A notorious drug dealer who was at the heart of a £4bn cocaine ring was found dead in a hotel room.
Michael Corish, 58, of Burghill Road, Croxteth, was found dead at a Holiday Inn Express in Bradford on June 10. Before his death, he was busy working as a foreman on a major building project yards away on the same street.
A friend and colleague of his, Jamie Churchill, said he had been employed on the scheme by Davis Construction Ltd of Crosby, Liverpool, and was "a top bloke". A spokeswoman for West Yorkshire Police declined to comment saying it was a matter for the coroner. A full inquest will be held at Bradford Coroner's Court in due course, The Examiner has reported.
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Mr Corish was 46 when he was jailed in 2011 for 13 and a half years for his part in one of Britain's biggest ever cocaine rings. Much of the massive conspiracy was run from an innocuous city centre telephone box and saw the Liverpool gang working with high-ranking London crooks and international drug dealers as they looked to flood the streets with 40 tonnes of coke from Columbia.
Their plan involved bringing the drugs over from Central America by sea – Honduras was considered before Venezuela was favoured as a casting off point for the shipments – with the illegal loads stashed in tins of fish or wood pellets.
Three times they tried but internal squabbles and mix-ups meant that despite hundreds of thousands of pounds changing hands the Serious Organised Crime Agency got in to stop them before the plot could come off. If all the cocaine made it into Britain and was cut before being sold, experts believe it could have been worth around £4bn.
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