AN appeal to find one of the UK’s most wanted fugitives, who fled from Radcliffe after being arrested in 2004, has ended after new intelligence found he had died in Holland.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) believed 56-year-old Liam Fynes, a suspected international drug trafficker who had been on the run for a decade, was hiding in Amsterdam.

But after being named this month as part of Operation Return, a campaign by the NCA, Crimestoppers UK and Dutch enforcement agencies, responses to the appeal established he died in October, 2012 — possibly from cancer.

An NCA spokesman said: “Without the significant response from the general public on Operation Return, the NCA and its partners in the Netherlands would not have identified several new leads relating to subjects that have been publicised as wanted.

“This has included the discovery that Liam Fynes died of ill-health in the Netherlands where it was always believed he had fled to while on the run from UK law enforcement.”

In May, 2004, large amounts of cannabis, diamorphine, ammunition and drug apparatus were found in Fynes’ home in Suthers Street.

He was in his vehicle and was discovered to have £1,000 in cash, with another £36,000 found in the car. Fynes was charged with possession of heroin, possession of ammunition without a certificate and possession of cannabis with intent to supply.

He was due to appear at Bolton Crown Court in June, 2005, but failed to do so and a warrant was issued for his arrest.