Drugs boss extradited from Portugal pleads guilty

Stephen Earle was returned to the UK in March

A "senior leader" of an organised crime gang has admitted drug trafficking offences after he was extradited from Portugal.

Stephen Earle, 52, from Huyton, Merseyside, was arrested in Faro in January after local police were tipped off by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

He was returned to the UK on 18 March.

Earle worked closely with his cousin, Terence Earle, and smuggled at least 22lb (10kg) of heroin and 15.4lb (7kg) of cocaine between Merseyside and Motherwell in Scotland, the NCA said.

At Liverpool Crown Court, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine outside of England and Wales and will be sentenced on 14 June.

The cousins discussed the logistics of their illicit business using the encrypted EncroChat phone network, popular with organised criminals before it was hacked by French and Dutch police in 2020.

The NCA was able to attribute the EncroChat handle Octo-Hand to Stephen Earle and ThickBoar to Terence Earle.

Stephen Earle at Manchester Airport departures in March 2020

Earle had been in Portugal since July 2020 and remained abroad after his associates were arrested.

Terence Earle was jailed at Liverpool Crown Court in April last year, alongside fellow members of the Merseyside-based gang, Stanley Feerick, then 68, Stephen King, 48, Lee Baxter, 48 and Stephen Singleton, 36.

The NCA had watched Feerick meet King in Lanark, Scotland in November 2020 and he was arrested shortly after as he drove a lorry southbound on the M6.

Stephen Earle (left) and Terence Earle in St Helens

Officers discovered a holdall which contained 6.4 lb (2.9kg) of heroin with a street value of about £300,000 and £20,000 in cash.

A search of his home found £9,370 in cash, the NCA said.

The group was also linked to an "industrial-scale" amphetamines lab in Scotland, and used a garage in Motherwell to store chemicals.

Blocks of heroin found in a lorry linked to Stanley Feerick

NCA branch commander Charles Lee said Earle's guilty plea showed there was "no hiding place" for criminals.

He said the "senior leader" was "an integral part of this dangerous criminal organisation, which posed a serious threat to communities across Scotland and Merseyside".