High flying drug trafficker must hand over profits

12th January 2011

A drug trafficker who used his own private plane for drug runs has been ordered to hand over £750,000 of criminal profits.

Today in Manchester Crown Court, SOCA was granted a Confiscation Order against Silvano Turchet from Chester, after His Honour Judge Atherton ruled that Turchet’s assets - including a house in Italy, a private aeroplane and an aircraft hangar - were purchased with the proceeds of crime.

Turchet is already serving a 21 year prison sentence. If he fails to meet the order he will face another three years in prison and will still have to hand over his profits.The assets to be confiscated include:

•    the proceeds from the sale of an aircraft hangar at Sleap airport
•    a twin engine Beechcraft Baron aeroplane
•    contents of a number of bank accounts
•    A house in Wrexham
•    A house in Italy
•    High value cars and jewellery

Silvano Turchet, 56, was a qualified pilot who imported heroin from Belgium via a small airport at Sleap near Shrewsbury. He was arrested by SOCA officers in 2006 and charged with the importation of Class A drugs and money laundering. At the time of his arrest he was claiming unemployment benefit.

Turchet used self-styled accountant Frank McGrath, the former deputy leader of Preston Council, to help him launder his dirty money. At McGrath’s trial in March 2010 the jury heard how over a period of four months he washed £330,000 by passing Turchet’s money through his own bank accounts. The money was converted into a house in Wrexham, an expensive watch and an aircraft hangar, and was transferred abroad.

Frank McGrath was sentenced to four and half years in prison. A confiscation hearing is scheduled for him later this year.

More information is available on our asset recovery pages.