Reformed gangster Andrew Pritchard has detailed his life as ‘Britain’s biggest drug smuggler’, claiming he shipped millions of pounds worth of substances through corrupt customs officers
The man dubbed Britain’s ‘biggest drug smuggler’ has disclosed how he imported ‘more cocaine than Pablo Escobar’ into the UK, exploiting corrupt customs officers.
Reformed criminal Andrew Pritchard was once so influential in the underworld that his operation flooded Europe with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of cocaine and cannabis. Now 59, Pritchard runs a charitable foundation supporting prisoner rehabilitation and young people at risk of offending, after spending nearly three decades at the heart of the international drug trade.
His story is now fully revealed for the first time in a new book, Empire of Dirt. Upon his release from prison in 2019, he renounced his criminal past and felt compelled to break his silence about the pervasive corruption that facilitated the growth of his empire.
Utilising an array of fake passports, and with numerous customs and police officers as well as high-ranking officials on his payroll, he established an unparalleled smuggling network. Large shipments were concealed using various methods, with x-ray machines being deliberately “turned off” to allow them to pass without arousing suspicion.
He stated: “Not even Pablo Escobar, at the height of his power had a facility like this running straight into the UK.”
After evading detection for years, Andrew was thrust into the limelight when he was arrested in 2004 following the largest drug seizure in UK history. A staggering £100M worth of cocaine was discovered outside Spitalfields market in London, ingeniously hidden inside coconuts.
He was cleared following two trials but subsequently imprisoned after being caught driving with £1M worth of cocaine and for perverting the course of justice in his previous trial. In his memoir he stated: “By the end of the acid house era I noticed a dark, sinister side emerging.
“My mindset had changed, geared towards money and power with no consideration for the consequences. It was almost as if I were losing a part of my soul. I became part of a small circle of old school villains that slipped quietly into the bloodstream of a European Multimillion pound narcotics trade.
Andrew’s enterprise generated millions of pounds with shipping containers dispatched to contacts in Holland. “By the turn of the millennium, Jamaica was churning out cannabis like it was going out of fashion, producing between 1500 to 2000 metric tons annually.
“At times it felt like we were on a mission to export every last gram to Holland,” he said. He would utilise shipments with “practically every Jamaican edible produced” combined with weed.
On one occasion he remembered a loader losing control as a container “took a nose dive, bursting open ‘like the gates of hell, spilling our precious cargo across the wharf. “Four metric tons of Jamaica’s finest weed tumbled out, rolling across the dock in a chaotic pungent wave,” he added.
His enterprise continued to grow and operated through bribing customs officials, who would place the containers packed with top-quality cannabis and cocaine ‘on hold. ‘. They would then switch off the x-ray equipment and provide a clearance certificate so they could proceed to their destinations unopened. Throughout his criminal years, Andrew spent considerable time in Jamaica and enjoyed such a lavish lifestyle he once wed a Miss World contestant.
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