To many, Curtis Warren is an evil peddler of death and misery who has made millions flooding towns and cities across the world with dangerous drugs.
But even to those who would never consider breaking the law, there is a fascination with gangsters at the top levels of organised crime. The fast money of the drugs trade undoubtedly has a seductive power to those who take part in it, and for the few who reach Warren's level, some believe the ability to make hundreds of millions in a single deal is almost as addictive as the drugs themselves.
The question of why Warren continued to commit crime even when he reportedly had almost £200m stashed away, and could have sailed off into the sunset a rich man, is difficult to answer. In a new episode of BBC Sounds podcast Bad People, psychologist Dr Julia Shaw discussed that question with investigative journalist Livvy Haydock, who recently produced a separate BBC Sounds podcast series on Warren called 'Gangster'.
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Ms Haydock asked Dr Shaw whether Warren was in fact "addicted to crime". Dr Shaw said there was little research on whether criminal activity could be an "addiction". However, she suggested Warren may have come to "identify" so much as a "gangster" that he found it impossible to live by the social rules most other people do.
She said: "Maybe some of this is more about being a habitual criminal. So where criminal activity is so much part of your identity, that you cannot imagine not doing it. I think the concept of 'habitual transient disconnect' might be useful here.
"It's when offenders stop identifying as citizens, and start identifying most as offenders, or perhaps in this case; gangsters. It involves what are called social de-bonding; where you stop caring about how people should behave and treat each other; and hyper-individualism. Hyper-individualism is where all you care about is yourself, your family and your immediate network."
Ms Haydock raised the point that Warren had been known by people in Toxteth to "give back to the community", including an occasion where he reportedly handed a wad of cash to a grieving family to pay for their daughter's funeral.
She also said many people she spoke to about Warren were supportive of him and considered him a likeable and even "kind" person.
The Toxteth native is coming to the end of a 13-year-sentence imposed in 2009 over a plot to smuggle cannabis worth £1m into Jersey. On top of that, he was also handed an extra 10 years for failing to pay a £198m confiscation order aimed at seizing his ill-gotten fortune.
The 2009 sentence came only two years after he was released from the maximum security Nieuw Vosseveld prison in Holland, where he had been serving time since 1997 for masterminding a £125m drugs shipment to the UK.
The UK underworld he will be released into is still reeling from the results of the EncroChat hack by law enforcement agencies, but combined with the seemingly endless demand for cocaine in society it could give an experienced criminal operator with a web of contacts across the globe an opening. According to one of Warren's former drug-trafficking partners, ex Manchester crook Stephen Mee, he is a skilled "diplomat" and a master of forging contacts and spotting opportunities.
Speaking during one of the episodes of 'Gangster', Mr Mee said of Warren: "He never walked about with his chest out or anything like that, he was just normal, you wouldn't notice him. He just melted into the background.
"I think it was a deliberate thing, you keep as low a profile as you can if you're doing something like this [drug trafficking]. You have to be a bit of a diplomat as a drug-dealer, you can't be shouting it out everywhere because otherwise people will just come and take it off you."
However, Warren's notoriety would also be his biggest enemy if he wanted to fall back into old habits. He will remain a man firmly on the radar of the country's most sophisticated police units, and he will be the subject of stringent conditions under the terms of a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO).
Warren is on a list, published by the NCA in 2021, of organised criminals who have been issued with SCPOs. For five years, Warren's ability to use cars, property and phones, travel abroad, borrow money, make transfers, hold trusts or shares and use foreign or virtual currency with be monitored and restricted.
He will also be forced to declare any assets worth more than £1,000, meaning he would find it extremely difficult to access the alleged £198m the authorities believe he has hidden away. Any breach of those strict conditions could see Warren returned to prison. In addition, any new drugs trafficking offences would likely attract an especially brutal prison sentence due to his litany of previous convictions.
Warren has always embraced a high-risk, high-reward philosophy. But could the years of his life wasted behind bars, and the intense scrutiny he would face from police at the slightest hint of suspicion, finally put him on the straight and narrow?
Stephen Mee told the 'Gangster' podcast he hopes his old partner in crime will choose a new path. He said: "If you sit in prison and rot away, and you come out and technology is flying everywhere, you're just going to be like a caveman.
"And you'll have no choice other than to go back to your old ways and go back to prison. I hope he creates a life other than crime because if he gets caught again it's not just a prison sentence, it's a death sentence."
*Bad People and Gangster are available to listen to via BBC Sounds here.
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