Stephen Mee has opened up about his criminal career, regrets and new life as an artist
Stephen Mee, pictured at his art studio(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
A drug trafficker sprung from a court transport van was hidden in Liverpool safehouses before eventually being sent to meet the Cali Cartel in one of the biggest ever cocaine deals. Mancunian Stephen Mee teamed up with Curtis “Cocky” Warren to smuggle huge shipments of cocaine across the Atlantic, after first striking up a friendship while playing chess while on remand at Strangeways prison.
The pair smuggled the vast shipments of drugs into Europe from South America packed in tins of ham, disguised as roof tiles or hidden in suitcases and rolls of fabric. Toxteth-born Warren is even alleged to have tried to set up a deal with the Colombian Cali Cartel to import a £250m of the cocaine into the UK, with Mee acting as the reliable middleman.
But following a joint police/military investigation the pair and several other gang members were lifted from their Dutch bolthole. Mee was handed a prison term in the Netherlands before he was returned back to the UK to serve time after he had been sentenced in his absence.
Mee’s crimes made him a millionaire many times over. But he also spent more than 16 years of his life behind bars in some of Europe’s most notorious high-security prisons. And in a new interview, the now 67-year-old branded his illicit activities as “time wasted”.
He said: “I’ve had decades taken away because of what I’ve done. All that time wasted. I made millions, but it was all taken off me and rightly so. It’s only me that was a criminal in the family. “I often wonder why I went the way I went and they went the way they went. But they’re the ones that have done better, no doubt.”
It is a lesson he’s now hoping to pass on to the younger generation.
He grew up in poverty as one of nine kids. He says he committed his first crime aged nine when he burgled his school. Then he began shoplifting in the local Tesco.
After he was caught stealing cars, a spell in a young offenders’ institute followed in his early teens. In his mid 20s Mee began smuggling cannabis from Amsterdam into Manchester and after teaming up with the Hells Angels was soon trafficking hundreds of kilos a month.
The Manchester Evening News reported that by the late 80s Mee had moved into the cocaine business. His first job involved smuggling 22 kilos of the drug in a suitcase as a ‘kamikaze’ courier from Ecuador to the Netherlands.
“Once I’d done that I knew people from Venezuela and Colombia who I’d met in Holland and you just talk and do deals,” he said, describing how the job led to his connection with the notorious Cali Cartel.
An old mugshot of Stephen Mee(Image: Sky Documentaries)
“I was lucky, or unlucky. At the time in the late 80s, the Colombians knew how to get it into the country, but they didn’t have people to buy it. So when they met someone like me who could sell to the Dutch, Swiss, French, Germans, they used to come over and literally give it to me and say get rid of that.
“The first time they did it was 275 kilos. At the time it fetched between 12 and 20 grand. And it just built up from there.”
But in 1991 he was caught by undercover police smuggling £1m of cannabis and cocaine into the UK. While on remand in Strangeways he became friends with fellow drugs trafficker Warren. Facing a lengthy spell behind bars, Mee organised a daring escape.
While being transported by coach to Manchester Crown Court Mee, then of Wythenshawe, was sprung on the M62. A blue Vauxhall Astra sped in front of the bus near junction 11 at Cadishead before forcing it to a halt.
As two men jumped out of the Vauxhall, Mee stood up, shouted “nobody move” then leapt from the back of the bus onto the hard shoulder and fled. Mee says he was then put up in a series of safe houses in Liverpool before flying by a private plane to the Netherlands.
As Mee began a new life on the run in Europe, the case against Warren collapsed. Described at the time as Britain’s biggest criminal investigation, it was alleged Warren had set up a deal with the Colombian Cali Cartel to import £250m of cocaine into the UK.
Warren also headed for the Netherlands where he hooked up with his prison pal. Mee, who in his absence had been convicted to 22 years in prison, used his reputation as a reliable middle-man to re-establish his links with the Colombians.
Curtis Warren(Image: PA)
But it couldn’t last. Police in the Netherlands and the UK joined forces with customs in a bid to crack Mee and Warren’s network.
And when they discovered Mee had been sent to Columbia to meet the Cali Cartel in one of the biggest cocaine deals known to the UK they made their move. When the half tonne of cocaine arrived at Warren’s house, Dutch police and military swooped in in dramatic fashion and arrested Warren, Mee and several other gang members.
Mee was sentenced to seven years in Nieuw Vosseld triple-A category maximum security prison housed on the site of a former Nazi concentration camp. Then in 2004, he returned to the UK to serve the 22-year sentence he had been given in his absence.
After spending time in Whitemoor – where he met and painted the portrait of serial killer Donald Neilson AKA the ‘Black Panther’ – Full Sutton and Lowdon Grange prisons he finally was released in 2012. In total he says he’s spent 16 years, four months and 22 days of his life behind bars.
But Mee put his time inside to good use. A talented artist, he studied for a fine art degree while in prison.
And on his release he went on to establish himself as a prolific and successful painter. The walls of his studio are lined with dozens of portraits of the likes of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and Vivienne Westwood, which hang alongside cityscapes and scenes depicting the frustration and futility of prison life.
Mee’s life today is very different from his time as an international drugs trafficker. His mornings start early, about 6-7am, with a coffee in his studio before riding his mountain bike along the Rochdale Canal to Hebden Bridge and back.
Stephen Mee, who was once Curtis Warren’s right-hand man(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
In recent months he’s also been going into schools speaking to pupils about his life in the hope of deterring them from following in his footsteps. And now he wants to go even further.
Alongside a number of friends and colleagues he’s recently set up Together Communities, a not-for-profit community interest company that he hopes will be the first step towards establishing what’s known as an alternative provision school in Rochdale.
“I got expelled from school when I was 13 for stealing cars,” he said. “To be thrown out at that age was terrible. You had nothing to do, you couldn’t go anywhere.
“That stayed with me forever. It just made me worse. I was out stealing, robbing, just doing what I wanted. Had I had help at the time I don’t think I would have done what I ended up doing. I’m not making excuses, but I think it was those times at school that made me who I was.”
Mee says Together Communities have a premises lined up for the school and he hopes, if everything goes to plan, it could be open as early as next year. It’s an unlikely ending for a man who was once one of the UK’s most notorious drugs traffickers.
“It was all ducking and diving and skulduggery,” he said. “People think you’re on a big yacht in the Caribbean. But it’s not my yacht. You walk away from it and get caught and you’re in a cell for decades. It all looks glamorous on paper but it’s not.”
Mee, a father-of-two and grandfather-of-one, says he regrets the life he once led. But asked if he’s now trying to make amends for his crimes, he says it’s not quite that simple.
“I’m not too sure. I’m just trying to do something good in the community. I think if we can change the minds of just a few, that will be enough.”