Robert Dawes was arrested in 2015 in his Spanish villa

A suspected British crime lord facing trial for an audacious plot to flood Europe with cocaine could walk free because the former head of France’s elite crimebusting agency has been arrested.

The international operation to bring down Robert Dawes has exposed a network of corrupt officials and security weak spots across European borders, with serious implications for the fight against international terrorism.

Dawes, 45, was arrested in 2015 in his palatial Spanish villa after an international undercover operation started by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) targeted the movement of 1.3 tons of cocaine on a flight from Venezuela to France.

Two years earlier, French undercover agents posed as corrupt baggage handlers at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to intercept 31 suitcases belonging to