The burly drugs baron with a taste for the high-life who fled to Tenerife in a Bentley Continental
Kingpin John Clark ran a huge crime syndicate
John Clark enjoyed the finer things in life.
As a judge would later describe, his tastes included 'beautiful houses, rental properties, dressing in designer clothes and owning expensive cars'. So when it came to fleeing the law there was only one way he was going - in the heated driver's seat of his Bentley Continental.
Clark was able to afford the Champagne lifestyle because he sat atop a huge Bury-based drugs empire that, at its height, turned over £11m in just nine months. From a remote farmhouse in Waterfoot, Lancashire he oversaw a criminal network that stretched from Scotland to Merseyside, London to Lincolnshire.
In the space of just three years, Clark, a father of two, bought a fleet of luxury cars including a £65,000 Range Rover Sport, an Audi RS3 worth £44,000, a £120,000 Audi R8 Spyder and a £115,000 Mercedes which he paid for in cash and bank transfers. Meanwhile his property empire included nine homes in Lancashire and several abroad, including in Spain.
“Most of the gang enjoyed the trappings of wealth that most hard-working people can only imagine, but they would have known from the start that even the biggest empires can crumble,” said Det Insp Lee Griffin, of Greater Manchester Police.
And that's exactly what happened when he came to the attentions of the National Crime Agency. Detectives from 'Britain's FBI' were investigating a Birmingham-based money laundering gang who had been transferring money overseas for some of the UK's major drug traffickers - including Clark.
During a undercover operation in 2011, detectives saw Clark hand over a bag containing £113,860 to a money launderer at Knutsford service station on the M6. Then in May the following year they raided his 'rather magnificent' £1.2m farm in Waterfoot and found £77,000 in cash stashed in two shoe boxes and details of his property portfolio.
Crucially they also found a coded ledger that detailed drug sales. It showed how in just one shipment in December 2012 around 25kg of cocaine was transported from Holland to North Wales with a street value of £7m, while an amphetamine deal in Bury was worth £500,000.
It also contained a record of money movements totalling more than £1.3m with nearly £700,000 being accrued in just five days. Clark was charged with money laundering.
But when his henchmen were arrested after millions of pounds worth of heroin and amphetamines were found during a raid on a house in Ramsbottom and a car in Liverpool, Clark decided it was time to make himself scarce.
He got behind the wheel of his Bentley, took the Eurotunnel from Folkestone and drove south before going to ground in Tenerife. After a five month manhunt he was finally arrested in Morocco in June 2013.
In stark contrast to his luxury lifestyle back in the UK, Clark would later complain he was kept in 'appalling conditions' as he spent 10 months in a Moroccan jail where he shared a cell with up to 60 other inmates as he waited to be extradited.
When he finally found himself in the dock, Bolton Crown Court heard Clark was the 'overall head of the entire operation' and controlled others under his command 'at a distance' who in turn controlled other 'trusted middle-men and facilitators'. In October 2014, the then 36-year-old, of Edgeside Lane, Waterfoot, Rossendale, was jailed for 25 years after he pleaded guilty to money laundering and eight counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Sending him down Judge Timothy Clayson said: "You were the head of this drug-dealing enterprise. You played a leading role and were responsible for the activities within it.
"You enjoyed a very high level of luxury in your life with beautiful houses, rental properties, dressing in designer clothes and owning expensive cars. The organisation was highly professional with regular dumping of mobile phones shortly after any successful police seizures. But that didn't slow down or stop your illegal activities.
"The group had important connections oversees to organisations of a similar kind and you travelled abroad and were in frequent contact with those involved. You spent 10 months in prison in Morocco in very bad conditions but that consequence is entirely your own fault."
Speaking after the sentencing, in which nine members of the gang were jailed, Det Insp Griffin, of GMP's Serious Organised Crime Group, said: "The scale of their operation makes for truly alarming reading - £11m worth of deals in just nine months, a number of properties across Europe and the types of cars associated with international playboys.
"However, all of this was built on selling harmful, illegal drugs on the streets of the UK. The corroding effects of class A drugs on families, communities and the wider society are well documented, and each and every one of these people knew it."