I made a fortune with drugs and ruined my life
LIFE OF CRIME LANDED FORMER BOUNCER IN A VIOLENT PRISON
Chet was brought to book changed – he realised that he could make more money with Valium, buying 1,000 pills for £9 in Karachi and flogging the same amount in the UK for £2,000.
Chet said: “I reckon I made eight or nine trips doing this and could make up to £70,000 each time.
“The whole operation ran like clockwork – but I was on the radar.
“When I was eventually caught, I think I was grassed up but I don’t know how it happened.
“My suitcases didn’t show up at Newcastle Airport one time so I decided to go via Alicante, an airport I knew, and then drive home from there.
“I got off the plane with my suitcases full in Spain and Interpol armed officers were there waiting. Apparently it was the biggest pharmaceutical bust in Spanish history.”
Spain’s harsher drug laws meant that Chet was sent to a high-security prison, the notorious Fontcalent, where murder, rape and violence were a fixture of day-to-day life.
Over three years, he says he was immersed in the gang culture which ran the prison, rising to the top of the ranks, and succumbed to heroin addiction.
He claims to have used his position of authority to protect weaker inmates – but admits to getting involved in some horrific behaviour too.
Chet said: “While I was in there, three people were murdered and I was stabbed twice – and stabbed someone back. Violence happened all the time.
“Many of the prisoners had HIV. There was no control, no safety. It was a very tough place.”
Like so many, he came out of prison with no options and no money and immediately descended back into crime. He became involved in a high-profile Tyneside gang which was broken up for running brothels across the region and wound up back in court after a year.
During a trial covered by our sister paper The Chronicle, he pleaded guilty to prostitution and blackmail offences and was sentenced to six and a half years.
The court was told that he was a “courier” for the gang, and was pulled in because of debt.
Chet said: “That was a bad, depressing time. It wasn’t a good part of my life. The first run had been great – money, drugs, women, travel.
“It was fun, it was exciting – but this was much darker, more violent.
“I lasted a year in this gang before I was caught and I knew immediately something had to change, it wasn’t right.”
He spent time in HMP Durham, among other jails, and made a decision to turn his life around, something he says he has maintained to this day.
Chet, who is now living in Cyprus after a period of travel, said: “Life now is easy; it’s relaxed, it’s quiet.
“I’m totally away from that world now but I had to physically get away from it by leaving the country.
“It’s true what they say - you might have changed as a person, but if the people are still there, you get drawn back in. I had to go.”
Chet’s book, entitled From King of Karachi to Lockdown in the Costa Del Crime: Meet the International Smuggler Who Dominated Europe’s Worst Prison, is available on Amazon now.
He says half of the proceeds from the book will go to orphanages in cities he’s visited in the past around the Far East.