A drug kingpin who helped to smuggle up to £1.5m of cocaine across Europe was ordered to pay back part of his empire.
Thomas Maher is currently serving a 14 year prison sentence for using the EncroChat network to ferry drugs from Holland into the UK and Ireland. The haulage firm boss, from Warrington, was a vital "middle man" who decided the location where lorries would stop for handovers, who would be involved in the drop-offs and the prices agreed for his role as a crucial facilitator in the large-scale drug trafficking.
He was originally arrested after 39 dead bodies of Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a lorry in Essex in October 2019.
READ MORE: Haulage boss led secret life as Encrochat drugs trafficker and money launderer
The dad-of-three was once the owner of that HGV, which was still registered in his wife’s name even after it was sold, but he was released with no further action taken in relation to that shocking tragedy.
But months later, investigators from the National Crime Agency swooped at his home in Wiltshire Close, Warrington, after experts smashed the encrypted EncroChat phone network.
He was arrested on 13 June 2020 after NCA officers received intelligence that he planned to leave the country. Maher was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court in December 2020 after pleading guilty to importing class A drugs and money laundering.
He appeared back before Liverpool Crown Court on Monday (May 22) where a judge ordered him to pay back £629,159.15, including his home in Warrington. The confiscation order also included cars, lorries, jewellery, a number of high value Rolex watches, artwork and gold ingots bought in Dubai.
Maher has three months to pay or faces an extra six years in jail. The ECHO previously reported on the NCA investigation which found that despite Maher and his wife being on less than minimum wage for tax purposes, they lived a luxurious lifestyle.
Over the course of seven months, officers watched Maher meet with criminal associates at hotels and in public spaces in the North West to organise the trafficking of cocaine from the Netherlands to the UK and Ireland.
As well as drugs, Maher also helped to facilitate the movement of large sums of cash, charging a commission for his involvement.
The four conspiracies involving Maher took place between March and May 2020, the first three of those taking place within a fortnight, during which he organised the transportation of 21kgs of cocaine and €300,000 of laundered money across Europe.
During the period of this investigation the common wholesale value of a kilo of unadulterated cocaine throughout the UK was within a range of £25,000 and £40,000 with the most common price in the region of £38,000.
The NCA’s Head of Asset Denial, Rob Burgess, said: “This significant result demonstrates the agency’s ability to recover criminal assets, and prevent criminals from benefitting from their wrongdoing.
“Thomas Maher was a career criminal who was trusted by some of Europe’s biggest crime groups to move their drugs and money.
"The confiscation order will ensure money he made will be returned to the public purse to fund further efforts to protect the public from organised crime.”
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