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Return to News Most-wanted fugitive guilty of £40m drug plot

The last man standing out of a 26-strong organised criminal network that plotted to smuggle up to 40 tonnes of drugs was jailed yesterday.

Paul Scott, aged 32, from Vauxhall, Liverpool, was one of the National Crime Agency’s most-wanted fugitives. He was sentenced to 14 years at Liverpool Crown Court after pleading guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine. His sentence brings the total for the network to over 280 years.

Scott is also wanted for questioning by the Guardia Civil in connection with the murder of UK national Francis Brennan in Alicante last year. Following yesterday’s court hearing he was arrested by Merseyside Police officers on a European Arrest Warrant.

Scott had been on the run since 2010. He was captured in December 2014 when he and his pilot landed a light aircraft on a remote rural airstrip. Judge David Aubrey rejected Scott's claim that he had come back to hand himself in and that he just wanted one more night with his family.

The network consisted of criminals from Liverpool and London working with overseas traffickers to import cocaine from South and Central America, along with heroin and amphetamine from Europe.

NCA officers used listening devices to monitor conversations between members of the network, carried out surveillance throughout the UK, and analysed masses of phone data.

Head of the network, Paul Taylor, aged 58, from Liverpool, who was sentenced to 22 years in 2011, told a criminal associate there was a stockpile of 40 tonnes of cocaine ready to smuggle inside shipments of tinned fish and wood pellets.

During another recorded conversation, Scott told Taylor he and his cousin were able to provide transport for the network through a corrupt contact at a legitimate haulage firm.

Greg McKenna, NCA Branch Commander, said:

“Scott was the last man outstanding in a plot to smuggle vast quantities of cocaine into the UK. Our determination to track him down and bring him to justice demonstrates our commitment to dismantling criminal networks from top to bottom.”

Since the investigation was launched in 2008, members of the network have been handed prison sentences ranging from one to 30 years.

 

Channel website: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/

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