Drug lord ordered to hand over £418,000 by court

Edward Morton, 38, was sentenced last year after spending three years on the run evading trial for his role in a criminal gang which imported large shipments of cocaine into the UK from Amsterdam.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC yesterday ordered Morton, of Millshaw Mount, Beeston, to pay the £418,000 after a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing.

The judge said he was satisfied that Morton still had criminal funds available to him after hearing evidence at Leeds Crown Court.

During the hearing Morton claimed to have no money and said he had been supported financially all his life by friends or the women in his life.

While on the run, a total of £27,000 was sent to him from 11 different people via Western Union transfer. The cash was sent to him under a different name and he possessed two false passports.

Morton also contested evidence that he had land in Rothwell, Leeds, registered in his name.

He claimed to have signed the land over to a gipsy, whose name he couldn’t remember, many years ago in exchange for a car which broke down later that day.

Judge Marson said he found Morton’s evidence “incapable of belief.”

Morton has until December to pay the money of face having three-and-half years added to his sentence.

Morton, 37, was on the Police Serious Organised Crime Squad’s most wanted list after failing to appear at Leeds Crown Court in October 2008.

He was believed to be hiding in the Netherlands, but was re-arrested in Elland, near Halifax, in a joint SOCA and West Yorkshire Police operation. He denied conspiring to supply drugs, but was convicted by a jury after a trial.

In one trip alone, seven kilos of cocaine worth £2m was brought into the country.

Jailing him in April last year, Judge Marson said: “This was a professionally organised criminal gang responsible for putting large quantities of cocaine and amphetamines on the streets of the Midlands and Yorkshire.

“Edward Morton was a central organiser in the conspiracy and the severe sentence is not only to punish him but to deter others.” The organised crime gang trafficked cocaine from Holland in 2007.

They regularly changed their mobile telephones and used public telephone kiosks in an attempt to frustrate law enforcement agencies.

Drugs were imported into the UK by another gang member Frederick Griffiths. He would drive to Holland, make the collections and bring them back into the UK in a hidden compartment of his van. SOCA surveillance identified Morton as an integral member of this gang.

Morton used at least 10 different mobile phones during a three month period, often five or six at a time.

He had regular meetings with the other gang members, always just before Griffiths left for Amsterdam.