His conviction at Winchester Crown Court in 1990 as a leading figure in a major drug smuggling plot changed the late Eddie Richardson.
He was jailed for 25 years, his second long prison sentence.
Much of the first term imposed after their notorious 'torture trial' for the horrific violence he and his notorious gang inflicted on other underworld figures, he spent rebelling against the system, but during the second the once feared extortionate racketeer discovered a love of painting while attending weekly art lessons.
"I'd never tried my hands at it but once I realised I could do it, it got much easier for me."
In fact, the reformed criminal and prison reform campaigner, who died this month aged 90, developed such a talent that many of his paintings, including one of Lord Longford who famously told the judge in a mercy plea at his trial "there is much good in him," were featured in a exhibition at a major London gallery.
Richardson played a his key role in a plot to smuggle the biggest consignment of drugs into Britain after his business interests, legitimate or otherwise, had dwindled during his first spell in prison.
The £42 million consignment, comprising 154 kilogrammes of cocaine and two tonnes of cannabis, had been concealed in two containers of balsa wood aboard the cargo ship Silver Happiness in Ecuador. When the vessel docked at Le Havre, the load was transferred to a cross-channel ferry but seized in Portsmouth where it was transferred to Southampton for examination.
The plan was based on the contraband being smuggled into Britain by air and sea from the Far East and South America but one load was intercepted at Bangkok. Another, however, was flown into Gatwick where two baggage handlers were assigned to put them to one side and take them out of the airport, but they were arrested and were each jailed for ten years.
At the Winchester Crown Court hearing, six men stood in the dock in connection with the drugs conspiracy.
Prosecutor John Spokes told jurors: "Those who took part in the smuggling did so to share in the vast profit. If none had been seized at all, the estimated value of the drugs at street level is at least £70 million."
At the end of a ten-week trial, prison sentences totalling in excess of 60 years were passed on three defendants, with Richardson unmasked as the mastermind. His background had been hidden from jurors until his conviction.
Mr Justice Schiemann told him: "You were hoping to distribute the drugs to persons who include the ill, the weak, the stupid and those otherwise vulnerable. All the evidence points to you being one of the top men involved in England.
"You have chosen not to give any evidence to suggest that there were others playing an even more important role than you. If there were, you are prepared to let them wreck the lives of others rather than reveal their names and run the risk that they might harm you or those who you hold dear."
Richardson, who in total spent 23 years in custody, put his time in prison to good use by learning to hone his painting skill before his release in 2001 to lead a quiet life in south east London where in 2015 he was nominated for the freedom of the Borough of Southwark for raising funds for charity and championing disadvantaged children.
He also lectured about his infamous past life and was an accomplished after dinner speaker in which he talked of his feud with the Krays.
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