Botched hitman plot, a ‘gay love triangle' & school bullies… how calamitous drug lords' £100m cocaine empire fell apart

The Sun

3 days ago

AT the height of their success, drug baron James Harding and his 'loyal right-hand man' Jayes Kharouti ran a vast £100million criminal empire - raking in a staggering £70,000 a DAY.
Now, Harding and his cohorts have been jailed for plotting the murder of a gangland rival from his luxury base in Dubai after cops blew open one of the biggest EncroChat investigations in history.
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When cyber cops snared Harding, 34, who claimed to be a high-end watch sales executive, he was living in luxury at the The Nest apartment complex in Al Barari, Dubai, staying in five-star hotels and driving Bugatti and Lamborghini sports cars.
The flashy narco's illicit business empire made a staggering £5million in just ten weeks, but it emerged he was prepared to do anything to keep his strangehold on the cocaine trade.
Along with his henchman Kharouti, 39, he hatched an evil plot to murder a rival, going so far as to try to hire a hitman for £100,000.
But the pair were scuppered by Scotland Yard detectives who cracked open the EncroChat messaging system - and tracked down the kingpin using vain shirtless selfies he had snapped on the same phone he used to arrange the hit.
On the platform favoured by underworld criminals, Harding used the nickname 'thetopsking', while Kharouti went by the handle 'besttops' and 'topsybricks'.
The pair, who were jailed at the Old Bailey this week, make an unlikely narco double act - with Harding insisting he was no murderer, but rather a suppressed homosexual involved in a bizarre love triangle, who had been bullied at school over his facial deformities.
He denied using the handle 'thetopskiing', claiming instead it was actually used by his secret male lover.
Meanwhile, The Sun can reveal Kharouti is an Afghan national who travelled to Britain as an asylum seeker in the Nineties with his mother - and has previously been busted over a nightclub drugs trafficking ring.
In 2008 Kharouti, from Wallington in Surrey, was sentenced to four years in jail after pleading guilty to supplying more than half a kilo of cocaine to nightclubs across London.
Using five different aliases, and five different dates of birth, he made £200,000 in just 18 months, with thousands of pounds found stashed inside a milkshake carton at his home.
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Cops raided his home and unearthed more than £4,000 in cash – £1,000 stashed in his bedroom and £3,000 tucked a box in a kitchen cupboard.
Officers also searched his car and found a staggering 620g of cocaine with a street value estimated at around £34,000.
But after being released from jail he formed a murky friendship with Harding, who had been born with hemifacial microsomia, a condition causing the left side of his face to be under-developed.
He endured multiple surgeries as a child and teenager to correct a deformed left ear, cheek and jaw.
"I was alienated by everyone at school because of it," he confessed at his Old Bailey trial, which ended this week.
Jurors heard Harding had feelings for "boys and girls" as a teenager, but "suppressed" his homosexual desires.
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As a teenager, Harding, who grew up in Hampshire, began to sell legal highs to make money.
He advertised the drugs using online classified adverts.
But the scam backfired and in August 2012 he was arrested and charged with drugs offences and possession of false ID documents.
In his bombshell Old Bailey this month, Harding returned to his childhood struggles for an extraordinary and elaborate defence.
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The court had previously heard from cops that Harding used the handle 'thetopskiing' while hatching plans on EncroChat.
In a remarkable twist, Harding insisted he did not use the handle - but was sleeping with the man who did.
Harding's lawyer Clare Montgomery KC explained: "He (Harding) has for a long time been too ashamed to admit, and has always wanted to keep private, until this case has forced him to reveal his secret life.
"That secret is that he had an intense and sexual relationship with 'thetopsking'."
Before he was sent to prison the first time, Harding had fathered a child in 2010.
His relationship with the little girl's mother broke down while he was in jail - when she apparently told Harding that he was not the child's biological father.
But when Harding was released from prison in 2016 his ex-girlfriend contacted him to apologise for the way she had treated him.
"I'd always felt rejected," he moaned. "And I wanted to know why she would leave me like that.
"She explained to me she wouldn't have just left me for anyone. Her daughter's dad had got back into contact with her and wanted to rebuild a relationship with his daughter."
Despite this, Harding said he went on to rekindle his relationship with the mother and she and her daughter moved into his home in Alton, Hampshire.
But three years later, he claimed his girlfriend and her daughter left the UK and moved to Dubai where the real father, 'thetopskiing' , was living.
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Harding later joined them - and recalled how HE fell for the mystery man too.
He said he always found 'thetopskiing' or TK, good-looking and charming, but things changed after a boozy night out at the end of 2019.
"We went to brunch at a place called Mama Zonia in Dubai, and after that a group of us went back to TK's villa, and after some time people were leaving," he said.
"TK and I were drinking, and drinking quite a lot, and we ended up becoming intimate.
"I wasn't proud of myself at all. I felt disgusted with myself."
Harding claimed he was taken advantage of and used by 'thetopskiing' to book flights and restaurants.
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Despite his denials, cops since proved that in fact Harding was 'thetopskiing' following a major cyber investigation.
Harding gave away his true identity through a series of boastful selfies which showed his face, distinctive clothing and tattoos.
They were able to prove that he and Kharouti had teamed up to import vast quantities of drugs.
Their messages from 2020 revealed that "thetopsking" told other users when "lands" of cocaine were going to happen, and provided them with co-ordinates to collect the drugs close to Dover, where they had entered the UK by lorry.
As a result Harding was arrested at Geneva Airport in Switzerland in December 2021, and extradited back to the UK.
His second in command Kharouti was extradited from Turkey to the UK last June.