Yardie mastermind faces jail

A drugs baron known as "Father Fowl" who has earned hundreds of millions of pounds smuggling crack cocaine into Britain.

Owen Clarke, 46, ran a global trafficking racket using a team of mostly women couriers to smuggle the drugs into the country.

He enjoyed all the trappings of success, with a penchant for flashy diamond jewellery, vintage champagne and fast cars.

Today he will be sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court after being convicted following a massive police inquiry spanning five countries.

Clarke ran the cocaine and crackcocaine distribution business from a modest bungalow home in Sudbury, north London.

He was also a music promoter and was head of the "British Link-Up Crew", an organisation that promoted music and dancehall events both in Britain and Jamaica. He used the group as a front for his drug-smuggling activities.

In Jamaica the crew were renowned for their extravagant lifestyles, while their parties attracted celebrities and sports

personalities including Lennox Lewis and footballer Ricardo Gardner - as well as a series of criminal figures active in the drug trade between Jamaica and Britain.

While in Britain he remained relatively anonymous, but in the Caribbean he flaunted his wealth.

Clarke exported several luxury cars to Kingston, including three brand-new, top-of-the-range Jaguar S types with personalised registrations - including the numbers 007 and WH 1P.

His conviction last week on four counts of supply and possession of crack cocaine came after the biggest-ever investigation mounted by the Yard's Operation Trident task force, which tackles crime in the black community.

Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, the head of Trident, said: "This operation is by far the biggest and most successful so far undertaken by Trident.

"It has meant a major international drugs ring has been taken out of operation, disrupting the supply of crack cocaine from the Caribbean to London and the rest of the UK."

Clarke's drugs empire stretched from Britain to the United States, Jamaica, Antigua and St Lucia.

He recruited a network of 20 mules, many of them Jamaican women or mistresses who flew regular trips between the United States, the Caribbean and the Continent and UK.

Many used the Eurostar to bring

in millions of pounds worth of the drug after flying into the Continent to avoid detection at Britain's airports.

He would reward them with nights in five-star London hotels and shopping trips, and would pay in drugs not cash to keep them hooked.

Meanwhile, using safe houses in London, his associates would move the shipments of cocaine to all the major cities in the UK on buses and trains.

In Britain Clarke deliberately opted for a low-key lifestyle, living with his English wife in a two-bedroom bungalow - though he could not resist splashing out ? 25,000 on a Mercedes Kompressor car. He also wore a diamond-encrusted crucifix and bracelet estimated to be worth around ?9,000.

The drugs baron was arrested in a raid by Trident officers on a crack cocaine factory as he tried to climb out of a third-floor window.

His downfall came because police arrested so many of his gang that he finally had to get his own hands dirty in manufacturing the crack.

In total 17 people linked to Clarke have been arrested and charged with drugs offences. So far 13 of them have received jail sentences totalling 123 years.