Man with the golden grill behind bars as cops finally track down Northamptonshire’s most wanted man Tyrone Anderson to Amsterdam

It’s been more than six years since police arrested Tyrone James Anderson on suspicion of dealing heroin and cocaine.

And after a cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, the 31-year-old has finally been sent to prison for his crimes.

Anderson, of Pightles Terrace, Rushden, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on Friday, three years after cutting off his electronic tag and slipping out of the country.

He admitted four counts of possession with intent to supply cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin between May and June 2018 and October and December 2019.

The court was told that he was prosecuted after his number was found on the phone of a 14-year-old boy who’d been caught up in a county line managed by Anderson.

Prosecuting, Jonathan Dunne said: “He was a level above the street runners. He was directing them, where to go, what to do, where to sell, who to sell to.”

European arrest warrant

When police searched a flat linked to him in 2019, they found bags of drugs and mobile phones stuffed behind illuminated fire escape signs in communal areas. They arrested him again and charged him with more offences.

Anderson was due to stand trial in July 2021, but had been released on curfew ahead of the hearing and never turned up. Police said he’d continued to deal drugs throughout his time on bail and said they’d found four ‘evidentially significant’ mobile phones in his vehicle when they searched it.

Warrants were issued for his arrest and police issued no less than five public appeals during the past three years.

It was revealed during a court hearing in February 2022 that even his own barrister didn’t know where he was – and that it was thought he’d cut off his electronic tag and fled the country.

A European arrest warrant was issued and once cops were given solid information to suggest Anderson was in Amsterdam, they waited for police in the Netherlands to execute the warrant.

Anderson claimed to have turned around his life, settled down with his girlfriend and got a job in the Dutch capital.

‘Guilty’

On April 2 this year, news reached Northamptonshire Police that Anderson was finally in custody. He spent 86 days awaiting extradition proceedings.

This newspaper has learned that at that extradition court hearing, his main concern was whether or not he would ever be able to return to the Netherlands to continue his new life when he was released from prison in the UK.

He was told by the judge that he could serve his sentence here and then could apply to return to Amsterdam, but that decision would be at the discretion of Dutch law enforcement.

He made the journey back in late June and appeared before the crown court the next day, immediately pleading guilty to all the counts against him.

Intelligence officers here, working with the serious organised crime team, were able to ascertain that Anderson spent much of his time on the run moving around Southern Spain. It’s also thought he visited France and Sweden. His move to the Netherlands was more recent.

Their analysis also showed that Anderson was in contact with old associates back in Rushden during his time at large.

In the end, it was an undisclosed ‘lucky break’ that led cops to be able to pinpoint his exact location and inform their Dutch counterparts of his whereabouts.

Known to pals as ‘T’

When he appeared in court on Friday (August 23) he kept his mouth shut, showing only tiny glimpses of his shiny gnashers. Wearing a grey Nike tracksuit, he had grown his hair longer and had a full beard. His haunted appearance was a world away from that of the cocky young dealer who had flashed his gold grill in old police mugshots.

His mum and brother were in court to support him.

Anderson – known to pals as ‘T’ – has a long history of being involved in the drugs trade and carrying knives, with 13 convictions on his record.

In 2016, aged just 23, he was charged with being in possession of a firearm and possession of class A drugs with intent to supply them. He served 22 months in prison.

Then in June 2018 he was again arrested for dealing heroin and cocaine and having illicit cash in Barton Seagrave. He appeared in court in November 2019 but just a week later, and while on bail for those charges, officers again found him had been dealing drugs again, this time in Kettering, and he faced more charges – two counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs.

He was also convicted of a public order offence but failed to turn up to complete his unpaid work.

He was placed on an electronic tag by magistrates in April 2021 and given an overnight curfew. But he repeatedly failed to arrive for court hearings.

‘He’s gone from a lawless drug dealer to someone with a real future’

His barrister Simon Molyneux said that he’d represented Anderson throughout his criminal career, and that when he was first released from a jail term for drug dealing ‘many, many years ago,’ he owed a debt to the dealers above him.

"When he was released from that sentence he came out with what dealers in Rushden said was a debt,” said Mr Molyneux.

"People in these situations run the risk that those above them will make a ridiculous demands of them, and they should resist those demands but when you’re as deeply embedded in that world as Mr Anderson was for many years, those fears he expressed we’re genuine.

“They were quite happy to have carried out acts of reprisal toward him and members of his family, probably involving firearms.

"This does not excuse his behaviour in getting involved in supplying class-A drugs but it does explain the appalling position he was put in of phoning up runners. He didn’t know their ages or who they were, they were just voices at the other end of the phone. He was just directing them.”

Mr Molyneux said that his client now acknowledged that what he was doing was ‘unacceptable’.

"This is a remarkable transformation for Mr Anderson,” he said.

"When he cut off that tag in 2021 and went to Holland one could only have felt sorry for the Dutch authorities because, hey presto, he was just going to pick up his lifestyle and carry on.

"But he completely turned around his life, getting himself work, establishing himself in a job and proper accommodation and he had a long-term girlfriend. He stopped drug dealing and no longer had any contact with any of those people in Rushden who had clearly been the cause of his offending in the past. He turned himself into a totally different man."

Mr Molyneux invited Her Honour Judge Crane to take an ‘exceptional’ view and give Anderson a suspended sentence.

"I’ve known him for such a long time,” he said.

"His change in attitude and lifestyle are so dramatic that it deserves an extraordinary departure from the sentence the court had in mind.

"He’s gone from a lawless drug dealer to someone with a real future."

‘Wholly unrealistic’

This newspaper has learned that detectives are not convinced Anderson is a changed man and they believe he has been in contact with criminal associates during his entire time on the run.

Her Honour Judge Rebecca Crane said that the barrister’s request was ‘wholly unrealistic’.

She gave him a prison sentence of four years and eight months. He will serve half, minus the five months he has already served on remand. He was also ordered to forfeit the £1,499 in cash found on him by police.