Yet another nyah-nyah, hide-and-seek playing, tongue sticker outer, “catch me if you can” crook has proved that cops know how to use social media.
According to local paper Liverpool Echo, a 40-year-old UK fugitive and convicted drug dealer from Merseyside, Steven Johnson, used alias Facebook profiles to share pictures of his life on the run.
His flight led him to sunny southern Spain.
As his Facebook photos and posts describe, his fugitive life included rolling out of bed, a blasé attitude about combing his hair before heading off to a massage, a resulting case of tragic bedhead, disembarking from yachts, and showing off his red Porsche and other luxury cars.
Or, at least, if his fugitive life didn’t involve actually owning high-powered luxury cars, it included taking selfies as he stood next to other people’s high-powered luxury cars.
The Echo has published photos Johnson posted under the Facebook accounts Simon Woods and Jj Green here and here.
In the posts, he graciously shared invitations to Merseyside Police to “catch me if you can”.
He had fled the country when released on parole in 2014. He had been sentenced to 6 years 11 months in jail for possession with intent to supply drugs.
The Echo reports that Johnson also opened up his home for use as a drug-selling gang’s safe house.
The gang reportedly sold “huge” volumes of cocaine out across the North West.
After he’d headed al sur de España, the taunts he left on Facebook included the straightforward, classic line employed by ever so many overconfident fugitives:
You will never find me! Hahaha.
…as well as some mulling over alternative farming products to peddle besides the leaves of the coca plant, including:
Going to pick me goats up! 100 goats need milking everyday!
…plus marijuana: he shared photos of what looks like lush cannabis plants, as well as a selfie with himself smoking what looks like a joint.
Johnson also posted a photo of himself behind what looks like the white bars of a window.
Behind bars: get it?
The irony-enjoying con has been on the run since January 2014.
Social media-reading police nabbed him last week, on Thursday, at an address in the Merseyside village of Whiston.
The Echo quoted Sergeant Mark Worrall, from Merseyside Police:
The arrest of Johnson shows that we never give up.
Johnson has been wanted on recall to prison for two years and he has obviously been living the high life abroad, but that has been cut short and he’s now back behind bars.
Image of man in handcuffs courtesy of Shutterstock.com
