A 'nerdy' student who rose rival the American drug barons after falling in love with the north west's 80s and 90s rave scene has told how he lived to regret his life of crime.

Shaun Attwood was the son of an insurance salesman who developed a fascination for figures as a kid and by 14 knew he wanted to be a millionaire.

At 22, he quit Britain for a new life in America and within six years he WAS a millionaire stockbroker, the Mirror reports .

But then Shaun turned to crime, importing huge batches of Ecstasy pills.

He lived among the super-rich and Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney was one of his neighbours.

Shaun Attwood on his graduation day

American pals dubbed him The Bank of England because he was so loaded.

He even needed a spare apartment just to store his ill-gotten gains.

Another nickname would follow – the Wolf of Widnes, a nod to Leonardo Di Caprio’s character Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.

And, just like drug-crazed Belfort, Shaun’s empire came crashing down.

Now, after a jail stretch, he’s back in Britain, sharing a two-bed flat with a pal.

The millions have long since vanished. Yet things are looking up as Shaun is in talks to have his remarkable life turned into a big screen epic of his own.

His crimes put him at the centre of the US underworld and in competition with Mafia mass-murderer Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, who even put out a hit on him.

Shaun pictured on his way to make a fortune as an Arizona financier

Shaun and his third wife – a topless dancer and internet porn star – lived in a mountainside mansion, with the likes of McCartney down the road.

He travelled everywhere by limo, bought a string of luxury apartments and at one point was paying hundreds of people to smuggle drugs into the US.

Shaun, 49, said: “I thought I was Mr Cool, the craziest wildest party person.

“My ego was as big as the Grand Canyon and I felt like I was a character out of the film Pulp Fiction.

“I was the biggest drug dealer in Arizona and was also taking between 10 and 20 Es myself every weekend, as well as GHB, crystal meth, Valium, Xanax and ketamine. My life was out of control.”

Shaun’s taste for money stemmed from his teens, when he began following the stock market.

At 16, he became hooked after doubling his gran’s £50 shares in BT. That coincided with his first trip to Arizona, where his aunt lived as an ex-pat.

Shaun said: “My aunt forged a fake ID and took me to bars and introduced me to women as Paul McCartney’s nephew.

“I was dazzled. I loved it and knew I wanted to go back.”

Shaun's money brought him fast cars

In 1987, he began a business studies degree at Liverpool University and discovered drug-fuelled raves in the north west. He went from shy teenager to party animal who “lived to rave at the weekend”.

In 1990, Shaun graduated with a 2:1 BA Honours degree and a year later moved to Arizona. He only had a traveller’s visa but lied to get work as a commission-only stockbroker.

He said: “I was working 6am till 9pm while cold-calling 500 numbers a day and living off cheese sandwiches and bananas But after five years I was the top earner, grossing over $500,000 a year, with my own secretary and cold callers. But I’d worked so hard I had ‘BOBS’ – Burnt Out Broker Syndrome.

“To counter my stress I returned to partying like I was a student again. I had plenty of money as I had put shares in tech businesses and sold them for $2million.

“I started throwing house parties and suddenly I was making a lot of friends, while giving away drugs. That was when I began realising the potential business opportunities in selling Ecstasy.

“I started dealing and when the local dealers could no longer supply my needs I found who the main supplier was and arranged to buy 500 hits from him for $7,000. Before long I was importing Ecstasy from Holland at $3 a tablet and selling it for $10 to his own team of sellers.

“We would hide it in luggage and all sorts of stuff, like computer towers and vitamin bottles and smuggle it through.

“I’d send my employees from Phoenix to Germany or France and then on to a train to Amsterdam and back – and later through Mexico and over the US border.”

He got used to luxury houses

Shaun went from a recreational user to drugs kingpin – aided by The New Mexican Mafia, then Arizona’s most dangerous criminal organisation.

His main enforcers were his childhood pal WildMan and G-Dog, a Mexican-American gangster he met at a party.

Shaun recalled: “When I started, there were all different little cliques and I unified them, which gave me a stronghold over the scene.

“By 1999, hundreds of people worked for me and I was the biggest Ecstasy dealer in Arizona. I was nicknamed The Bank of England because I had so much money.

“And at the peak of things I had my own rave clothing and music store and LSD chemist.”

Things began going downhill when Sammy Gravano – a former henchman for the Gambino Crime Family – set up a rival Ecstasy ring.

Shaun said: “I was at the centre of a kidnap plot by Sammy and his son and he also took out a hit on me. And the meltdown of my business interests also came on fast as the NASDAQ, where I’d invested most of my money, crashed in late 2000.

“Not long after, some of my smugglers were arrested at airports around the world.

“And most of my crew were doing so much crystal meth they were growing paranoid and scheming against each other.

“My top salesman even firebombed WildMan’s fiancee’s apartment, almost setting WildWoman ablaze, and he tried to rob my LSD chemist, resulting in a shootout.”

He enjoyed flashy homes

Shaun’s empire – described in court as The Attwood Enterprise – finally crumbled when a 20-strong SWAT team raided his home in 2002. He spent 26 months on remand and avoided a 200-year jail sentence in a plea baragin. He admitted drug-dealing and money laundering and ended up serving just six years.

It had taken a five-year federal investigation, which saw the DEA, US Customs and three Arizona police forces team up to bring him down.

And it included the use of thousands of wire-taps and Shaun being followed by undercover cops, who likened him to “a ghost” as he kept disappearing whenever they got close.

He gave them the slip with an elaborate money-laundering system, flying old friends over from Widnes to set up bank accounts, which he then used for illegal activities.

Shaun is now an author, public speaker and jail activist and also lectures to schoolkids on the consequences of drugs and crime.

He added: “Drugs were fun at first, but in prison I thought ‘how am I still alive?’ I saw just how destructive drugs really are. I felt ashamed.

“In jail I read over 1,000 books and submerged myself in psychology, philosophy, yoga and meditation. That was when I resolved to tell my story and stop young people from making the same mistakes as I did.”

Shaun was released in 2007. Banned from America, he now lives in Guildford, Surrey, and is single again. But despite losing it all, he has found contentment, saying: “I squandered millions and everything I ever earned was confiscated by the State of Arizona.

“But I’m happier than ever now. I’ve rebuilt my life and I wake up with a smile on my face every day because I feel at peace with myself and the world.”