- Prosecutors said Mark Quinn only had £1 in available assets despite making millions from his role in narcotics trade
A drug dealer who made more than £10million has yet to hand over just £1 to settle a proceeds of crime action.
Mark Quinn, who is serving a seven-year jail sentence, was told to stump up the tiny sum in November last year – and was given six months to pay.
The High Court in Edinburgh decided that despite making £10,158,678 from his involvement in the narcotics trade, he had only £1 in available assets.
Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Russell Findlay said: ‘It is sickening that a drug dealer who amassed £10million from inflicting misery and death across Scotland should only have to hand over a single pound coin of his dirty fortune.
Mark Quinn was jailed in September 2022 for his involvement in the narcotics trade
‘The SNP Government have been repeatedly told that proceeds of crime laws are failing but they would rather push their weak justice agenda than fix them.’
Quinn, 59, was jailed in September 2022 following proceedings at the High Court in Glasgow and is serving his sentence at HMP Low Moss in Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow.
The former builder and boxing coach, from Liverpool, had been on the run for seven years before being tracked down in October 2021.
During his trial, Judge Lord Beckett heard how detectives had swooped on Alder Grange, a former care home in Liverpool, which had been used to prepare and bulk out drugs ready for trafficking across Scotland.
The site had been chosen as Quinn was involved in a £7million project to develop the property into luxury flats.
He pleaded guilty in July 2022 to being concerned in the supply of amphetamine between August 2013 and April 2014.
Lord Beckett told him: ‘This was drug dealing on a grand scale aggravated by a connection with serious and organised crime. Your involvement was associated with seizures of large quantities of amphetamine on four occasions.
‘This involved hundreds of kilograms of the drug with a potential amount in excess of £10million.’
Quinn was tracked down after police launched an investigation, codenamed Operation Kapuas, in 2013 into the activities of an Anglo-Scottish organised crime group.
In one raid in August of that year detectives recovered drugs with a street value of £3million from a flat in Paisley.
Prosecutor David McLean said that Quinn’s fingerprints were on packaging.
In February 2014, police then kept tabs on a Ford Transit van travelling from Scotland to Liverpool.
Quinn was seen driving the van in the grounds of the nursing home and loading items into the back. The vehicle was stopped on the M74 in Lanarkshire and amphetamine worth a total of £2.4million was found inside.
A European arrest warrant was issued for Quinn in 2015. He was eventually found in Maastricht, Holland, and extradited.
Prosecutors can return to court if any of the drug dealer’s outstanding £10,158,677 of criminal assets are found.
