Dealer told to repay £200m
drug booty

Curtis Warren, one of Europe’s most notorious drug dealers, is serving a 13-year sentence for plotting to smuggle cannabis worth £1m into Jersey and is due for release from Belmarsh prison , London, in January.

The 50-year-old former Liverpool nightclub bouncer has been warned he must hand over the money within 28 days or face a further 10 years behind bars.

Prosecutors allege Warren was laundering £10m to £15m a week from smuggling drugs.

A statement from the State of Jersey’s Law Officers’ Department read: “The confiscation proceedings are the result of several 
years of extensive investigation into the criminal career and financial affairs of one of Europe’s most notorious organised criminals.”

The case primarily featured evidence related to cocaine trafficking between 1991 and 1996 which “generated huge sums”, the department said.

Prosecutors gathered evidence with authorities in the Netherlands and England to prove that Warren shipped cocaine directly from cartels from South America into Europe on “many occasions”, it continued.

The shipments ranged from 500 kilos to multiple tonnes and gained “huge” profits, with a two-ton shipment of cocaine able to sell on the UK market for £40m wholesale, the department said.

Warren became the first criminal to be the subject of a High Court move to protect the public last month.

The Serious Crime Prevention Order will impose restrictions on his access to phones as well as limitations on bank accounts.