The Missing Narco
How Pablo Escobar's man in Britain broke free from a police cell, never to be seen again
A shiver ran down the spine of the cop who was supposed to be guarding Britain's newly-arrested “Cocaine King”. Nikolaus Chrastny was close to Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel and was the mastermind behind a then-record £100m shipment of Colombian marching powder flooding the nation's streets. The 44-year-old was also due to turn supergrass, spilling the beans on London’s top underworld boss and a web of police corruption. But the Czech-born criminal mastermind had vanished, his supposedly high-security cell left empty, save for some personal effects and an apologetic note that began: “Gentleman, I have not taken this step lightly.”
It's been more than 30 years, but Chrastny has never been found — and a wall of silence still holds back the full truth of what happened that day in 1987.
Nikolaus Chrastny first came to public attention in 1973 when police in his adoptive homeland of West Germany issued a warrant over a jewellery heist. A master of disguise, Chrastny fled Europe looking for the next big thing in crime, eventually forging ties with Colombian drug cartels from his new base in Florida, where he lived under the name Charles Flynn.
Charming and highly organised, he became a perfect fixer, linking the cartels up with buyers and taking a healthy commission on the deals. In 1986, Chrastny was in Colombia meeting with the Ochoa family, senior members of the Medellin Cartel. His purpose — to broker a record-breaking transatlantic cocaine shipment to Britain.
In Colombia, Chrastny paid $190,000 cash for 38 kilos of cocaine, obtaining an extraordinary 354 extra kilos on credit. Clearly, it was not his first rodeo with the deadly Ochoas, and it also helped that he reportedly got on well with El Patron himself, Pablo Escobar.
Chrastny's partner across the pond was feared London gangster Roy Garner, a multi-millionaire armed robber, nightclub boss, and racehorse owner, whose links to corrupt police officers had allowed his drugs supply empire to flourish.
Former stable boy Garner was known as London's "Overlord of Crime". In his early 50s by the time of the Chrastny affair, he rubbed shoulders with celebrities, drove a gold Mercedes, and owned yachts, pubs, nightclubs, and racehorses. Garner lived in a luxury North London townhouse, and owned a 200-acre stud farm in Hertfordshire.
True to gangster tradition, he also had both a wife and a mistress. Garner holidayed with his other woman at a £250,000 apartment in Florida's Hampton Beach Club, where he met Chrastny through an underworld contact.
Garner had made himself untouchable by becoming a top Scotland Yard informant, picking up huge rewards for grassing up gangland associates to feted detective Tony Lundy, who was mired in corruption claims which he always strenuously denied.
Garner had served just one prison sentence, but only because Customs and Excise was able to nail him for tax fraud without the Met's involvement. By the early 1980s, Garner had given up armed robbery and was turning over millions dealing in kilos of cocaine, but he didn't like the huge sums he had to hand over to smugglers. Chrastny offered much better terms, plus an unlimited supply. Garner fronted the cash and agreed to pay Chrastny $35,000 for each further kilo delivered to him in London. The deal with the Medellin Cartel done, Nikolaus Chrastny, his wife Charlotte — a former West German traffic cop — and their six-year-old son, moved to London to oversee the operation.
Chrastny’s shipment arrived off the Cornish coast on the morning of August 20, 1986. It was hidden in a former North Sea pilot vessel named the Aquilon, which had sailed from Panama six weeks earlier. Chrastny took to the skies in a privately chartered Cessna from Plymouth's Roborough Airport shortly after 9am and watched as a dinghy came out from the ship to meet a catamaran crewed by more hired hands. The drugs were hauled onboard and then taken ashore, before being driven to London by armed guards. At the time, it was the biggest shipment of cocaine ever smuggled into the UK.
In the meantime, police in Florida had launched an operation to finally nail Chrastny, eventually managing to flip an underworld source who grassed him up. Working with Customs and Excise officials in London, both Chrastny and Garner were arrested. But the swoop came a year after the drugs had been shipped to London, and only 50 kilos of cocaine, worth some £9m, were recovered from Chrastny’s Harley Street flat.
Over the previous 12 months, the drugs had been distributed around the capital by Garner-controlled taxi cabs, with most of the proceeds funneled back to Chrastny for money laundering and repayment to the Colombians. At one point he was spotted handing over £1.5m cash in carrier bags outside Kensington’s Tara Hotel.
Chrastny and Garner were charged with importing cocaine, but the Czech decided to cooperate. He made a statement naming Scotland Yard cops who he said had tipped the gang off about surveillance. Chrastny was remanded into custody at Bow Street magistrates’ court but was secretly moved to a high-security police cell in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for his own protection. It was the same cell once used to cage Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.
