How ‘Britain’s biggest drug smuggler’ built a £100m empire before it collapsed

Notorious gangster Andrew Pritchard once ran a sprawling international criminal network built on fake passports and bribed officials. At the peak of his power, he was smuggling millions of pounds’ worth of drugs into the UK using an array of elaborate schemes — including coconuts, coffins and even liquid cocaine. Now, he says his “addiction to crime” ultimately destroyed the empire he spent years building.

So powerful was the man dubbed Britain’s biggest drug smuggler that his underworld shipments would pass through checks undetected – as he was bribing high-ranking customs officers to switch off the X-ray machines.

However, after slipping under the radar for years, Pritchard was thrust into the public eye when he was arrested in 2004 following the largest drug bust in UK history.

More than £100million-worth of cocaine was seized outside Spitalfields market in London – hidden inside hundreds of coconuts.

Astonishingly, Pritchard was acquitted after two trials, but he was later jailed after being found driving with £1million-worth of cocaine.

Now reformed and a campaigner for prisoner rehabilitation, the 59-year-old has released an explosive book about his three decades in the drugs trade, which began at the height of rave culture in the Eighties.

He boasts of his criminal empire: “Not even Pablo Escobar, at the height of his power, had a facility like this running straight into the UK.”

Pritchard’s unrivalled operation was once so sprawling that he imported a staggering 500,000 ecstasy tablets a month, along with tonnes of cannabis and cocaine, while officials looked away.

And the devious drugs lord, from Hackney, London, would use an extraordinary range of elaborate tactics to evade security.

One included swapping tourist rum with bottles of pure liquid cocaine, aided by a washroom assistant.

Another daring move named ‘the Stiff’ involved an undertaker replacing a dead body with kilos of cocaine.

Through the British High Commission in Kingston, Jamaica, he requested permission to repatriate a friend’s body back to England.

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A death certificate was given by a local Jamaican doctor and in place of the coffin was what he describes as “90 kilos of Jamaica’s finest”.

“Back in England, it was reverently retrieved by our man that was working at an established undertaker,” he explains.

His shipments made their way into clubs and venues, also helped by Pritchard’s web of contacts stationed at fruit markets across London.

Drugs poured in from Holland, where the round design-stamped pills were booming, and which was also conveniently a very big exporter of apples and potatoes.

Fruit and veg was sent in heavy boxes and Pritchard worked out that they could simply place a layer of ecstasy tablets at the bottom of each crate, then cover them with trays of apples.

And, since they were perishable goods, they would sail through customs quickly.

Speaking of his early days supplying the UK club scene, Pritchard brags that he became the “unlicensed conductor of the rave”.

Writing in his new book, Empire of Dirt, he says: “I became part of a small circle of old school villains that slipped quietly into the bloodstream of a European multimillion-pound narcotics trade.

“As demand for ecstasy soared, I knew it was time to stop riding shotgun and start building my own supply chain, direct from Holland.

“I understood if you could position yourself as the right kind of middleman, everything else had a way of falling to place.”

Building an empire

Unable to resist the lure of fast cash, Pritchard quickly escalated his operation and teamed up with a Dutch couple who ran a lab that processed up to a million ecstasy tablets per day.

“For a while the route ran clean, under the radar and completely legit on paper,” he recalls.

He then progressed to shipping premium-grade cannabis and cocaine from Jamaica and South America to the UK.

By this time, his operation was already generating millions of pounds, with shipping containers sent to contacts in Holland.

“By the turn of the millennium, Jamaica was churning out cannabis like it was going out of fashion, producing between 1,500 to 2,000 metric tons annually,” he says.

“At times it felt like we were on a mission to export every last gram to Holland.”

During his criminal years, Pritchard spent much of his time in Jamaica and lived such a glamourous lifestyle – as he even married a Miss World contestant.

Since 2001, he says all the trips he had taken to overseas countries were via false passports.

He would use shipments with “practically every Jamaican edible produced” paired with weed.

On one occasion, he recalls 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 adds.

His operation continued to expand and flourished through corruption of customs officers, who would put the containers full of premium grade cannabis and cocaine ‘on hold’.

They would then turn off the X-ray machines and issue a clearance certificate, so they could continue to their destinations unopened.

Tables are turned

When Pritchard was finally arrested in 2004 as part of what was then Britain’s largest ever drugs bust, he was eventually acquitted after two juries failed to reach a verdict.

Sensationally, the trial heard 86 customs officers had been involved, with pages and pages of transcripts of incriminating conversations.

“I exposed the deeper underbelly of corrupt customs officers controlling the docks,” he says, adding that he was now “target number one” for embarrassed law enforcement staff desperate to salvage their reputation.

He continues: “I was still finding it incredibly hard to abide by the rules of living a straight-goers life.

“I had spent the past 27 years building my reputation and contacts to climb to the top of the criminal ladder.”

Not even Pablo Escobar, at the height of his power, had a facility like this running straight into the UK, - Andrew Pritchard.

Pritchard was finally arrested again in November 2013 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He was classified as a Category A prisoner.

He says: “For decades I was trapped in a loop, build a legitimate business, push it to the edge of success, then throw it all away by returning to drug smuggling.

“I wasn’t addicted to substances; I was addicted to the criminal lifestyle.”

Following a successful appeal, Pritchard was eventually released in February 2019 on licence.

Finally turning his back on crime, he says the birth of his daughter “forced me to confront who I had become and the legacy I was in danger of leaving behind”.

He adds: “I made a promise to myself that no matter what the circumstances I would never return to crime out of respect for my family. I had lost my house, business, money and most of my possessions

“Any young person who listens to this today, the last thing I want them to do is think this is a road to go on, because it can seem glamourous, but it will end in death, destruction and misery.”

Nowadays, Pritchard runs his own charitable foundation to support prisoner rehabilitation and young people at risk of offending.

He says he has been viewed by some as a “Hackney Pablo Escobar figure” and “some kind of Don Corleone Godfather”.

But he adds: “My story, in places may appear glamorous, let it stand instead as a warning to any young person tempted to walk that road.

“Because the truth is far less seducitve. A life of crime is bleak, corrosive and unforgiving. It takes real strength not to believe your own myth, especially when it’s reinforced by those around you.”

Empire of Dirt is now available at major online retailers.