YOU OWE US £6m! Drugs baron jailed for huge cocaine racket ordered by court to cough up cash
A COCAINE kingpin caught transporting £20 million of drugs on the M6 has been ordered to pay back more than £6m.
Jamie Simpson was jailed after police swooped on his van and discovered 186kg of cocaine hidden beneath a false floor in a specially-adapted van.
Simpson, from Warrington, was travelling alongside two associates. Officers swooped as the van travelled along the M6, near to Knutsford Services, in Cheshire.
Police believe the cocaine arrived from the Continent on a boat, before Simpson and his gang picked it up from the River Medway.
He was arrested following a sixmonth surveillance operation, known as Operation Dreadnought, which investigated two organised crime groups in Warrington involved in supplying drugs across the country. Simpson was described as being the highest level of the organised crime group.
He tried to give the impression he was a tradesman, renting out bouncy castles and chocolate fountains to weddings.
The 32-year-old was jailed for 11 years and six months in June last year for conspiracy to supply cocaine. He has now been ordered to pay back £6,143,854, following a proceeds-of-crime hearing. Det Chief Insp Giles Pierce, from the Serious and Organised Crime Unit, said: “It is unheard of for a criminal to have such a large benefit figure but this is due to the fact that Simpson was involved in one of the largest in-land cocaine seizure in this country.
“More than £6 million of that cocaine belonged to Simpson and the remaining amount would have been purchased by other organised criminals.
“Simpson will always be in debt and owe the police the money until he has re-paid the full amount. In the future, once he is released from prison, the Proceeds of Crime Act gives us the power to take from him anything he buys that is of value.
“This means he will never live the lavish lifestyle he did when he was operating his criminal enterprise,” he said.