One of Europe's most notorious drug dealers will "defend himself to the hilt" against a court order designed to stop him running his criminal empire when he is released from prison.

The solicitor for Curtis Warren, 48, confirmed that his client would be challenging a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO), which is being applied for through the High Court by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

Warren, who once featured on the Sunday Times Rich List, was jailed for 13 years in October 2009 after being convicted of trying to smuggle £1 million of cannabis on to the island of Jersey.

If the SCPO is granted by the High Court it would tie Warren into a series of restrictions such as only being allowed to have one bank account, only having one mobile phone, not being allowed to carry more than £1,000 in cash and not being allowed to travel out of the UK.

Warren's solicitor Keith Dyson said: "We are aware of it and we are dealing with it. His reaction is to defend himself to the hilt. He will challenge it."

A Soca spokesman confirmed it was applying for the order. It is understood that the case will go before the High Court in early December and that it is the first SCPO to be applied for through the High Court.

In March this year Warren, from Liverpool, lost a bid for freedom when he argued he should be freed after police in Jersey illegally bugged a car driven by his right-hand man. The evidence was key in convicting Warren in 2009. In February Warren's QC told five lords at the Supreme Court there was an abuse of process.

But the appeal was kicked out and the authorities have set their sights on seizing his alleged vast fortune.

After the appeal Warren's barrister, Tony Barraclough, said his client intended on taking his fight to Europe after he was told that the authorities wanted a confiscation hearing aimed at seizing assets worth around £200 million.

The gangster - who once spent six years in solitary confinement and was at one time Europe's most wanted man - is serving his sentence at HMP Full Sutton in East Yorkshire.