A NORTH-East car dealer facing extradition to France to answer drug smuggling charges is to be moved to a jail in Madrid.
Brian Charrington, 43, from Middlesbrough, has been detained in Alicante, Spain, since his arrest on August 17.
The businessman, whose lavish lifestyle is believed to have been funded by multi-million drug smuggling rackets, was arrested at his villa at Calpe, on Spain's south-east coast.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told The Northern Echo that Mr Charrington would be moved to a central jail in Madrid before a decision would be made on whether to extradite him to France.
French officials launched extradition proceedings after Charrington was convicted in his absence and sentenced to two years, over a drugs bust on a yacht in the Channel in 1997, involving 650 kilos of hashish
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