‘Pirate’ Pitman snared

ONE of the UK’s Most Wanted drug dealers has been snared in a routine dragnet operation.

Stephen ‘the Pirate’ Pitman was picked up in the four day trawl of British bars in Mijas and Fuengirola called Operation Cardhu.

Scar-faced Pitman, 54, from Kent, had been evading the UK authorities for years by using false names.

When police nabbed him in a Mijas Costa bar he gave his name as Anthony Palmer.

However, after fingerprinting him, the authorities discovered he was in fact among the UK’s Most Wanted.

The Olive Press has been monitoring the cocaine dealer’s movements for the last year.

He had been living in a four-bedroom apartment in Riviera del Sol with his wife and two children.

According to a source he had recently pulled off a big cocaine deal and, sensing the cops were closing in, had been mulling a move to Brazil or another remote country.

He now faces life in prison if convicted of some of the 14 counts of conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs.