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Jean Emmanuel Morlon, a self-confessed drug lord, ruled Spain’s underworld for over 30 years as a gang leader.
Born in San Sebastian, Basque region of Spain and raised in France, Morlon claims he served nine years in the French army’s special forces starting in 1982 and earning a journalism degree in 1983.
In a pre-bail report, he alleged attachment to the French Secret Service, handling anti-terror missions until retirement.
Settling in Kenya in 2012, he portrayed himself as an ex-colonel living on a French pension, occasionally tapped for assignments like negotiating with Indian Ocean pirates.
Featured in the Sky Docuseries Ibiza Narcos, Morlon admitted to drug trafficking and art theft in Spain.
He was implicated in stealing 20 artworks worth Sh5.4 billion from Esther Koplowitz, Spain’s richest woman, in 2001 while she vacationed.
Arrested by undercover FBI agents posing as buyers, he was convicted and sentenced to six years during which he wrote Amor Al Arte, confessing to some crimes.
In 2011, he faced drug trafficking and money laundering charges, serving four years before early release and relocating to Kenya.
In the documentary, Morlon boasted of evading justice for kidnapping and mutilation.
He detailed his drug empire, starting with hashish and ecstasy in the 1990s, then shipping 400–500 kilos of cocaine from Colombia to the US four times yearly in the 2000s, later selling in Ibiza.
He claimed a boat with 216kg of cocaine was seized, but he broke into a police station, dug through a wall, and reclaimed it using trackers on police boats to avoid capture.
In Kenya, Morlon first lived in Karen and Kilimani, then moved to Riverside Drive in 2018 with his wife, Winnie Muthoni (married 2016), a dog, and domestic staff.
In 2021, he acquired a five-bedroom home at Ol Pejeta Conservancy’s Mount Kenya Wildlife Estate, still pending full transfer.
He supports 52 children through charity and claims to have trained Kenya Defence Forces and tourists in skydiving, painting a complex portrait of a criminal turned expatriate.
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