A FUGITIVE Scots gangster who fled to Spain has been nailed for running an industrial scale drugs lab at the height of the Covid pandemic.
Colin Wright, for Motherwell, Lanarkshire, was a top tier member of an organised crime involved in a multi-million pound narcotics plot.
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The 38-year-old was working with notorious hoodlums in Liverpool to flood the country with amphetamines, cocaine and heroin.
But their enterprise came unstuck when French and Dutch authorities busted the EncroChat encrypted phone network in 2020, leading to a tidal wave of arrests.
Among them was Wright who used the handle ‘Jack-Nicklaus’ to communicate with gang boss Terence Terence Earle, 50, who was jailed for 16-and-a-half years in April last year.
Wright was also in cahoots with Terence’s cousin Stephen Earle, 52, who was jailed for 11 years and four months in August this year.
Wright bolted in August 2020 to Torre Pacheco in Murcia, Spain, after the network was compromised and he remained there after his fellow mobsters were arrested in March 2021.
But he was nicked by the Spanish National Police in March this year when a number of high value items were seized from his address.
The Spanish authorities pounced at the request of the National Crime Agency and he was returned to the UK on October 4.
The NCA say Wright was the head of the gang’s Scottish arm, and was actively involved in the supply of cocaine and heroin in both Scotland and England.
He also sourced drugs, assessed supply routes and found customers, as well as creating the amphetamine lab in Motherwell in March 2020 as the nation entered its first Covid 19 lockdown.
A criminal associate delivered boxes of alpha-phenylacetoacetamide (APAA), part of the amphetamine production process.
Over the next few days the gang began preparing the lab, but despite messages between them saying the ‘farm’ (or lab) was ready, they struggled to obtain the necessary solvents for the production process.
Terence and Wright also exchanged EncroChat photos of the liquid being treated, to check what colour it should be.
Wright helped ship at least 10 kilos of heroin and seven kilos of cocaine, with the former moved from Merseyside to Motherwell and the latter in the opposite direction.
He pleaded guilty to five drugs charges at Liverpool Crown Court today and will be sentenced at the same court on November 25.
The NCA’s investigation formed part of Operation Venetic, the UK NCA-led law enforcement response to the takedown of the EncroChat service in July 2020.
NCA Branch Commander Jon Sayers said: “Colin Wright was an integral member of this high harm criminal organisation, which posed a serious danger to communities across Scotland and Merseyside.
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“The drugs they trafficked would have fuelled violence and exploitation in these areas, so bringing this criminal group to justice has helped protect the public.
“Wright’s case also shows that there is nowhere to hide for criminals who seek to avoid arrest by living overseas, as the NCA has the international scope to find you and make you pay for your crimes.”
