I Dealt Millions of Pounds of Drugs With 'Pablo Escobar of the UK'… Fatal Mistake Ruined My Life Forever

A notorious criminal who trafficked drugs with 'Pablo Escobar, the Brit' has revealed the fatal mistake that ended his career.

Stephen Mee was born into a large family in north Manchester in 1958 and began his life of crime in 1967, aged just nine, robbing his own school and shoplifting from the local Tesco.

Mee was one of nine children – although two of her siblings died in infancy – and her family struggled to make ends meet.

His mother suffered from Parkinson's disease and his father was an electrician.

He was 11 when he started stealing cars, having reached 13 in his early teens.

Mee was caught asleep in a vehicle he had stolen and by the age of 13 was in Foston Hall young offenders' institution in Derbyshire.

He then ran a “legitimate” bike shop for a few years in his early 20s, but then got together with friends on a plan to buy cannabis wholesale in Amsterdam.

While Dutch coffee shops refused them, they ended up obtaining a kilo of the drug from a Hell's Angels chapter and, within months, they were trafficking hundreds of kilos per trip.

He smuggled cannabis from the Netherlands to the UK by train and boat, before expanding into cocaine.

Mee's first task was to transport a suitcase filled with 24kg of cocaine to Ecuador, dressing like a businessman to appear discreet and coating the drug with mustard and piccalilli to mask the smell.

But in the early 1990s, undercover police officers caught him smuggling cannabis and cocaine into Britain.

While on remand in Strangeways he met Curtis Warren, a notorious Liverpool drug baron.

Speaking on the Second Chance podcast in December, Mee said of Warren: “We had been to the same places – all over Europe, South America – and done the same things.

“I prepared food for him, we played chess together. I got to know him well. »

Before his conviction, and facing a long time behind bars, Mee began planning his escape.

As he was being transported to Manchester Crown Court to face sentence, he was freed in a daring hijacking along the M62, where a blue Vauxhall Astra sped in front of the prison bus transporting him.

He jumped off the bus and got into the vehicle, dragging Alan Seddon, 33, with him against his will, handcuffed to Mee and not involved in his drug deal.

Seddon later appeared in court, according to a report in the Manchester Evening News at the time.

Mee was sentenced to 22 years in absentia for trafficking cocaine from Colombia.

He fled to Amsterdam and began a working relationship with Warren.

The couple mainly sold cocaine in Europe while maintaining contacts abroad in South America.

But Dutch police wiretapped Mee and Warren's phone conversations, and they made a breakthrough when they realized Mee had been sent to Colombia to meet with the Cali cartel.

It was one of the largest known cocaine busts in the UK.

When half a ton of cocaine arrived at Warren's home, Dutch police intervened and arrested the two men along with several other associates.

Mee spent seven years in a Dutch Category AAA prison after this fatal mistake, failing to notice that his communications had been tapped and traveling to Colombia.

In 2004 he returned to the UK to serve the 22-year sentence he had been given in 1993.

Mee was released from prison in 2012 after serving 16 and a half years.

He was an avid artist from a young age, drawing cartoons in his youth before moving on to drawing rock icons.

He left school with no qualifications, but completed an apprenticeship in graphic design and studied sign writing at Oldham College of Art and Design.

While serving time in prison, Mee studied fine arts at OCA Bucks University and graduated with honors.

During his studies he won the Platinum Kostla Prize and a Bronze Prize for his work.

Since his release from prison, he has worked as a professional artist.

His paintings depict his past life in art and crime up to the present day.

He has presented his works to esteemed patrons such as Vivienne Westwood and other artists from the fashion and music industries.

His works have been featured on the Saatchi Art Gallery website and available for sale.

When asked to describe his current life, he replied: “I'm an artist, that's all I do. I get more pleasure from painting pictures than from counting millions of pounds.”

“I knew I had something to say [of prison] and it helped. It gave me a position where people could recognize that I was trying and help me.

“If you try, which no one could say I don't, you end up in a position where you can help people do the same – that's what I'm trying to do right now.

“Everyone deserves a second chance and I took mine.”