WhatsApp and crypto ban among Curtis Warren’s post-prison restrictions

Monday 17 October 2022

The gangster known as ‘Britain’s Pablo Escobar’, who once tried to smuggle drugs worth more than £1m into Jersey, will soon be leaving prison – and a strict set of rules await him on the outside.

Curtis ‘Cocky’ Warren is reportedly the only criminal to ever make the Sunday Times Rich List who left his native Liverpool to become an international cocaine smuggler.

But in 2009 a jury in Jersey found him guilty of being involved in a plot to smuggle £1m worth of cannabis into the island and he was sentenced to 13 years behind bars.

He had only been out of prison for five weeks when he was arrested in 2007 by Jersey police, accused of being the ringleader of a six-man gang who were trying to import 180 kg of cannabis into the island from Holland via boat from France.

In 2013, the Royal Court ordered Warren to pay £198m after the drug dealer failed to prove he had not earned that sum in a lifetime of high-level criminality. He failed to provide the funds so was given a default sentence of ten years in prison, of which he had to serve at least half. Warren appealed the sentence, but lost.

Pictured: The case of Curtis Warren was one of the most high profile to reach Jersey's Royal Court.

Now, he’s getting ready for release next month, and the National Crime Agency’s lifetime management team has set a strict set of rules to limit his risk of reoffending from the moment he leaves maximum security prison HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire.

The Sunday Times reported this weekend that these include a ban from using WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, and a ban on using any device that does not keep track of internet use.

When it comes to cash, Warren won’t be allowed to handle £1,000 or more, including coins, and he also won’t be allowed to dabble in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin at all.

Travel will be significantly restricted.

Warren will be allowed to apply for a British passport, but will have to give details of where he is going and who with at least seven days in advance to the NCA – even if he’s only planning on going as far as Scotland.

If he wants to sit in a friend’s car or van he’ll have to give a full 24 hours’ notice.

Warren will only be allowed one mobile phone, with one simcard and a single telephone number – and these items must be made available upon request at any time by the NCA.

Apart from having the supervision of the NCA, he won’t have to report to probation, having already completed his sentence. The Times also reported that he would also be free to return to the beating heart of his former drugs empire, Liverpool, as banning him from doing so may have constituted a human rights violation.

He will also be free of any curfews linked to his home address.

If he fails to comply with any of the measures, he could be sent behind bars once again, for up to five years. 

Warren’s trial in Jersey was one of the highest profile cases to be heard in the island's Royal Court. Amid tight security, which included rooftop marksmen, he was found guilty, along with five other men, including two from Jersey.

Last year, it was reported that British director Guy Ritchie had asked Warren’s legal team about making a film about the gangster.

This year, ahead of his release, his life story was serialised in the form of a podcast by the BBC.