‘Teflon Don’ drugs lord behind £216m-cocaine heist could keep fortune after jail

Drugs lord Robert Dawes – dubbed the Teflon Don for his ability to evade justice – is expected to keep his vast fortune after being given 22 years for a record cocaine heist.

The 46-year-old, who went from a midlands council estate to palatial foreign villas, was con­­victed in Paris of trafficking 1.3 tons of cocaine worth £216mil­­lion into the city’s main airport.

Dawes used a network of corrupt gov­­ernment and law officials to move huge amounts of drugs around the world and hid his millions in a labyrinth of un­­­traceable offshore accounts.

UK authorities cannot go after his money because he was convicted in France.

Matt Horne, of the National Crime Agency, said: “His network spanned the globe, enabling him to orchestrate the movements of huge amounts of drugs and money.”

The married grandfather from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, is suspected of ordering at least two murders. He escaped justice for decades by using violence, bent officials and sophisticated anti-surveillance techniques.

Moving around legal jurisdictions, he had associates in more than 50 countries, including Afghan­­istan, China, Italy, Nigeria, Colombia and New Zealand.

He is suspected of money laundering in Malta, Switzerland and Dubai, where he had at least £10 million in property.

Dawes, also known as “The One”, was finally arrested after an operation started by the NCA.

His international lifestyle is a long way from his childhood in a two-up two-down on an estate in Leamingon, Warks.

The son of criminal, he got his first conviction in 1983, aged 11, and went on to collect 16 more, for robbery, drugs, assault and having an offensive weapon.

With his brother John, who two years ago was released from a 24-year sen­­tence for money laundering and dealing drugs, he terrorised the area.

One local said: “You won’t get anyone to talk about the Dawes family, they are terrifying.

“John is out of prison now and still hangs around the estate. No one will say a bad word about them round here because they gave loads of people work.”

A retired Nottinghamshire detective who investigated the Dawes cartel said: “They were juvenile criminals who got in to drugs and began to take control.

“Rob was the main man. He had the skills to make the organisation a formidable force and was also a proper thug.”

Fearing arrest, Dawes fled to Spain in 2001.

He is still regarded as a “person of interest” in the 2002 assassination of Notts businessman David Draycott.

In Holland he is being investigated for a murder in Holland in the same year.

Dawes’ Teflon veneer finally show­­ed signs of wearing thin when he was arrested at his luxury resort in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol in 2015.

He could be free in 12 years, after being told he must serve a minimum of 15 and having already served three.

The court also sentenced four accomplices and ordered the five to pay a £27million fine – a mere fraction of their suspected true wealth.

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