SUSPECTED British drug smuggler Brian Wright, who has been living as a fugitive in the north, has fled his hideaway just hours before he was to become the first Briton to be deported from the unrecognised breakaway regime, British newspapers reported yesterday.
According to the Times, Wright, the man alleged to be the mastermind in a £300 million drug smuggling ring, left the island on a private boat early on Thursday and is thought to be somewhere in the Middle East. As an unrecognised entity, the breakaway regime has no extradition treaty with Britain.
The Times quoted acquaintances of Wright, a wealthy gambler and racegoer, as saying he had put into operation contingency plans to escape as he felt the net tightening around him.
When the Turkish Cypriots, acting in collaboration with British authorities, arrived to arrest him at his luxury villa in occupied Lapithos, he had gone. His BMW, which was later impounded by the ‘police’, was abandoned in a supermarket car park near by, the paper said. British authorities had moved to have Wright arrested after another member of the smuggling ring was jailed for nine years two weeks ago. Wright had sought refuge in northern Cyprus in February 1999 after the 15 members of his gang, including his son, also called Brian Wright, were arrested for importing £300 million of cocaine on yachts during the previous three years.
The Turkish Cypriots agreed to invoke legislation dating from 1952, when Cyprus was a British colony, in order to aid the deportation. The law allows the authorities to deport undesirables to Turkey, from where they can legally be extradited to Britain. “Politically it’s very sensitive,” a British official told the Times. “But when it comes to serious crime or terrorism, we have to deal with the Turkish Cypriot authorities and they’re generally willing to co-operate. It’s not political and in no way does it imply recognition.”
After Wright’s escape, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash publicly confirmed his ‘police’ force’s co-operation with the British authorities. “The TRNC is not a shelter for foreigners with criminal records,” he said. “Every country has the right to say to a foreign resident that they have overstayed their welcome, and ask them to leave through the proper channels.”
Wright, 56, nicknamed “Uncle“, or “the Milkman” because he always delivers, is alleged to be behind the cocaine smuggling ring and the laundering of the proceeds through gambling based on doping and race-fixing, buying off jockeys in exchange for inside information.
He was last seen on the island more than a week ago, shortly after a large sum of money had been transferred to a bank account in his family name. Sources close to him told the Times: “He’s done a runner. Some people say he might have left northern Cyprus, others say he may be in hiding. As soon as he saw it in the press that the Turkish Cypriot police were after him, too, he took off. He had been living here in the north unnoticed for the past few years.”
Officials in Britain believe he was kept afloat by family and friends in Britain, who would occasionally fly out to visit him carrying cash in suitcases. The manager of a nearby casino was taken in for questioning by the Turkish Cypriot ‘police’, but later released.
He was reported to be Wright’s right-hand man on the island and had allowed him to buy his luxury villa in his name. Friends of Wright said that he had left on a private boat last Thursday and had been heading for a country in the Middle East. Britain has no extradition treaties with Jordan, Yemen and Egypt, one of which is likely to be his destination, the paper said.
He is expected to lie low for several weeks while contacts prepare false travel documents on his behalf and organise a flight elsewhere. Algeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Rwanda also have no extradition treaties with Britain. Customs and Excise officials in London said that they were unable to discuss operational activities. “We would not be able to say whether anything had gone wrong as Customs and Excise don’t discuss operations until someone has been charged,” a spokesman told the Times.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
