GANGSTER Chet Sandhu swaggered through Alicante airport in Spain unaware his criminal enterprise was about to be blown apart.
He was about to pick up suitcases jam-packed with valium and steroids when armed cops swarmed in what became the biggest pharmaceutical haul in Spanish history.
Chet trafficked more than £30million worth of drugs – earning him the nickname the King of Karachi[/caption]
A Spanish newspaper story shows some of the drugs confiscated following Chet’s arrest[/caption]
Interpol had tracked his flights to and from India and Karachi in Pakistan where he picked up bundles of drugs from chemists across the city to make a fortune in Britain.
He reckons he trafficked more than £30million worth of drugs – earning him the nickname the King of Karachi.
Chet once stuffed so much cash into a bank safety deposit box that he had to swap £20 notes for £50 to fit them all in.
He served four years at the notoriously tough Fontcalent jail in Spain alongside murderers, rapists and terrorists before coming home to Britain where he joined an organised crime gang and was given another seven years.
Today Chet has not only turned his life around but, in an astonishing turn of events, is helping impoverished children with HIV around the world.
Every year he raises cash through friends and family and flies to a children’s centre run by nuns in Thailand to supply sick kids with medicine, clothes, shoes and gifts.
Dad-of-four Chet, 57, of Sunderland, said: “This is my way of giving back.
“I wasted years of my life in prison and made a lot of mistakes with my own children so I want to help others.
“The whole experience is a world away from my previous life – and every humbling.”
Chet’s guns-to-nuns story began in the mid 90s when he started working as a doorman in clubs around Newcastle and began taking steroids to bulk up.
“Everyone at the gym was taking steroids back then,” he says. “Some worked and some were useless, made in back street labs, so there was a gap in the market for good gear.
“I started to go to Turkey and Greece and bring back small amounts for myself and mates, but it was good stuff and soon everyone wanted it, so I started to import on a bigger scale.”
I started to go to Turkey and Greece and bring back small amounts for myself and mates, but it was good stuff and soon everyone wanted it, so I started to import on a bigger scale
Chet Sandhu
Chet smuggled drugs in from India nine times before realising there was more cash to be made in Karachi where drugs were half the price.
With no contacts and “a stash of cash” he travelled to Pakistan to source steroids, and later valium, and was soon giving bungs to airport officials. He even used porn mags to get a free pass through customs.
Chet said: “Nobody wanted to go to Karachi at that time because of the Taliban but I wasn’t scared.
“I started to ask questions and make contacts and eventually found it easy to get drugs but then I was stopped at the airport in Pakistan.
Chet helping impoverished children with HIV in Thailand[/caption]
Every year Chet raises cash through friends and family and flies to a children’s centre run by nuns[/caption]
“My suitcase was full of steroids but the guards seemed more interested in the porn mags that were alongside them, so I gave them up and was waved through.
“The boss must have gotten wind of this because on my next flight when I landed he came to me and said hello.
“He told us to find him on the flight back so I could pay him and he personally took me through security – like I was royalty.”
‘Knives were everywhere’
After four years of drug smuggling, including 18 months going back and forwards to India and Karachi, Chet’s number was finally up when he was arrested at Alicante airport in 1999.
He served four years at Spain’s hellhole jail Fontcalent in the high security wing where he was twice stabbed and also knifed another inmate “in self-defence.”
Chet said: “I still have scars on my knuckles from fights. Other prisoners would come at you on purpose, especially at first when I couldn’t speak a word of Spanish. I was the only English bloke there.
“Knives were everywhere and in the yard you could smoke weed because the officers wanted everyone to stay calm.
“There were no visitors allowed and a third of the inmates had HIV or AIDS. They got cushy jobs in the kitchen and would tell us they’d spat in the food. The attitude was ‘I’ve got it so I want everyone else to have it.
“Those four years felt like a very, very long time.”
‘Jail loan shark’
Chet looking out to sea after his release in Palma[/caption]
Chet in India with a friend’s dog[/caption]
Chet rose to become a jail loan shark but also protected more vulnerable prisoners.
Despite the horrors of Alicante, Chet got sucked back into criminality when he was freed, becoming part of an organised crime group.
In 2003, he was caught with a quarter of a kilo of cocaine in Newcastle and jailed six-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply a class A drug.
He also pleaded guilty to living off the earning of a prostitute between May to September that year after being brought in as an enforcer to scare off violent punters.
He said: “By the time I came out of jail in Spain I was a bit of a name and a firm (gang) in Gateshead wanted me to work for them.
“I thought I was invincible because I’d been through that time in Alicante. I thought if I could endure that I could endure anything.”
Chet learned his lesson fast when he was caged for seven years, serving four.
I don’t know why I got involved again. It was stupid
Chet
He said: “I don’t know why I got involved again. It was stupid.
“When I came out part of my parole conditions was to stay away from anyone involved in my past life so I saw it as an opportunity for change.
“I’d missed my kids growing up and they don’t have a lot to do with me now, not that I can blame them.”
Chet’s new chapter
Tattooed on Chet’s knuckles is ‘Self Made’[/caption]
Chet has now swapped his playboy lifestyle, which involved “women, drugs and fast cars”, for trips to Thailand and Cambodia, raising cash for HIV youngsters dumped in orphanages by their parents.
Every year he puts out a Facebook appeal for cash before buying the kids medicine, clothes and presents. Pictures show him with happy smiling kids, posing with supermarket trolleys full of essentials and sandwiched between two nuns.
He also posts every receipt so those who have donated can see where the cash has gone.
It’s an amazing feeling knowing you have changed someone’s life for the better, especially after my past life
Chet, who now works for the family business managing properties, said: “People trust me with their money so I make sure I spend it very carefully, haggling for extras for the children.
“It’s an amazing feeling knowing you have changed someone’s life for the better, especially after my past life.”
Word of warning
He also has a word of warning for youngsters tempted by a life of crime.
“The money all gets squandered in the end. I spent thousands on women and top-of-the-range Mercedes and Audi cars but you’ve got so much cash that that type of money comes and goes.
“I used to store cash in a NatWest safety deposit box because nobody ever asked for proof of identity back then. At one point I had to swap £20 for £50s because there was no space.
“This type of lifestyle is only glamorous ten per cent of the time. The rest of the time you are avoiding the police, trying to get money in, trying to get paid off people and then there are rival gangs who are jealous of what you’re doing. It’s stressful, hard work.
“People see the flash lifestyle and want to wear nice clothes and own bling but they don’t want to work for it. Only about five per cent of the kids who go into crime will make money, the rest will just land themselves in debt to drug suppliers who have a hold over them.
“It’s just not worth it.”
