Drugs baron who smuggled £1BILLION of cocaine into Britain freed halfway through term despite warning he’d die in jail
A DRUGS baron who smuggled £1billion of cocaine into Britain has been freed from jail early despite previously being warned he would die inside.
Crime godfather Brian Wright, 73, has served 15 years of a 30-year term for running the UK’s biggest narcotics empire.
His barrister had admitted in court: “He knows that he will probably die in jail.”
But the cocky Irishman was released from top-security Whitemoor Prison last Tuesday. Sources last night said the move was “highly unusual” because Wright, now living in a bail hostel, was not first transferred to an open jail.
Wright, dubbed “The Milkman” by underworld pals because he always delivered, was the biggest of the UK’s crime Mr Bigs.
He was forced to cough up £2.3million in ill-gotten gains before his release.
But that is a tiny fraction of Wright’s estimated £600million fortune.
And his freedom sparks fears he may now try to rebuild his criminal empire on the outside. A source said: “When Wright was put away, everyone thought that would be it, including him.
“But it seems that the dice have rolled in his favour yet again.”
The Dublin-born villain, who grew up in Kilburn, North West London, built up his drugs empire in the 1990s, dealing directly with Colombian cartels.
His crew, the Wright Organisation, dwarfed better known crime gangs.
And his wealth saw him rub shoulders with Frank Sinatra. An armada of yachts brought his cocaine across the Atlantic, before being transferred on to smaller boats offshore from Britain. Wright, also one of the biggest fixers in horse-racing, owned a string of lavish properties including a villa in Spain he named El Lechero — The Milkman.
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He was arrested there with MI6’s help in 2005.
Even then, he could not resist taunting officers, holding up a £1 coin and bragging: “A million to one I don’t get done.”
But he was found guilty and sentenced in 2007, after two years on remand.
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