Drug Boss Curtis Warren To Be Released After 14 Years In Prison, To Face Strict Restrictions

Notorious drug lord Curtis Warren will soon be a free man, but there are conditions when it comes to his assets, foreign travel and more.

The 58-year-old, who once had an estimated fortune of 300 million pounds ($40,96,63,500), will face restrictions over any assets worth over 1,000 pounds ($1,365.70) despite allegedly having put 198 million pounds ($27,04,07,610) in a secret place.

Warren, who will be released after 14 years in jail, will also face curbs on international travel and using internet services, phones and vehicles, reported Mirror.

“Many career criminals regard prison as an interruption which rarely marks the end of their involvement in organized crime," said Alison Abbott, at the National Crime Agency. She shared that through the Lifetime Management program, the agency uses restrictions as an extra layer of prevention. Such restrictions ensure the agency firmly has these people on its radar, especially after a jail term, and "anything that suggests that they are slipping into old ways can be detected early on," she said.

Warren is expected to be released next year, according to sources, and he will not have to go before the Parole Board.

In 2009, the Liverpool gangster was imprisoned for 13 years over a plot to smuggle one million pounds ($13,65,520) of cannabis into Jersey. He was photographed alongside his childhood friend and alleged partner in crime, John Welsh, who was also then put behind bars, but has since been freed.

Warren, who has spent almost all of the past 25 years in jail, was held after an undercover cop caught him in 2007 just days after he had been freed from prison for another offence. His criminal record goes back to the 1980s. From that time to the 1990s, Warren, who became known as "Cocky," went on from running nightclub doors to getting involved in armed robbery and then drug trafficking on international level, according to Daily Star.

In 1996, he was convicted of trying to mastermind a 125 million pounds ($17,07,00,000) drug shipment from the Netherlands into the UK and sentenced to 12 years in prison. About eight years ago, prosecutors claimed he was in control of a 198 million pounds ($27,03,91,770) drugs empire.