Doofus Of The Day #437

Today's Doofus is from England.

When his £6million mansion was featured in the centre pages of a glossy lifestyle magazine, it was dubbed a ‘dream home fit for a pop star’.

The proud owner, Paul Yearsley, was eager to show off his ‘Georgian-style’ mansion, complete with a state-of-the-art home cinema, huge swimming pool, sauna, gym and a brand-new Range Rover sitting on the drive alongside a Bentley Continental.

But while he claimed to have made his fortune selling homes to Premier League footballers, in reality Yearsley was a drug baron whose only legitimate income was a council disability pension, thought to amount to a few hundred pounds a month.

. . .

The married father of four was caught only after officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) became suspicious about his ­lavish lifestyle in relation to his meagre official income.

He had worked for Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council as a recreation supervisor at a swimming pool until 1993 when he was pensioned off at the age of 28 because of health issues.

Sixteen years later, Yearsley had built up a multi-million-pound property portfolio, including 80 homes around Manchester as well as a villa in the Costa del Sol.

. . .

Yearsley told Lancashire Magazine that he made his millions first as a car salesman then through his property company, Premier Properties Ltd. But Soca officers, who had been watching him for a year, knew differently.

They followed him to a retail park in Bolton where he met drug-runners Frederick Hoyle and Tony Dixon to oversee the handover of 120 kilos of cannabis resin packed in four bales which had been smuggled into the country from North Africa.

. . .

In October last year he pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court, admitting he had responsibility for arranging delivery and storage of the drugs.

There's more at the link, including some rather spectacular photographs of Mr. Yearsley's house (which is about to be forfeited to the State, of course, because it's the proceeds of crime).

I think we have a new motto: "Conspicuous consumption catches crooks"!



Peter