In a few short months the biggest name in the history of the Liverpool underworld and Interpol's former 'Target One' will be a free man.
Curtis Warren, aka 'Cocky', has spent much of the past two decades behind bars and the underworld today is in many ways a different place than the one he dominated in the 1990s.
Some suggest that Warren, now 59, has no interest in returning to the business that put him behind bars and there are reports he could be set to reap the profits of a major TV or film deal on his astonishing life. However whether the Granby Street lad turned international drugs trafficking kingpin, and the ultimate opportunist, can resist the temptation of quick profit remains to be seen.
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The Toxteth native is coming to the end of a 13-year-sentence imposed in 2009 over a plot to smuggle cannabis worth £1m into Jersey. On top of that, he was also handed an extra 10 years for failing to pay a £198m confiscation order aimed at seizing his ill-gotten fortune.
The 2009 sentence came only two years after he was released from the maximum security Nieuw Vosseveld prison in Holland, where he had been serving time since 1997 for masterminding a £125m drugs shipment to the UK.
While in Nieuw Vosseveld, Warren had also killed fellow prisoner Cemal Guclu by kicking him in the head, after the Turkish convicted killer launched an unprovoked attack in the prison yard. A Dutch judge accepted Guclu was killed in self-defence but found Warren used "excessive violence" and convicted him of manslaughter, landing him an extra four years.
Warren was in the headlines again in 2020 when a sordid affair with prison officer Stephanie Smithwhite came to light while he was serving time in HMP Frankland. Smithwhite, then 40, had cut an "intercourse hole" in her trousers and was so infatuated with Warren she got his name tattooed on her next to a picture of a rose.
She was jailed for two years at Durham Crown Court after admitting two counts of misconduct in a public office. Now Warren is reportedly set for release towards the end of this year.
If Warren fails to resist the temptation of the criminal life, the underworld he would be returning to is in turmoil. Many of the biggest gangsters in the UK are either behind bars, on the run or sweating about their doors going in thanks to the hacking of the EncroChat phone network.
The encrypted messaging system, believed by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to have been used almost exclusively by organised crime groups, was infiltrated by French police in 2020 and enabled law enforcement across Europe to watch in real-time as gangsters struck drugs and weapons deals, arranged distribution and even plotted murders.
Merseyside Police have described how EncroChat has put a vast swathe of senior organised criminals in prison or on the run. Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Kameen, head of investigations at Merseyside Police, was recently asked whether the "vacuum" created by EncroChat was resulting in violence in Merseyside.
He said: "Encro has been absolutely phenomenal, and from my point of view has been the single most impactive tactic against serious and organised crime that policing has ever experienced.
"We have taken out lots of serious and organised criminals. You're right, that can create a vacuum, but what we're not seeing for example, is the firearms discharges that you might have seen in the past as a sort of battle went on as to who was going to control a particular area or drugs graft. We're not seeing that at this time.
"I would like to be able to say that is due to some effective local policing in terms of visibility, we're arresting and charging people effectively. I know that some of our Encro criminals have now left the country. So that might be a contributing factor, they're not here to have physical disputes that maybe then triggers firearms discharges."
Despite the hundreds of convictions secured on the back of EncroChat, demand for Class A drugs has gone nowhere.
The drugs trade in Europe is a complex picture. Albanian mafia groups dominate much of the cocaine supply into Britain, Irish crime families sit amongst the elite criminals of Europe, violent street wars involving Moroccan 'Mocro Maffia' groups are raising fears of the Netherlands becoming a "narco-state" and Scouse firms continue to rake in profits. And as always, doing deals with all of the above, are the cocaine cartels of South America.
The release into this fluid market of a man who amassed a estimated £300m fortune, by cutting out the middlemen and forging direct links with major cocaine and heroin suppliers from Colombia to Turkey, is an intriguing and concerning prospect.
The fractured underworld, combined with the seemingly endless demand for cocaine in the UK, could give an experienced criminal operator with a web of contacts across the globe an opening. According to one of Warren's former drug-trafficking partners, ex Manchester crook Stephen Mee, he is a skilled "diplomat" and a master of forging contacts and spotting opportunities.
Speaking as part of a newly released BBC podcast on Warren's life, called 'Gangster', Mr Mee said of Warren: "He never walked about with his chest out or anything like that, he was just normal, you wouldn't notice him. He just melted into the background.
"I think it was a deliberate thing, you keep as low a profile as you can if you're doing something like this [drug trafficking]. You have to be a bit of a diplomat as a drug-dealer, you can't be shouting it out everywhere because otherwise people will just come and take it off you."
However, Warren's notoriety would also be his biggest enemy if he wanted to fall back into old habits. He will remain a man firmly on the radar of the country's most sophisticated police units, and he will be the subject of stringent conditions under the terms of a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO).
Warren is on a list, published by the NCA in 2021, of organised criminals who have been issued with SCPOs. For five years, Warren's ability to use cars, property and phones, travel abroad, borrow money, make transfers, hold trusts or shares and use foreign or virtual currency with be monitored and restricted.
He will also be forced to declare any assets worth more than £1,000, meaning he would find it extremely difficult to access the alleged £198m the authorities believe he has hidden away. Any breach of those strict conditions could see Warren returned to prison. In addition, any new drugs trafficking offences would likely attract an especially brutal prison sentence due to his litany of previous convictions.
Warren has always embraced a high-risk, high-reward philosophy. But could the years of his life wasted behind bars, and the intense scrutiny he would face from police at the slightest hint of suspicion, finally put him on the straight and narrow?
Stephen Mee told the 'Gangster' podcast he hopes his old partner in crime will choose a new path. He said: "If you sit in prison and rot away, and you come out and technology is flying everywhere, you're just going to be like a caveman.
"And you'll have no choice other than to go back to your old ways and go back to prison. I hope he creates a life other than crime because if he gets caught again it's not just a prison sentence, it's a death sentence."
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