Jun.24, 2010, 11:02 AM

Terry Adams, Britain’s most feared gangster, yesterday walked to freedom after serving just half of a seven-year sentence for money laundering.

In what could have been a scene from The Godfather, he was greeted by a glamorous brunette in black and two sidekicks.

Wearing an open-necked white shirt tucked into khaki trousers, Adams looked relaxed as the attractive young woman stepped out of a £60,000 black Range Rover wearing dark glasses, a black skirt and jacket and high heels.

She was joined by two powerfully built men in an £80,000 red Porsche Cayenne 4x4, who whisked the mobster away when he appeared in the car park at Spring Hill Open Prison near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire at breakfast-time.

Adams, 55, built up an estimated fortune of £200million through a vast racketeering and drug trafficking empire, which has been linked to 25 murders.

Potential witnesses have been too terrified to testify against the gangster but he was jailed for seven years in March 2007 for the relatively minor charge of money laundering.

Despite his years of incarceration, officials at Britain’s version of the FBI, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, still regard him as one of the country’s top gangsters and will monitor his activities closely.

A witness who saw his release said: ‘At just before 8am a stunning woman dressed all in black like she was going to a funeral swept into the car park in a Range Rover.

‘She was carrying an umbrella even though it was clear blue skies and very hot. A minute later these two sinister looking heavies turned up in a Porsche Cayenne as if to act as her minder.

‘They stood around giving menacing stares to prison staff who were arriving for their day shift.

‘When Adams appeared they hurried him into the Porsche and sped off.’

According to jail insiders, Adams was given a rousing farewell from fellow lags as he left in time to watch England’s World Cup game against Slovenia.

One said: ‘It was reminiscent of when the gangster Ronnie Knight packed his bags and left here a few years ago. The boys were shouting “good luck, Tel”.’

On his release in 1998, Knight, former husband of the actress Barbara Windsor, remarked of Spring Hill: ‘If you want to do any bird (prison), do it here because they look after you’.

There was no opportunity for the Daily Mail to ask Adams about his views on the establishment as he was whisked away to celebrate his release at a secret location.

But given his reputation as the head of the notorious Adams crime family, known as the A Team, it is highly unlikely he was given a hard time by prison staff, let alone inmates, during his three and a half years there.

Police say the North London Adams family make the Krays look like minnows.

At an Old Bailey sentencing in March 2007, prosecutor Andrew Mitchell QC said Adams was one of Britain’s ‘most feared organised criminals’.

Last night it emerged the authorities have been able to recover only a fraction of Adams’s fortune.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: ‘Adams was ordered to pay a confiscation order of £750,000. The CPS has been able to recover £364,489.60.’