Stephen Mee, once of one the UK’s most notorious traffickers, spent three years on the run after a daring prison bust
Stephen Mee spent three years on the run after escaping prison
Stephen Mee was staring down the barrel of a hefty prison sentence
He’d been caught by undercover police smuggling £1m worth of cannabis and cocaine from Colombia into the UK and was facing a lengthy spell behind bars . But while on remand at HMP Risley in Lancashire the then 34-year-old began to hatch a daring plan.
He knew that the journey from prison to his sentencing at Manchester Crown Court presented his best – and last – opportunity to escape. So, using his extensive underworld contacts, he began putting together the scheme that would result in one of the most audacious prison busts in recent memory.
“At the time Strangeways was upside down because of the the riots,” Mee told the Terry Stone Connection podcast as he described an escape which could be ‘in a movie’. “So once I got nicked I ended up in Risley waiting for me my sentence.
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“So then on April 1, 1993, 2pm in the afternoon, on the steps walking up to the coach I was cuffed to this other lad who knew nothing about it. I said ‘something’s going to happen in a minute’. And something did happen.”
While being transported by coach to court Mee, then of Wythenshawe, was sprung on the M62. A blue Vauxhall Astra sped in front of the bus near junction 11 at Cadishead before forcing it to a halt.
As two men jumped out of the Vauxhall, Mee stood up, shouted ‘nobody move’ then leapt from the back of the bus onto the hard shoulder, dragging his unwilling passenger with him. The pair then got into the car which sped off towards Manchester.
Stephen Mee(Image: Sky Documentaries)
‘Hijackers free drug racketeer’ read the headline in that night’s Manchester Evening News. “A drug racketeer on his way to a stiff jail sentence has been freed in a daring motorway hijack,” the piece went on.
According to police records, the gang that broke Mee free were said to be armed, apparently with rocket launchers, although he has always denied this. Mee says he was then put up in a series of safe houses in Liverpool before flying by a private plane to the Netherlands.
And once there he would return to the smuggling business with a vengeance. While on remand in Strangeways Mee, who grew up in poverty as one of nine children in Newton Heath, had formed a friendship that would transform him from small-time crook to a key player in one of Europe’s biggest drugs cartels.
How the M.E.N. reported Mee’s prison escape
Like Mee, Curtis Warren was a drug trafficker. And that wasn’t the only thing they had in common.
“When we started talking I found that I’d been to a lot of places he’d been to, so we we sort of clicked straight away,” he said. “We had the same temperament, you know, not bragging and all that, very quiet and getting on with it. “
As Mee began a new life on the run in Europe, the case against Warren collapsed. Described at the time as Britain’s biggest criminal investigation, it was alleged Warren had set up a deal with the Colombian Cali Cartel to import £250m of cocaine into the UK.
Stephen Mee was sentenced to 22 years in prison after going on the run(Image: Sky Documentaries)
Now a free man, Warren also headed for the Netherlands where he hooked up with his prison pal Mee. And almost immediately the pair returned to the drugs trafficking business.
Mee, who in his absence had been convicted to 22 years in prison, built a reputation as a reliable middle-man. They began selling vast amounts drugs smuggled into Europe from South America packed in tins of ham, disguised as roof tiles or hidden in suitcases and rolls of fabric.
“One one occasion I put £5m of cash in a car boot,” Mee told the Second Chance podcast. “I was driving about Amsterdam with £5m in the boot. I went about eight times to Colombia.
“I was meeting with Lucho (Luis Agustin Caicedo Velandia) the head of the Cali Cartel in Bogota. I was the first person to meet them after 3,000 kilos went missing. I had to explain what had happened even though it was nothing to do with me.”
Curtis Warren(Image: PA)
But on the streets of Manchester and Liverpool, the drugs Mee and Warren were importing were helping to fuel an explosion of inner-city violence as gangs battled for control of the cocaine market. As bullets flew on the streets of Moss Side and Cheetham Hill, police in the Netherlands and the UK joined forces with customs in a bid to bring down Mee and Warren’s complex distribution network.
A dedicated operation, codenamed ‘Crayfish’, was launched which saw Dutch police tap into Mee and Warren’s phone conversations. But at first it failed to yield much useful intelligence as cops struggled to decipher their Manc and Scouse accents and slang.
But the big breakthrough came when they discovered Mee had been sent to Columbia to meet the Cali Cartel in one of the biggest cocaine deals known to the UK. When the half tonne of cocaine arrived at Warren’s house, Dutch police moved in and arrested Warren, Mee and several other gang members.
“It was done within seconds really,” Mee told Sky documentary Liverpool Narcos. “They blew the windows out, flashbangs went in and stunt grenades went in.
“Face downwards naked, they carried you by your hands and feet across the gravel into the back of a car.”
Mee was sentenced to seven years in a Dutch triple-A category maximum security prison. And this time there would be no escape. Then in 2004, he returned to the UK to serve the 22-year sentence he had been given in his absence 1993. After a total of 15 years in prison, he was released in 2012.
Now in his 60s and having spent almost half his life behind bars, Mee says he’s put his life of crime behind him. A successful artist – he studied for a fine arts degree while behind bars – his paintings have been exhibited in London galleries and sell for thousands, while he also says he’s working on a book about his life.
But given the chance, he told Terry Stone, he would ‘change everything’. He said: “People see them as good times when you’re in the Caribbean on a massive catamaran and things like that, but you’re only there because of the s*** that you’ve left behind.
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“You’re always looking behind you. It’s always waiting for that knock on the door. It’s a lonely life as well because even though you might be there with these people, these are just associates, right? These are not your friends and family that you’re ostracized from completely.
“It’s not good. It’s not good.”