The revelation that notorious Liverpool criminal Curtis Warren is set to for release has led to some speculation about his possible return to the city.
The Mirror newspaper revealed earlier this week that Warren is set for release next year.
The Toxteth man was jailed for 13 years in 2009 and was handed a 10-year sentence in 2014 after he refused to pay an unprecedented £198million confiscation order.
READ MORE: Rules and restrictions Curtis Warren will need to follow when he is released
Warren's possible return to the city that he grew up in has led to some speculation in Liverpool's underworld.
Warren, who was an established figure in the city's crime hierarchy relocated to Holland in the mid 1990s after a violent gang war.
One man who used to know Warren said that it was "ironic" that he was about to be released when the penetration of the EncroChat phone network had sent many of the city's leading criminals into the prison system.
The man, who asked not be named, said: "Just as Curtis is coming out after all these years everybody else is back in. The EncroChat breakthrough by police seems to have caught up with all the people who made a fortune after Warren was jailed in the 90s.
"It's probably just as well that Curtis has been locked up since 2007 because at least he did not end up using an Encro like everybody else."
Some of Warren's old friends from the past are still around such as Stephen Mee. Mee recently appeared on true crime documentary Liverpool Narcos, when he spoke about forging links with South America drug cartels.
Mee was jailed alongside Warren in Holland for drug offences and served seven years in a high security jail.
He was then extradited back to the UK where he had to complete the rest of a 22 year sentence handed down in the early 90s. Mee was released in 2012.
Former contemporaries of Warren such as John Haase and Paul Bennett have both been released from the prison system over recent years.
Haase and Bennett, from north Liverpool, both received life sentences in 2008 after it emerged that they had orchestrated an elaborate deception which led to then-Home Secretary Michael Howard releasing them from prison in the 1990s.
The two men were released just one year into their 18-year jail sentences after they received a Royal Pardon from Mr Howard in the early 90s.
But a subsequent police investigation found that the Liverpool men had used criminals on the outside to plant the guns.
Warren will be subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order on his release from prison which will restrict his access to cash, property and foreign travel.
Alison Abbott, Head of Lifetime Management at the National Crime Agency, said: “Many career criminals regard prison as an interruption which rarely marks the end of their involvement in organised crime. This is why the NCA has a policy of Lifetime Management.
“Through the NCA’s Lifetime Management programme we use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, Travel Restriction Orders and Financial Reporting Orders, as an extra layer of prevention.
“They ensure we firmly have these individuals on our radar, especially after prison, and anything that suggests that they’re slipping into old ways can be detected early on.”
