Thailand drugs baron Craig Allen from Sheffield jailed after being arrested at IKEA

[Jay Sata]

Well he won't be back in Thailand for a while as he got twenty years.

Plenty more like him in the land of smiles and well documented by a certain Scottish journalist on his website.

[Tom420]

Craig Allen, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, had convictions dating back to 1975

So he has convictions from when he was 11 years old?

Not hard to believe, some people have committed murder before that age, it's called being a career criminal

[Bakseeda]

Not much information about the "Thai mansion" in this Thai reprinted article. No information or interest by the Thai press in smoking out the banking connection mentioned in the Bangkok funds transfer. Who are the Thai Mr. Bigs in the Bangkok money laundering network here? That should be the news in the Thai press plus they should be seizing the "Thai mansion."

Probabaly somewhere around Pattaya..... will be up fpr sale soon....

[bigbamboo]

5K a week = "drug baron"? Me thinks not.

Off topic, but what bird is that in your avatar? It's a lovely little creature.

Funny that. That's what Ratcatcher's avatar thought as well.

[Arjay]

Really? A "drug Baron"! Only £5,000 a week!

[technologybytes]

All a bit strange really.

The dutch found all that Cocaine in his dutch flat but just extradited him to the UK.

Also, if he got 20 years then he's not considered a big time dealer.

He will automatically be released in 10 years, but long before that he will be moved to an open prison and enjoying a weekend home every 8 weeks. If he plays his cards right he will only spend a few years in real lock-up conditions. He's lucky he never got caught in Thailand, if indeed he ever offended here.

Edited May 15, 2014 by technologybytes

[transam]

Really? A "drug Baron"! Only £5,000 a week!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeell, if had 5000 quid coming in, I would call myself Baron something, not Von Richthofen though.........

[unanimosity]

He's a small fry in the drug world, but thanks for the headline anyway.

Yeah, 5K a week is more like street level dealers. This post redefines NEWS as Not Even Worth Showing. But, the question is, what else happened eight months ago....yawn?

[anon467367354]

Thailand drugs baron Craig Allen from Sheffield jailed after being arrested at IKEA

From the headline, I was wondering why Thailand drugged this guy baron Craig Allen.

[ezzra]

If he was silly enough to buy IKEA stuff than he deserve to be caught....

[rickirs]

Allen has been free for 35 years after his first arrest warrant. I'd say he was fairly well above the law. It looks like he just forgot to make a payoff and somebody lost patience with him. Fortunately for Allen, he's going to Thailand where odds are good he'll find what "true" justice means - a place where a Buddhist monk unashamely uses random burtality against the public with immunity.

[transam]

If he was silly enough to buy IKEA stuff than he deserve to be caught....

There are times when "class" shows, in this guys case, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, perhaps he thought class was IKEA..............

[empireboy]

They must have dropped a zero or two surely... weekly 50k or 500k might qualify as a Baron....

[chris1101]

It is people like this that give my home city of Sheffield a bad name.

[gemini81]

5K a week = "drug baron"? Me thinks not.

If Thai news reporters ever learn geography and find out about Mexico........they'll slip into cardiac arrest if they imagine this guy as some sort of Baron.

[Jay Sata]

All a bit strange really.

The dutch found all that Cocaine in his dutch flat but just extradited him to the UK.

Also, if he got 20 years then he's not considered a big time dealer.

He will automatically be released in 10 years, but long before that he will be moved to an open prison and enjoying a weekend home every 8 weeks. If he plays his cards right he will only spend a few years in real lock-up conditions. He's lucky he never got caught in Thailand, if indeed he ever offended here.

The painful bit apart from time locked up in the UK is all his assets are confiscated under the proceeds of crime act. That includes any property he has in Thailand although I suspect his Thai wife will be smart enough to sell up and live on the cash.

The case of Angela Miller is a good example. To quote Thai Visa "As well as owning a house in Cavendish Drive in Northampton, Miller also owned a penthouse in the beach resort of Pattaya, four plots of land and four shops in Kanchanaburi, savings in two bank accounts as well as the Far East Rock bar in Pattaya which was also run as a brothel."

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/163210-british-brothel-madam-extradited-from-thailand-after-jumping-bail/

I understand the Thai police were granted ownership of her Thai properties.

So this guy will emerge from jail in 10 years time with nothing!

Edited May 15, 2014 by Jay Sata

[atyclb]

A drug baron shopping at IKEA

FYI the swedish meatballs with lingonberries are intoxicating

[Guitar God]

Why's he going to Thailand? It says he was extradited to the UK and sentenced in the UK along with his three co-defendants.

Allen has been free for 35 years after his first arrest warrant. I'd say he was fairly well above the law. It looks like he just forgot to make a payoff and somebody lost patience with him. Fortunately for Allen, he's going to Thailand where odds are good he'll find what "true" justice means - a place where a Buddhist monk unashamely uses random burtality against the public with immunity.

[Suradit69]

Just imagine, having so much money you need to buy a machine to count it.

"...€425,000, cash-counting machine, scales and rubber gloves"

And if all that wasn't enough, there was the rubber gloves. Case closed.

[CookieMonster1]

Serves him right, ginger northener

[ratcatcher]

Allen has been free for 35 years after his first arrest warrant. I'd say he was fairly well above the law. It looks like he just forgot to make a payoff and somebody lost patience with him. Fortunately for Allen, he's going to Thailand where odds are good he'll find what "true" justice means - a place where a Buddhist monk unashamely uses random burtality against the public with immunity.

Come on, why didn't you mention Suthep and his drug crazed thugs on this thread as well, you know you want to.

[ratcatcher]

Double pist.