Cops in Dewsbury were warned that Chrastny was a crook of “international importance” who would “escape if given the slightest opportunity”. But security was extraordinarily lax and Chrastny lulled his guards into a false sense of security by acting as a model prisoner and a “gentleman”, as one cop later described him.
Firstly, Chrastny asked to change his sleeping patterns because drunk prisoners in other cells kept him awake. This meant he was allowed to sleep in until 11am. He also asked to have a television set in his cell, a request granted because of his status as a potential supergrass. The set was delivered by his wife during one of her 11 visits and his jailers even nipped into town to buy an aerial. He was also allowed the use of a “modesty door” — a screen usually reserved for female prisoners when they take a shower.
Some newspaper reports described his wife’s visits to the cell as “bonking sessions”. But she was never searched and the pair enjoyed meals together and drank beer and smoked cigars. It was alleged that she also managed to smuggle two hacksaw blades inside the spines of hardback books, while plasticine was smuggled inside the spine of Sherlock Holmes tale The Hound of the Baskervilles.
These were vital components for Chrastny’s escape plan.
Chrastny was frequently allowed to walk out of his open cell door to an ante-room where he sawed through metal bars on another door, masking the noise by turning his TV up loud. The job took an estimated five weeks to complete. He was able to disguise his work using glue, plasticine and paint, until the moment he was ready to flee. When the time was right, he crept through the broken bars, replacing them as he left, and then got into a doctor’s room where he unscrewed a window and slipped into the station yard. One account of the escape claimed that Chrastny had further help scaling the police station wall by using a grappling hook hidden for him underneath a traffic cone. Evidence was also found indicating that a car had been waiting outside.
Chrastny was last seen at 11.30pm on October 4, 1987. The TV was heard playing until gone midnight. Police only discovered that Chrastny had vanished after calling to deliver his morning newspaper at 11.30am. When they got no response, they assumed he was “sleeping in” and gave him an extra 20 minutes.
Later, Chrastny called the station and told officers: “I apologise for any inconvenience caused.” They also found a note in his cell, that said: “Gentleman, I have not taken this step lightly. I have been planning it for several weeks. The tools have been in my washing kit for several years in preparation for such an occasion.” He signed the note: “Greetings, Nick.”
Chrastny’s escape had taken place just one day before he was due in court. Charlotte was immediately arrested and later put on trial for money laundering and helping him to escape. She was cleared over the escape, but jailed for seven years for money laundering. The state seized £2.6m worth of cash, houses and jewellery. Her trial lawyer later said that she had been “corrupted” by Chrastny, and that she was a “foolish, loving woman who did what her husband told her to do”. She was, by his account, abandoned by Chrastny.
It’s believed that Chrastny might have pocketed up to £90m from the drugs deal — minus the cash owed to the Medellin Cartel. Garner, who was jailed for 22 years, was reportedly left with nothing. Once an untouchable, by dealing with Chrastny on more advantageous terms Garner had opened himself up to scrutiny from abroad and could no longer be protected by his handlers.
It was widely thought that Chrastny went to ground in Costa Rica. There was also speculation that because of his decision to cooperate, he might have been murdered. He sent some letters to the German publication Bild, but he was never seen again.
At the time, Chrastny was described by US law enforcement sources as “one of the most wanted men in the world”. He was supposedly also wanted in connection with four murders in Germany and the US, and there were claims that he’d once shot two cops in the Carribean while fleeing arrest. But today, his case appears to have been forgotten.
When asked for Chrastny's records under Freedom of Information laws, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) refused to "confirm or deny" their existence, citing privacy concerns, even though Chrastny is still officially a fugitive. It lends credence to the theory that Chrastny either was, or became, a high-level DEA asset in the War on Drugs.
Despite repeated attempts to obtain the Home Office report on his escape, it is not due to be released by the National Archives until January 2070. Even the police files containing his statements will remain closed until 2045, although this is more likely to protect those accused of corruption than anything to do with Chrastny himself.
We do know that two Dewsbury police officers were given
a rap on the knuckles, with a report stating that there “was a general lack of supervision and control” at the nick.
Today, Chrastny’s wife Charlotte lives in Germany, where she did not respond to messages sent via social media.
Their son's identity is not public knowledge. He was just eight when his mother was jailed.
For more on this story I highly recommend reading Scotland Yard’s Cocaine Connection, by Andrew Jennings, Paul Lashmar, and Vyv Simson.
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