Escaped drug baron 'was favoured police informer'

How could a big-time smuggler serving 24 years be moved to a low-security prison from which he promptly disappeared?

Roddy "Popeye" McLean, the drug-smuggler who escaped from an open prison last week, was a long standing police informer, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

The Prison Service is already investigating how McLean was downgraded from a Category A high-risk inmate, described as "one of Scotland's most dangerous prisoners", to a low-risk Category D status and allowed to transfer from secure Saughton prison in Edinburgh to Leyhill open prison near Bristol. He was six years into a 24-year sentence.

The disappearance of a major criminal such as McLean has caused David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, much embarrassment. He has made a point of appearing tough on sentences for drug-smugglers.

Customs sources believe that McLean, 59, who was jailed in 1997 for organising a multimillion-pound cannabis smuggling operation, is in Mozambique where he has "business interests". He is believed to have at least £10m stashed away. One Customs officer said: "He was a police informer. He may have been [one] for other law-enforcement agencies as well."

An IoS investigation has highlighted a catalogue of errors and oddities that raise serious doubt about the handling of McLean's case. Could his role as a police informer have facilitated his removal to an open prison at Leyhill, which ultimately led to his escape? Pressures of jail overcrowding are also being partly blamed for his transfer to an open jail.

The IoS has also learnt that McLean's son, Roddy Junior, also jailed for smuggling, was given parole four years into his 12-year sentence. One legal source said it was "unheard of" for drug-smugglers to get such an early release. "You would expect [them] to serve an absolute minimum of half their sentence before being considered for parole. It is very odd."

Suspicions have been voiced in Scottish underworld circles that the younger McLean, 37, was also an informer.

Roddy "Popeye" McLean and seven co-conspirators - including his son - were arrested in 1996 by Customs officers after transferring three tonnes of cannabis - worth £10m - from a Dutch-crewed ship off the coast of Scotland. During the arrest a Customs officer, Alan Soutar, 47, was fatally injured when he was crushed between a Customs cutter and McLean's boat. Mr Soutar's death was regarded as an accident and no member of the cannabis gang was ever charged with killing him.

McLean walked out of Leyhill two months ago, a minimum-security Category D jail, not long after being transferred from Saughton. Prison chiefs decided he would not try to escape and he was transferred. A Prison Service spokesman denied there had been any cover-up after the escape.

McLean's move to an open prison must have been supported by the authorities - in all probability the police force that handled him as an informant. They in turn would have consulted Customs. The final decision would have been taken by the Prison Liaison S ervice in London, staffed by police officers, who would have had to make a recommendation regarding his suitability for an open prison.

Police believe McLean had organised other massive imports of drugs before 1996. Scottish politicians asked Jack Straw, a former home secretary, to hold an inquiry after it was revealed that in 1994 McLean had bought from Customs an offshore survey boat seized from a different drugs gang. He paid just £5,000 for the boat, which has since been valued at around £300,000 to £500,000.

McLean's rise began in the 1960s, when he made money as a ruthless property developer. He then opened a second-hand shop and jewellery store in Edinburgh's Leith Walk. The shop was known to be the centre of his criminal empire, where he bought stolen goods. But the shop, run by his son, was not raided until December 1994, when tens of thousands of pounds'-worth of stolen goods were seized.

McLean junior was eventually jailed for nine months after admitting 14 charges of handling stolen goods. But suspicion mounted that McLean senior was being protected because he was acting as a police informer.

"When there was still a lot of work to do, a call came through to wind up the squad," said one officer on the case. "We wondered [if] they were getting too close to McLean senior."

After the 1997 trial it emerged that Roddy McLean was acting as a freelance informer for both the police and Customs. No one has ever explained how an active major criminal and drugs-smuggler was allowed to act as an informer. At one point in 1996 McLean senior was trailed to London, where he met a member of the notorious London drugs gang, the Adams.

Attempts to confiscate McLean's estimated £10m fortune have had very limited success. Only £100,000 has been uncovered so far.

McLean's escape is not the first example of a police informer absconding from open prison. In criminal circles, it is accepted that getting out of jail early is often a sign that those who have been released are police informers. One of the most notorious cases involved Joe Wilkins, a well-known criminal based in Soho, London. In August 1987 Customs seized Wilkins on a boat off the Sussex coast. On board were 30 sacks of Moroccan hashish worth £1.5m, which he was bringing from Spain to a south London crime syndicate. Twelve months later he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 1991 Wilkins walked out of Ford open prison.

Rearrested several months later, he was taken to Highpoint low-security prison. In January 1992 he was allowed to visit his dentist in London unaccompanied. He fled to Estepona in Spain. Last year he was involved in a disastrous police sting operation, which confirmed to the underworld that he had been an informant and helped to escape from prison.

David Raynes, a former senior Customs officer, said that in another case a major convicted heroin-trafficker in Manchester was inexplicably allowed home leave:"He nipped off back to Pakistan to a village near Peshawar, and started sending heroin from there. It was madness."