Alleged international drug dealer on the run for eight years will face trial in the UK after being arrested by Dubai police
One of Britain’s most wanted men has been arrested after a joint operation between the National Crime Agency (NCA) and police in Dubai.
Alleged international drug dealer Michael Paul Moogan, from Croxteth, Liverpool, had been on the run for eight years, accused of involvement in a large-scale trafficking plot.
The 35-year-old was held on 21 April but the details were only made public for the first time yesterday due to operational reasons, the NCA said.
Moogan had been on the run since a raid at a Rotterdam café suspected of being used as a front for meetings between drug traffickers and cartels, which was central to an alleged plot to bring hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the UK every week.
Working with the Dutch National Crime Squad, the NCA became aware of information that linked Moogan and two other British men to the Cafe de Ketel – a business not open to the public and which could only be entered via a security system.
NCA officers suspected that Moogan and his alleged associates were involved in plans to import drugs from Latin America to the European Union.
At the time of the raid, only one of the men, Robert Hamilton, 71, from Manchester, could be found. He was jailed for eight years in 2014 after pleading guilty to drug charges.
A second man, Robert Gerard, 57, from Liverpool, handed himself in to the NCA after three years on the run, claiming the pressure was too much. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was jailed in 2017 for 14 years.
NCA officers established that Moogan was using numerous false identities to avoid capture. Dubai Police believe that after entering the UAE using a different identity, he tried to avoid CCTV in an attempt to elude detectives.
NCA director of investigations Nikki Holland said: “This arrest is the result of years of investigation involving a range of law enforcement partners in the UK, Europe and Middle East.
“We are extremely grateful to those partners for their assistance in ensuring Moogan now faces justice and particularly thank the Dubai Police for their efforts to track him down. He will be returned to the UK to face trial.