FOR YEARS, drug lord Alex Male was one of Britain’s most wanted criminals and led authorities on a merry dance around the world.
The heavily tattooed bodybuilder, nicknamed Viking Don, posted pictures of himself on social media with beautiful women in exotic locations while avoiding justice over a £4.7m cocaine empire.
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Drug kingpin Alex Male, nicknamed Viking Don, has been posting pictures of himself on social media with beautiful women while avoiding justice over his £4.7m cocaine empire Credit: Submitted
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He was the most wanted criminal in Britain for two years. Credits: Submitted
On the run for three-and-a-half years, Male, 32, even left anonymous comments on the Crimestoppers “Most Wanted” message board, taunting his pursuers with the message: “You’ll never find him.”
He eluded the police three times before he was finally arrested in Morocco in January.
Male was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Monday after admitting conspiracy to supply cocaine and ketamine, and money laundering.
His unusual lifestyle on the run has echoes of the 2002 Hollywood blockbuster Catch Me If You Can, in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays fugitive con artist Frank Abagnale.
Exeter Crown Court heard how Male amassed £600,000 in cash in one day from dealing drugs across the south west of England, Portsmouth and the Midlands.
The money funded his jet-setting lifestyle while being hunted by crime hunters.
“It was like in a movie. . . nightclubs, fast cars and beautiful women,” he says in an interview behind bars.
Even more unusual is that the father of three claims he is happier in prison than he was on the run, adding: “I feel liberated.”
‘I wasn’t worried’
Jailing Male, Judge James Adkin told him he was “at the top” of an organized crime ring that supplied more than 130 kilograms of cocaine between March and June 2020.
Unknown to the villain, the National Crime Agency, which was preparing to swoop on hundreds of Britain’s most prolific criminals, had him under surveillance.
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Many scammers believed they were untouchable thanks to their £3,000-a-year Encrochat phones.
But French and Dutch authorities hacked the network in the biggest victory against organized crime in history.
While in custody, Male said: “I threw my phone away a few days before I was arrested. Encrochat sent a message saying that their server has been hacked for 30 minutes, possibly by government authorities.
“I wasn’t worried because I probably wouldn’t use the phone in those 30 minutes.”
But in a carefully planned operation, the NCA and police raided hundreds of major drug dealers in June 2020.
Male was arrested at gunpoint as he left the Body Tone gym in his home town of Weston Super Mare, Somerset.
Officers found an iPhone in his gray Audi Q7 in the car park, while three Rolexes, a Breitling watch, a receipt for a Cartier ring, designer handbags and clothes were seized from his palatial townhouse.
The man was released on bail pending charges of conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and planning to supply firearms and ammunition.
The latter charges ultimately remained on file.
His bail was revoked in January and he was released under investigation without restrictions.
He paid an associate in crime to fly him across the English Channel to Holland, where he spent a month living in Eindhoven, where many of Encrochat’s top UK fugitives were hiding.
“It was closed, so there wasn’t much to do apart from throwing Covid parties at home,” he says.
Male hoped that all of Encrochat’s data – intercepted after the platform was cloned – would be outlawed in Britain.
But as his hopes of avoiding drugs faded, he left the Netherlands and spent the next few months partying around Europe, where he could travel freely, without a passport, as the EU’s Schengen zone allowed free movement.
He also obtained a false travel document and went to Turkey to get his teeth fixed, as well as a trip to Dubai, which does not have an extradition treaty with Britain.
By the time the cops came looking for him in the summer of 2021, Alex was living in a luxury whitewashed villa in Marbella, on Spain’s Costa del Sol, attending yacht parties and working out at the gym. he says:
He says: “We all had our reasons for being in Marbella, but for me it was just easier to live fast and enjoy the chaos.”
Detectives learned that Male was on the continent thanks to photos he posted showing his lavish lifestyle.
But he nearly failed when Spanish police pulled him over for speeding in his Porsche Panamera after watching England v Scotland at the European Championships.
Male showed a photo of a fake British driver’s license on his phone to the officer, who realized it was fake and arrested him.
I thought I was done, but the policemen didn’t recognize me, so after spending the night in the cells I got bail, in the name of the man in the passport, until the trial
Alex
He handed over a passport issued in the same false name, with an identical photo, which the police accepted as genuine.
The drug lord recalled: “I thought I was done at that moment.
“The cops didn’t recognize me or take electronic fingerprints, so after a night spent in the cells, I got bail, in the guy’s name on my passport, until the trial.”
