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LONDON - The head of the "most sophisticated and successful operation" to smuggle cocaine into Britain was found guilty yesterday, ending an 11-year investigation.
Brian Wright, 60, known in the criminal underworld as "the Milkman" for his ability to deliver, faces spending the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court today.
As well as trading cocaine on an industrial scale - amassing a fortune of £600 million ($1.65 billion) - Wright was suspected of horse doping, race-fixing and bribery over the past 30 years.
A professional gambler and unlicensed bookmaker, he was eventually banned by the Jockey Club although never charged.
Investigators believe he laundered millions of pounds of drugs money through racing.
So rapacious was Wright's appetite for betting that he even wagered an associate £1 million to $1 that he would never be caught.
Known by others simply as Mr Big, Wright also had celebrity friends, including comedian Jim Davidson, who gave evidence during the two-month trial.
Wright ran his empire from a suite at London's Conran Hotel, next door to his luxury apartment in the Chelsea Harbour complex.
This was part of a property portfolio thought to stretch from South Africa to Surrey and which included his villa in Marbella, which he called El Lechero (The Milkman).
By the late 1990s, Wright was close to celebrities who would laugh off any suggestion that he was an international drug smuggler.
Davidson, for example, asked him to be godfather to his son; former Southampton and England footballer Mick Channon agreed to be a character witness at his trial.
Wright boasted that Frank Sinatra had also been a friend and he rubbed shoulders with Clint Eastwood, Michael Caine and Jerry Hall.
All knew nothing of his criminal background.
Customs and Excise senior investigating officer Paul Seeley described Wright as "the top, top dog" and said his conviction would send shock waves through the international criminal fraternity.
"The lesson is, even if you run, law enforcement is going to look for you and is going to prosecute you," he said.
Irish-born Wright, one of nine children, was found guilty at the end of a series of seven trails that resulted in 19 convictions around the world, including that of his son Brian Wright, brother-in-law Paul Shannon and right-hand man Kevin Hanley.
Members of the network, four of whom were given immunity in return for giving evidence, are serving a total of 200 years in jail for their parts in the operation.
Investigators are now faced with the prospect of recovering about £100 millions in proceeds from Wright's crimes.
Wright was arrested in Spain in 2005 after travelling there from Northern Cyprus, which has no extradition treaty with Britain.
His decades-long grip of the international drugs trade began to loosen in September 1996 when the yacht Sea Mist put into Cork harbour seeking directions.
Irish police found cocaine worth £80 million on board, and a surveillance operation linked the yacht to Wright and another boat, Casita, which had arrived in Britain earlier that summer carrying 600kg of the drug.
Customs alleged that Wright's organisation was responsible for a further four consignments from the Caribbean which flooded the south coast of England in the late 90s.
Customs officers said that Wright used a technique employed by smugglers for centuries, in which cocaine would be shipped from South America or the Caribbean in a large yacht, which would sail to Devon or Cornwall. That vessel would attract the attention of Customs officers.
But before docking, it would rendezvous with a smaller yacht that appeared to be making a day trip from a south-coast resort and offload the drugs it was carrying.
While the first yacht was being searched on arrival in Britain, the second would be offloading the cocaine to waiting cars.
In September 1997 Wright, by now suffering heart problems, was arrested in connection with allegations of corruption and horse-doping, but the case was dropped three months later.
In February, after the arrest of his son and brother-in-law, Wright chartered a private plane to fly him and a jockey friend to Northern Cyprus.
He said he was forced to move after being tracked down by reporters from the BBC.
Yesterday, after his legal team was asked if they wanted to submit any mitigating evidence, Wright addressed the judge. "Excuse me your honour," he said. "There is no mitigation."
Defence lawyer Jerome Lynch, QC, said: "He knows, as does his family, that he will probably die in jail."
- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS
