back from Holland, despite not obtaining the relevant permission from the authorities in France. Recordings of the deal being discussed were later used to convict both men.

Warren and his gang were arrested on July 21, 2007, before any drugs made it to the island. On October 7, 2009 he was found guilty of conspiring to smuggle £1m of cannabis onto the island.

He was sentenced to 13 years behind bars despite no drugs or money ever arriving in Jersey. He appealed the verdicts but, despite heavy criticism of the police, the Court of Appeal allowed the conviction to stand.

Warren was handed another 10 years after failing to pay a £198million confiscation order, one of the largest ever made in Europe. However, he is a free man now and what he will do next is unclear.

Some people believe that Warren has no desire to return to a life of crime and there are reports he could be set to reap the profits of a major TV or film deal for his life story.

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