29 October 2023 , 19:39
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In his cycle helmet with goggles raised, unassuming Matthew Grimm could be any middle-aged dad out for a ride in the country.
But he has been dubbed the “El Chapo of the Cotswolds” as he fights extradition to the US, accused of a $6.5million drugs racket and facing up to 120 years in prison. As he arrived to answer bail this week in the picturesque market town of Chipping Sodbury, he told us bullishly: “Let them bring it on. I’m 49 now, so how could I serve that long?
“These are just allegations, so I don’t want to say anything.” Locally, Grimm is known as a keen member of the cycling club. But more than 4,000 miles away, prosecutors in Florida say he masterminded a synthetic drugs racket which netted more than £5million.
Grimm and partner in the MedNational Crime Agency officers detained him last November, after the US issued a warrant. He later told a court he relies on cycling to “clear his head” as he fights the case. He is accused of shipping substances to US-based customers from the Netherlands via an online portal called Smokey’s Chem Site.
The drugs are said to have included psychoactive bath salts. Allegedly running since 2012, it was shut down after an undercover operation. In the US – where former Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is serving life – prosecutors froze Grimm’s bank account last year, alleging his customers made Bitcoin payments totalling £5.2million.
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His alleged earnings are so high that he became the first person targeted by the US under Executive Order 14059 – brought in two years ago by President Joe Biden to help combat fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, blamed for hundreds of deaths. The US Treasury said British and Dutch police helped it to track Grimm along with two Dutch nationals in a separate case over the sale of “illicit drugs purchased online and via dark net marketplaces”.
He faces five counts of trafficking and one of money-laundering, each carrying a sentence of up to 20 years. In court papers Grimm’s lawyer says his client denies any wrongdoing and is worried that extradition would distance him from his two children, aged nine and 12, who live with his ex-partner.
But district judge Nina Tempia rejected the pleas and sent the case to Home Secretary Suella Braverman for rubber-stamping – typically a formality in extradition procedures. The judge wrote: “[Grimm] faces extremely serious charges in the US for drug importation… I have to bear [in] mind the strong public interest that the UK upholds its international treaty obligations and that… the UK should not be seen as a safe haven.”
Grimm’s co-accused, Carrie-Ann Tooley, a 53-year-old US national, faces two charges of importing drugs and one of conspiracy to commit money laundering. She is due to face trial in Florida in December. A final decision on Grimm’s extradition is due in December.