The NCA then placed Male on Crimestoppers’ “most wanted” list on 6 January 2022.
He says: “I couldn’t walk down the street without seeing my face on notice boards in front of shops.
“All the local news channels shared my photo. It even popped up on my social media feeds.”
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A man was jailed for 18 years on Monday after admitting conspiracy to supply cocaine and ketamine, pictured with a brunette beautyCredit: Submitted
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Cheeky Male caresses the rear of the female party Credits: Submitted
Male cheekily left his anonymous messages on police websites saying he would never be caught, and had a friend drive him to Portugal in a Mercedes with tinted windows.
He settled in the seaside resort of Vilamoura, where he lived with another of Britain’s most wanted men, Callum Halpin, who was wanted by Greater Manchester Police for the murder and assault of another victim.
Halpin was eventually arrested in May 2022 and later sentenced to 30 years in prison — but Alex got away the day before and fled to Turkey, where he planned to hide in the non-EU country.
However, disaster struck when Male landed in Istanbul and failed to get through the airport’s e-gate because the biometrics in his latest fake passport did not match his face.
He was stopped by immigration officials but refused to be fingerprinted and sent back to Lisbon on the next flight.
‘Adopted stray kittens’
Male says: “I was greeted by two vans full of immigration officers when I stepped off the plane in Portugal.
“An email was sent to them with a copy of my passport, but they still didn’t know it was obtained fraudulently.”
An hour later, an immigration officer asked to take Male’s photo and a copy of his fingerprints.
He recalls: “Someone put my photo next to the passport photo on the screen and zoomed in, and then finally realized that it wasn’t me in the passport. The guy asked for my real identity. He said: ‘You are not the man in the passport, so who are you?’.
“I shrugged but he said they had sent copies of my fingerprints to the British Embassy and were waiting for their response.
“I ended up giving him my name and said, ‘Just Google me.’ He went away and came back saying, ‘Big fish’.”
Alex adds: “All I remember from the next three days is sleeping in a windowless cell in a Lisbon police station. I had a big box of Xanax (tranquilizer) in my bag. I told them that I was prescribed three pills a day.”
Crafty Male agreed to be extradited to the UK knowing that Portuguese law only allows detention of prisoners facing deportation for a maximum of 150 days from this point.
His lawyer appealed to Portugal’s Supreme Court to dismiss the charges, and further legal hurdles emerged as the clock ticked down.
When the deadline passed, British officers made a recent effort to arrest him, saying he should be charged with passport fraud.
But Portugal’s Supreme Court president, Henrique Luís de Brito de Araujo, ordered Male to be released on the condition that he report to the local police station.
After he was released, the thief posted another photo of himself in front of the courthouse.
He later celebrated his legal victory with lunch in one of Lisbon’s best restaurants, together with his Spanish lawyer Ricardo Álvarez-Ossoria, known as the “devil’s advocate”.
Within a week, Male was smuggled into Spain by Russian gangsters and ferried across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, where he settled in Marrakesh and adopted three stray kittens.
He said: “Morocco was wild.
“I crashed a white Range Rover SVR after a night out. I had to pay the local police.”
Male had been under the surveillance of Morocco’s General Directorate of National Security for two weeks when he was arrested on January 21.
He says the policeman told him he was reported by an anonymous local, adding: “He lived on the same street as a man who owed me a lot of money. I’ll never know for sure if it was him, but he benefited a lot from me being removed.”
Male is being held in Morocco’s high-security Tiflet prison, which is home to former MMA fighter and £53m Tonbridge robber Lee Murray.
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The drug kingpin kept fit while living hit in CostasCredit: Supplied
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Many scammers believed they were untouchable thanks to their £3,000-a-year Encrochat phones
Male says about the prison: “It was full of bedbugs and cockroaches.”
“The toilet was a hole in the floor and I only had three hot showers during my six month stay.”
He was extradited to the UK in August, handcuffed by two police officers and driven straight from Gatwick to HMP Exeter.
David Hucker of the NCA, who led the manhunt for his arrest, said: “Alex Male went to extreme lengths to try to avoid capture. But he did not count on the determination of the NCA officers who were looking for him. Anyone thinking of trying to escape British justice should think about Male’s case.”
Given his time in custody and parole, Alex should be eligible for parole by the end of 2032, but before then he faces a restitution hearing.
Still, he insists: “Being arrested in Morocco was the best thing that happened to me, because it allowed me to move on with my life.
“Every decision I made shaped the person I am today and brought me to where I am now.
“It’s all part of a journey that helps me grow into a better person.”
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education