Drugs baron Curtis Warren released and ‘off to see mum’

Wednesday 23 November 2022

The gangster known as ‘Britain’s Pablo Escobar’, who once tried to smuggle drugs worth more than £1m into Jersey, has now left prison - and is reportedly focused on catching up with his mum.

According to the Sun, Curtis ‘Cocky’ Warren was released from maximum security Whitemore prison in Cambridgeshire on Monday after 14 years behind bars.

Now released, he faces a tough set of restrictions imposed by the National Crime Agency in order to prevent him from re-entering the world of crime - among them, tough travel restrictions, and bans on using WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, handling cash of £1,000 of more and dabbling in cryptocurrency. 

If he fails to comply with any of the measures, he could be sent behind bars once again, for up to five years. 

But, according to his barrister, Mr Warren now only “wants peace and quiet”.

Pictured: The case of Curtis Warren was one of the most high profile to reach Jersey's Royal Court.

“The first thing he wanted to do was to see his mother… He is allowed to have a decent, ordinary life,” Anthony Barraclough told the Sun. 

Curtis Warren is reportedly the only criminal to ever make the Sunday Times Rich List who left his native Liverpool to become an international cocaine smuggler.

But in 2009 a jury in Jersey found him guilty of being involved in a plot to smuggle £1m worth of cannabis into the island and he was sentenced to 13 years behind bars.

In 2013, the Royal Court ordered Mr Warren to pay £198m after the drug dealer failed to prove he had not earned that sum in a lifetime of high-level criminality. He failed to provide the funds so was given a default sentence of ten years in prison, of which he had to serve at least half. Warren appealed the sentence, but lost.

Warren’s trial in Jersey was one of the highest profile cases to be heard in the Royal Court. Amid tight security, which included rooftop marksmen, he was found guilty, along with five other men, including two from Jersey.

Last year, it was reported that British director Guy Ritchie had asked Warren’s legal team about making a film about the gangster.

This year, ahead of his release, his life story was serialised in the form of a podcast by the BBC.