Escobar of the East Midlands
‘£1.2billion drug lord’ held in dawn raids in Colombia
A SUSPECTED British drug lord nicknamed the ‘Escobar of the East Midlands’ has been arrested by Colombian police trying to smash a £1.2 billion cocaine cartel.
Andrew Deamer, 52, was tracked down to his remote farmhouse in Rionegro and held in a dawn raid.
Deamer – whose father Frederick was jailed for 18 years on drug offences in 1998 – was filmed by police climbing down from his loft after his five golden retriever dogs gave away his hiding place by barking at the hatch.
Another 18 suspects were arrested in simultaneous raids in five cities and paraded along with Deamer in a police line-up, including men nicknamed El Doc, Mosquito, The Skinny One and The Fat One.
Deamer faces at least 14 years in prison if convicted.
Investigators accuse the father-oftwo – originally from the village of Barrow upon Soar in Leicestershire – of being a trusted lieutenant of a violent syndicate based near Medellin, from where drug lord Pablo Escobar once supplied 80 per cent of the cocaine smuggled into the US.
Deamer is believed to have run laboratories where the drug was disguised as dog and cat food as well as industrial fertiliser so it could be exported.
His work allegedly brought him a comfortable lifestyle and earned him the nicknames of ‘the Monkey’, ‘Marcos’ and ‘the East Midlands Escobar’.
Deamer, who is being held in the notorious La Picota jail in the capital Bogota, left England and moved to Coconut Creek, near Miami, Florida, where he built two homes.
Neighbours said he owned a Rolls-Royce, several Japanese Akita dogs and drove a custom Ford pick-up truck. He also boasted of flying small planes.
He moved to South America before marrying Colombian Marcela Zapata, 37, who has also been arrested. Social media posts show Deamer posing for photographs with his wife and his five dogs, often against mountain backdrops.
Under one image published in 2016, Marcela said: ‘My husband is the cutest in the world and the best.’
Deamer also highlighted comments by former US President Barack Obama suggesting long prison sentences will not solve the drugs crisis.
His father, Frederick, was jailed a year after being caught off the French coast in a boat called Lucky Lady with two tons of cannabis resin. The former accountant, who also owned a Rolls-Royce, is believed to have died in Spain five years ago. His widow Patricia remains overseas.
Colombia’s Office of the Attorney General confirmed Deamer faced trial for drugs offences.
Another source said he had signed a ‘preliminary agreement’ to assist police in return for a lighter prison sentence.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are providing consular assistance to a British man detained in Colombia.’