The only gangster to make the Rich List, Curtis Warren is facing another 14 years in prison as Ben Rossington reports
CURTIS Warren, once Britain’s richest gangster, was today facing another lengthy spell behind bars after being convicted of masterminding a £1m drugs smuggling plot.
“Cocky” Warren, 46, from Toxteth, could be jailed for a maximum of 14 years after a Jersey jury unanimously found him guilty of conspiring to ship cannabis into the Channel Island.
The pressure the jury had been under told as some were in tears as they entered the grand court room in St Helier’s Royal Court yesterday to deliver the verdict.
As they found him and his five co-defendants all guilty, Warren leant back in the small dock and smiled.
Sources say he already intends to appeal the conviction.
During a three-week trial, the jury were told that police had foiled a major plot to import drugs on to the island in summer 2007.
Warren spent four weekends in Jersey in June and July that year. His every movement was watched by local police, who bugged cars and phone boxes to gather the evidence.
And when he was back in the UK, the Serious Organised Crime Agency kept a close eye on him.
In just four weeks, Warren made 112 calls from public phone boxes despite having three mobiles. Police say this was him setting up the deal.
The court heard that Warren linked up his drugs contacts in Holland with Liverpool-born Jersey dealer John Welsh.
The plot, seen by others as small fry for a drugs kingpin such as Warren, saw the Toxteth-born defendant arrange for Welsh to drive to Amsterdam and buy 180kg of cannabis for 36,000 euros.
Welsh was to take half of the drugs, three other co-conspirators were to split 30kg between themselves while Warren would have been given 30kg for simply setting up the deal, despite putting no money in. The Dutch dealers would get the profit from the remainder of the drugs.
Warren was caught on a secret police bug, put in a Jersey phone box, telling his contact in Amsterdam: “If we get 20 or 30 pieces ourselves, I will be happy.”
He was also recorded saying the deal was “just a little starter…” Police say this was proof he was looking to make big moves into the lucrative Jersey drugs market if this plan went without a hitch.
But the plot soon unravelled.
Three Jersey men brought in to provide half the money failed to come up with the cash while the boat that was supposed to be used to pick up the cargo from the French coast and bring it back to the island was on stilts in a field and barely sea-worthy.
The court heard recordings from a bug put in a hire car driven by Welsh from St Malo, in France, to Holland and back.
