A 'most wanted' fugitive caught after seven years on the run used an empty nursing home as a factory for an £11million drugs operation, a court heard.
Former boxing coach Mark Quinn fled the UK after the high-level amphetamines trafficking ring was brought down in 2014, by a series of raids carried out in Scotland and Merseyside. In 2019 his mugshot was driven around Spain's Costa del Sol on the side of a van as part of a major National Crime Agency (NCA) campaign to catch suspects thought to be abroad.
He was not arrested until October last year when a joint operation by the NCA, Police Scotland and Dutch police tracked him to Maastricht in Holland.
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Quinn was extradited to Scotland and appeared at Edinburgh High Court today, where he admitted trafficking amphetamines. The court heard during a search at Alder Grange Nursing Home in Eaton Road, West Derby, police discovered it was being used to prepare and bulk out the Class B drugs for onward supply.
Advocate depute, David McLean, said specialist drugs officers noted that an organised crime gang was not only adulterating amphetamine at the premises but also producing amphetamine sulphate from amphetamine oil.
Mr McLean told the court: "They noted that this shows a level of sophistication rarely encountered, and is representative of an established organised criminal network, which operates at the upper levels of drug supply and trafficking."
The court heard a warrant was originally issued for the arrest of Quinn, now 58, in 2014, and after he disappeared a European arrest warrant was issued the following year. Mr McLean said: "He remained at large throughout this period before being arrested on the European Arrest Warrant on October 8, 2021, in Maastricht, Netherlands."
Quinn, formerly of Craven Lea, West Derby, but who also has links to Stockbridge Village and Croxteth Park, admitted being concerned in the supply of amphetamine between August 21, 2013, and April 24, 2014. The court heard the offence was aggravated by a link with serious and organised crime.
Quinn became a target in 2013 during a Police Scotland surveillance operation, dubbed Operation Kapuas, aimed at taking down members of an organised crime group. In August that year, officers watched an apparent drugs handover take place in Lanarkshire and later searched a flat in Saucel Crescent, Paisley, in Renfrewshire, where the load had been taken for storage.
They recovered 112kg of the Class B drug, worth up to £3million on the streets, and later discovered Quinn's fingerprints on packaging. In February the following year, police watched a Ford Transit van being driven south from Scotland to Liverpool.
Quinn later drove the van into the grounds of Alder Grange nursing home, which once counted Everton legend Dixie Dean as a resident, where he was seen loading items into the rear of the vehicle.
The van was later stopped northbound on the M74 and taken to Motherwell police station, where it was found to be transporting 100kg of amphetamine worth pounds £2.4million on the streets.
The following month Quinn was seen in the company of others at a car auction business in Edinburgh before travelling to Stepps, in North Lanarkshire. He later met up with a Scotsman in Liverpool and after a visit to the nursing home the accomplice was later stopped driving north. He was found to have 100kg of amphetamine worth £3.2 million on the street.
Mr McLean said Merseyside police were granted a warrant to search the nursing home and an extensive search was carried out over two days. He said: "Upon entering the property it became apparent that the building was being renovated. It was noted that there were three metal shipping containers in the yard and a number of construction workers were onsite."
"A number of items were recovered which indicated that the premises were being used for the production and preparation of amphetamine from amphetamine oil."
The prosecutor said face masks, basins, mixing paddles, gloves and packaging were found along with barrels of methanol and sulphuric acid which can be used to make amphetamine paste.
A heat sealing machine was also found along with sealed bags of the Class B drug worth in excess of £2 million, along with bulking agents.
Defence counsel, Gail Gianni, said Quinn was a joiner who worked in the building trade. She said there was a project to turn the nursing home into luxury flats but it ran into difficulties after a bank that was providing financing pulled out.
She said: "Mr Quinn would have carried out all the building work and he would have made a substantial sum of money from that project." She said he ran into financial problems and asked "certain people" for a loan of money. She said: "Once he had done that he was easy prey for them".
The judge, Lord Beckett, deferred sentence on Quinn for the preparation of a background report until next month. He remains in custody.
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