Dilip Kuner
ONE of Britain’s most infamous drug traffickers, Brian Charrington, has died on Spain’s Costa Blanca – just as Spanish courts were deciding whether to throw him back behind bars.
The 68-year-old, whose life reads like a narco-thriller and even earned him a Wikipedia page, passed away in the early hours of Tuesday at Marina Baixa Hospital in Villajoyosa, near Benidorm.
The notorious gangster – once worth an estimated £20 million – was awaiting a decision on whether he’d have to serve an eight-year prison sentence over a 2013 cocaine haul worth £10 million. His lawyers were fighting to keep him out of jail on health grounds.
Charrington, a former Middlesbrough car dealer turned international drug lord, rose to infamy alongside Curtis ‘Cocky’ Warren, with the duo shipping hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Venezuela into the UK during the 1990s.
He dodged justice for years thanks to his role as a police informant, which even caused a 1992 mega-trial to collapse. Despite being relocated to Australia under witness protection, his visa was soon torn up and he resurfaced in Spain – where he built up links with Moroccan traffickers and apparently continued laundering millions from his Calpe villa. He later moved to Altea.
He was jailed in Germany and France, but kept bouncing back. His 2013 arrest in Spain, following a multi-agency sting involving SOCA and Ameripol, led to his eventual conviction. But Spain’s Supreme Court quashed the original verdict, forcing a second trial, where he was again convicted.
Charrington died before the courts could rule on his lawyer’s plea to spare him prison time. One of his three adult children posted a brief tribute: “Rest in peace Dad.”
A family friend told the Olive Press : “He’s been on death’s door for some time.
“It was a respiratory thing and he’s been having problems with it for a while.
“He was a heavy smoker, and he also came into contact with asbestos in the northeast of England back many years ago.
“He was quite a grafter and had quite a few few jobs so that didn’t help.
“In the end, he had a car business, but clearly realised he could make more money from drugs.”
He added: “He had recently been appealing a sentence for drug smuggling again, and didn’t ever go to prison, so he was able to die at home with his family.”
His wife was living with him, and his parents lived nearby, according to the source.
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