First £20m assets battle is lost

Martin Evans had properties in Marbella and Miami

A convicted drug dealer and fraudster has lost the first round of a legal battle to hold onto his £20m fortune.

Former award-winning businessman Martin Evans, 44, from Swansea, is serving 21 years in jail for running millions of pounds worth of drugs into Britain.

Judge John Diehl, who sentenced Evans after his drugs trial, refused to disqualify himself from court hearings aimed at seizing Evans' assets.

They include a £2m villa in Spain and properties in Miami, Florida.

Evans' barrister, Huw Davies QC, had argued at the sentencing hearing Judge Diehl had said that Evans had "benefited" from his drugs operation.

He said Evans had not been given the chance to argue that he had not made anything out of his crimes.

There was a danger, he said, of the court turning Evans into a pauper.

But Judge Diehl, the Recorder of Swansea, told the city's crown court on Thursday that he would not disqualify himself from further proceedings.

Having heard the evidence during the trial, he said, he was bound to conclude Evans had made money out of shipping at least £3m of ecstasy and cocaine into Britain.

And he ordered the efforts to identify and confiscate Evans' assets to continue as quickly as possible.

The prosecution team is expected to deliver a long list of assets they wish to confiscate - and for the defence to respond.

Evans, from Pontardulais, was once an award-winning businessman running a successful double glazing firm in Port Talbot.

Offshore accounts

But the business collapsed and he turned to fraud, cheating investors in an ostrich farm he established at Dunvant, Swansea.

He set up an ostrich breeding business in 1995 but it collapsed, leaving investors with nothing.

More than 100 investors put a total of nearly £900,000 into the ostrich scheme after he promised annual profits of 70%.

Much of the money was channelled into offshore accounts in Jersey and the Bahamas.

He admitted theft, fraudulent trading and acting as a director while bankrupt.

Evans did buy some ostriches for the farm

That opened the door to a police investigation to find his assets, which included a £2m villa in Marbella, Spain and properties in Miami, Florida.

Days before his trial, Evans went on the run, first to Spain and then to Holland where he masterminded a multimillion-pound drugs and money laundering operation.

Mr Taylor said Evans was caught when he tried to use a false passport under the name of Paul Kelly to enter the US in November 2001.

Heightened security following the 9/11 attacks led to his passport being detected.

He was flown back to Paris and arrested and eventually extradited to the UK where he was sentenced to 24 years after a trial in Swansea Crown Court.

That sentence was reduced on appeal to 21 years.