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“I made millions, but it was all taken off me and rightly so,” says Stephen Mee.

Speaking from his artist's studio on an industrial estate in Rochdale , the former drug trafficker is remembering when his life of crime finally came crashing down.

"You think you're clever," he says. "But then the military come in with stun grenades and a helicopter lands on the roof and you're being carried out handcuffed and face down you realise you're not clever any more."

Newton Heath-raised Mee was once one of the UK's biggest drugs traffickers.

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Alongside notorious Liverpool drugs baron 'Cocky' Curtis Warren , he teamed up with the Colombian cartels to smugg

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