New generation of drug lords flood UK with 128 tons of cocaine a year

ONCE upon a time, drug kingpins were flamboyant celebrities as well as vicious killers.

- PATRICK HILL

Some even claimed to be Robin Hood figures while running their multimillion pound crime empires.

Like Pablo Escobar, whose bloodsoaked rise and fall has inspired TV shows decades after his death in a shootout with Colombian police.

But the latest generation of South American drug lords are like anonymous businessmen by comparison and far more sophisticated.

The result has been a huge surge in production in the world's cocaine capital Colombia - leading to record drug busts at UK ports.

Earlier this year we revealed the links between the country's cartels and the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel at her Liverpool home in 2022.

The hitman jailed for shooting Olivia while aiming at another criminal was working for a gang smuggling cocaine from Colombia.

They are among thousands of gangs supplying insatiable UK users who consume 128 tons a year, according to the National Crime Agency.

Now we have followed the narcotics trail from Britain's streets to Colombia's capital Bogota. There I spoke to the country's former police chief who told us how the drug barons of today hide under a veil of respectability to ply their illegal trade with greater success than ever before.

General Fabián Laurence Cárdenas said: "Among the major players, their life is much more discreet.

"They have a higher level of education because they know that they run an organisation that operates like a transnational criminal enterprise with responsibilities.

"They meet in safe, normal places, like businessmen. They don't travel to Liverpool, for example.

"They negotiate in safe places, they reach an agreement and put operators in place to develop the whole chain.