Edited May 15, 2014 by ratcatcher

[Basil B]

All a bit strange really.

The dutch found all that Cocaine in his dutch flat but just extradited him to the UK.

Also, if he got 20 years then he's not considered a big time dealer.

He will automatically be released in 10 years, but long before that he will be moved to an open prison and enjoying a weekend home every 8 weeks. If he plays his cards right he will only spend a few years in real lock-up conditions. He's lucky he never got caught in Thailand, if indeed he ever offended here.

The painful bit apart from time locked up in the UK is all his assets are confiscated under the proceeds of crime act. That includes any property he has in Thailand although I suspect his Thai wife will be smart enough to sell up and live on the cash.

The case of Angela Miller is a good example. To quote Thai Visa "As well as owning a house in Cavendish Drive in Northampton, Miller also owned a penthouse in the beach resort of Pattaya, four plots of land and four shops in Kanchanaburi, savings in two bank accounts as well as the Far East Rock bar in Pattaya which was also run as a brothel."

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/163210-british-brothel-madam-extradited-from-thailand-after-jumping-bail/

I understand the Thai police were granted ownership of her Thai properties.

So this guy will emerge from jail in 10 years time with nothing!

But he probably will have no problem returning to Thailand.

I know of one Brit who has been in prison for benefit fraud and loan sharking who seems to have no problems residing in Thailand.

[pendingo]

So this so-called "drugs baron" got 20 years jail in the UK.

I doubt it somehow.

Sentencing in the UK is a joke.

No doubt with a good lawyer and Human Rights on his side on appeal he'll be out in 4 years and in the meantime he'll be happily supplying drugs to his fellow inmates.

Had this been the USA he'd probably have got 25 to life.

[Banzai99]

20 Years in Prison, just for that level of drug dealing??? <deleted> Thats just wrong...

You reckon, do you not think about the number of lives that have been affected bye his trade...?

And alcohol producers, cigarette makers and giant pharma companies that get millions addicted to the latest and greatest drugs every year.

Between that lot, there is an awful lot of blood on their hands.

They are legal drugs that kill millions, but these giant corporations pay an awful lot of tax, so they are legal, anything they cant tax, is illegal no matter how many are killed by these products. Giant corporations support the politicians and Political parties who make the laws with huge political donations, so they remain legal.

If Alcohol wasn't taxed, it would be a Class 'A' drug, think not ? try making your own Alcohol that isn't taxed by a government.

Governments tax the drugs they can, and make illegal those they can't.

I was addicted to Valium for 15 years, prescribed to me, yeah right, then try to stop, see how you get on, yet they and other Benzos handed out like candy and have been for years, ' Mothers little Helper '

If I made a tablet that gave the same effect as a double Scotch, no impurities, no health problems just mind altering, you think it would be legal, of course not, but then why can I go and buy a double Scotch in a pub ?

[KevinB]

I wonder if it is his Thai wife that named him "little fella"? He is going to be mocked in the showers when he gets to prison.

A lot was made in the posts about the GBP5000 a week and folk questioned if that qualified him a Drug baron but most missed the bit about having the equivalent of GBP350,000 in cash - not many of use would be able to have 70 weeks of income - 1.4 years - lying around our flat.

[Lupatria]

Another quality person, hiding in the criminals paradise!

Wonder if he was made to report/visa run when in Thailand

He always made his proper 90 day report

[ggold]

20 Years in Prison, just for that level of drug dealing??? <deleted> Thats just wrong...

You reckon, do you not think about the number of lives that have been affected bye his trade...?

Bullshit! If they didn't do drugs they would not be effected. It is individual choice as with everything else in Life. No ones a victim.

[boomerangutang]

When are police going to crack down on the world's most harmful recreational drug? Oh sorry, almost forgot; the alcohol lobby is too strong. Too big to fail. That's why it's the only legal recreational drug worldwide.

And what about a police crackdown on a group of drugs which cause more death and injury than all illegal drugs combined. I'm referring to Big Pharma. But again, legislators would just laugh at any suggestions to slow down Big Pharma. There's too much pay-off money going to politicians - to ever slow it down. No matter that clinical tests have shown that pharma drugs are no more effective than placebos.

Personally, I propose that ALL DRUGS be legal, and people be left to make their own stupid-assed mistakes. Criminalizing drugs causes endless problems and makes bad guys rich. But whatever you do, don't criminalize the two most harmful categories of drugs, as that would put a crimp on many politicians' and CEO's wallets.

[boomerangutang]

20 Years in Prison, just for that level of drug dealing??? <deleted> Thats just wrong...

You reckon, do you not think about the number of lives that have been affected bye his trade...?

When perennially ignorant law-makers look at illegal drugs, they only hear about the absolute worst-case scenarios. They've probably not tried any themselves, so they rely on scare stories. When the same brain-adled politicians consider alcohol, well, that's a drug they're familiar with. They know there are &lt;deleted&gt; alcoholics, but the politicos still consider alcohol as also being wine drunk at high-class dinners, and whiskey drunk by rich and powerful people, etc. Mainly, the law-making politicos are themselves familiar with alcohol, so they can justify its use as being tolerable or fun or sophisticated.

To address the above missive; "the number of lives that have been affected bye his trade" I don't know what drugs Allen dealt, but even if he sold quantities of ice and heroin and speed, the harm done by those illegal drugs don't amount to a hill of beans when compared to the cumulative harm done by alcohol. Not even close.

So, using that logic, everyone involved with Johnny Walker Whiskey, and Chang Beer, and Seagrams, and Absolut, and Chivas, from the CEO on down to the liquor store clerk, should be hauled off and put behind bars for dealing harmful drugs.