For a few tantalising moments last month, Curtis 'Cocky' Warren appeared to be on the verge of breaking the habit of a lifetime. Throughout his career masterminding an organised criminal gang that had amassed more than £200 million from drug deals, he had always refused to give evidence at any of his trials.
It didn’t matter whether he was in the dock for armed robbery, overseeing a 1,000kg shipment of cocaine, smuggling cannabis, guns, hand grenades or CS gas, or even kicking a fellow prisoner to death — Warren resolutely declined the offer to defend himself from the witness box.
Instead, the former bouncer, from Liverpool, would exercise his right to remain silent rather than be cross-examined. Occasionally, the tactic had worked for him and he’d walked free. More often than not he had been jailed because he was invariably guilty as charged.
In the run-up to yet another court case last month, however, Warren, who has been in prison for the past 17 years, announced that he was considering submitting to questioning for the first time under oath.
His apparent new-found belief in the law was not born out of a desire to defend his (not so) good name. Instead, the drug baron, who has featured in the Sunday Times Rich List of Britain’s 500 wealthiest people, wanted to protect the thing he holds most dear - his money.
He once boasted: ‘If I spent 50 grand a day, I wouldn’t go broke.’ His drugs network, said to have links to narcotic cartels around the world, was at one time so lucrative that his henchmen apparently travelled regularly from Liverpool to London with holdalls containing thousands in cash in order to launder the money. His operation was believed to be making him millions of pounds a week.
So what revelation did Warren, 50, want to share with the Jersey Royal Court hearing that opened last month to consider confiscating his proceeds from crime? He just wanted to reveal that he was on his uppers - penniless, a pauper. Claims that he has amassed a remarkable wealth are, according to his lawyers, ‘ridiculous’.
There was one slight problem. He could not get an assurance from the UK authorities that any evidence he gave to prove he was broke would not be used in further prosecutions against him or his gang in the future.
And so he shied away, refusing to enter the witness box to explain just how he had lost so much money. Now Warren faces a difficult dilemma.
Last week, the hearing in the Channel Islands ended and he was told he must hand over £198 million in Europe’s biggest ever criminal confiscation order - or face another ten years in jail. If he coughs up his ill-gotten gains, he can end his time as a Category A prisoner and walk free from his Jersey jail in January.
It didn’t matter whether he was in the dock for armed robbery, overseeing a 1,000kg shipment of cocaine, smuggling cannabis, guns, hand grenades or CS gas, or even kicking a fellow prisoner to death — Warren resolutely declined the offer to defend himself from the witness box.
Instead, the former bouncer, from Liverpool, would exercise his right to remain silent rather than be cross-examined. Occasionally, the tactic had worked for him and he’d walked free. More often than not he had been jailed because he was invariably guilty as charged.
In the run-up to yet another court case last month, however, Warren, who has been in prison for the past 17 years, announced that he was considering submitting to questioning for the first time under oath.
His apparent new-found belief in the law was not born out of a desire to defend his (not so) good name. Instead, the drug baron, who has featured in the Sunday Times Rich List of Britain’s 500 wealthiest people, wanted to protect the thing he holds most dear - his money.
He once boasted: ‘If I spent 50 grand a day, I wouldn’t go broke.’ His drugs network, said to have links to narcotic cartels around the world, was at one time so lucrative that his henchmen apparently travelled regularly from Liverpool to London with holdalls containing thousands in cash in order to launder the money. His operation was believed to be making him millions of pounds a week.
So what revelation did Warren, 50, want to share with the Jersey Royal Court hearing that opened last month to consider confiscating his proceeds from crime? He just wanted to reveal that he was on his uppers - penniless, a pauper. Claims that he has amassed a remarkable wealth are, according to his lawyers, ‘ridiculous’.
There was one slight problem. He could not get an assurance from the UK authorities that any evidence he gave to prove he was broke would not be used in further prosecutions against him or his gang in the future.
And so he shied away, refusing to enter the witness box to explain just how he had lost so much money. Now Warren faces a difficult dilemma.
Last week, the hearing in the Channel Islands ended and he was told he must hand over £198 million in Europe’s biggest ever criminal confiscation order - or face another ten years in jail. If he coughs up his ill-gotten gains, he can end his time as a Category A prisoner and walk free from his Jersey jail in January.
Source : DailyMail
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