But, says Steve, that’s when things started to go badly wrong. ‘When we jumped off the plane, the villain we’d met earlier in London was there to greet us but he looked far from happy and told us that the guys in Holland had called him to say they thought we’d acted very suspiciously and that we should be searched for wires and to make sure we weren’t working for the cops.
‘I was outraged by these accusations and had a bit of an argument with the man from London. My partner tried to calm me down but this guy had really got up my nose. In the end my partner had to drag me away to a quiet corner of the field to try and make me see sense.
‘Then he whispered to me he thought they were trying to pull a fast one on us to avoid paying us all of the £500,000 fee. Well, that made me even more angry. But I realised there was nothing I could do until the coke had been unloaded. So I bit my lip and we both lit up fags and waited for the coke to be taken off the plane.’
As the setting sun began dipping behind the trees at the far end of the airfield, the gang announced they’d finished but that there was ‘a problem’. Steve explained: ‘My partner rolled his eyes and I took a long sigh because it was exactly as he’d predicted. They claimed the shipment was short. They said they weren’t necessarily accusing us of taking the coke, which was a relief, but they suspected the guys in Holland had double-crossed them.
‘Then another, much heavier-looking bloke walked out from the shadows and asked us why we hadn’t checked through the coke before it was put on the plane. We explained that this was not our job and no one had ever suggested we did it before. That didn’t go down too well. This heavyweight accused us of either stealing his coke or being ‘arseholes’. Either way, he said, we were only going to get paid £50,000 not £500,000. Well, I was livid and took a swing at the bloke and it was only thanks to my partner dragging me off him that we avoided a bloodbath.
‘My partner said we had no choice but to accept the deal and that we could “sort it out” later. I knew he was right: £50,000 was better than nothing but it really wasn’t a fair payment considering the vast amount of coke we’d just flown over from Holland.’
Steve understands now that their experience on what was only the pair’s second coke shipment was ‘a blessing in disguise’. He explained: ‘We both realised that smuggling coke was a mug’s game. You think you’re going to earn millions but the guys you’re dealing with will always ensure that doesn’t happen and if you argue with them then you have signed your own death warrant.
‘So we decided to step away from the coke business altogether after that. No doubt many people will wonder how the hell we could do that without endangering our own lives and our families’. Well, we both agreed to deliberately damage the airplane so it was unflyworthy. That made us completely useless in the eyes of the coke traffickers. Then my partner called them up and said he had cancer.
‘The amazing thing is that they accepted it all. I suspect they knew we’d cause them a lot more trouble than the usual pilots and they were already looking for a way to cut us loose. The last thing we heard from them was when the boss guy called up pretending to ask about my partner’s health but actually trying to give us a very unsubtle warning to watch our backs and keep our mouths shut. Well, I told him that I didn’t know who he was or why he’d even called us up and suggested it might be a wrong number. He was thrown by my response but we never heard from him again.
‘Shortly after that we sold the plane and got ourselves straight, normal jobs in the services industry. Life is a lot happier with less money and longer life expectancy, I can tell you! My advice to anyone out there tempted to earn some quick, big money by dealing or trafficking drugs is don’t bother. The main men – the real criminals – will always rip you off and then you’ll end up going back to them simply because it seems like the only way to make a living and because, like so many people, you are waiting for that golden payday when you will be given so much money you never have to work again.
‘Let me tell you now. That NEVER happens.’
So, it’s the cocaine barons in the UK who rule the business. No wonder, when you consider some of the measures they’re prepared to take in order to keep one step ahead of their rivals and the police …
CHAPTER 30
PETE
Coke barons in the UK regularly use the services of private eyes to try and discover what their criminal rivals are up to, as well as keeping an eye on the police.
Pete hails from North Wales originally and he believes that if his real identity were ever revealed he’d be killed by the cocaine criminals who regularly use his services. ‘When I’m dealing with these characters I have to run everything out of a mailbox address in London, so that my connection to them is impossible to prove at all times,’ explained Pete. He’s a former police detective who spent much of his career in the force exposing gangs of Merseyside-based drug smugglers. ‘Back then I was a bit of a green young copper and some of the things I stumbled upon came as quite a culture shock,’ said Pete, 41. ‘But I have to admit I loved the criminals’ attitude towards enjoying life to the full. They’re much more relaxed than the rest of us and I’ve always found that quite enchanting.’
Four years ago, bachelor Pete quit the police and headed down to London to set up shop as a ‘security consultant’. He explained: ‘I knew people on both sides of the law down here and they kept saying there was plenty of work for a good private eye because a lot of the coke gangs are always trying to spy on their rivals and the police. That’s how it is with many of the criminals here and I could see where the opportunities could come from.’
Pete discreetly put the word around to various contacts that he was available for ‘work’. ‘I knew the police wouldn’t try to shut me down if they had no idea what I was up to,’ explained Pete. ‘I was soon flooded with work. Most of it was from a couple of Essex-based cocaine gangs. I had no doubts about working for them because I knew that if I fell out with them I could always switch “sides” and blow the lid on their activities to the police.’
Pete is currently based in a rented apartment located close to the Tower of London, on the edge of London’s East End. It’s a modest place but he says it serves the purpose. ‘I have to keep a low profile. But I’ve never been one for possessions and owning property, so this situation suits me down to the ground.’
Recently, Pete was hired by ‘a very wealthy’ female cocaine gangster to spy on her husband whom she suspected of having an affair. ‘This woman just called me up out of the blue after hearing about me from some other criminals. She said she’d pay a very generous daily rate if I’d just shadow her old man for a few weeks to see what he was up to. At first I was a bit hesitant because I thought maybe she was using me to find him and then have him killed. But I decided that was up to her. It was no business of mine what she did with the information I supplied once I handed it over to her.’
Pete continued: ‘She insisted on meeting me in the car park of a McDonald’s in Wapping before I started the case. She turned up in a new Mercedes sports car, dripping in gold, heavily tanned with a peroxide rinse. She said she was scared that her husband might find out what she was up to but refused to tell me specifically what her husband did for a job. She just said in a very strong east London accent that her old man was a property speculator. I didn’t believe a word of it since I already knew she herself was high up in a big cocaine gang.
‘I had a bad feeling about it and was starting to hesitate about taking the job when she offered me £1,000 a day, so I went for it. Money speaks louder than words and I’ve been around for long enough to know how to follow someone without them knowing it, so I reckoned the risk was minimal. I guess the money she was paying me undoubtedly came from her cocaine business.’
For the following month, Pete shadowed his ‘target’ using all his police expertise. He explained: ‘Instead of following his car I often went in front. It’s very effective because no one studies the vehicles ahead of them. I soon discovered th
at the wife was perfectly right to be suspicious of her husband. For this guy didn’t just have a mistress, he had an insatiable appetite for sex. He was using some of London’s most notorious brothels virtually every day and he had three regular girls whom he’d set up in separate apartments in the suburbs. The guy was addicted to screwing.’
But when Pete reported back to the man’s wife what he’d seen there was an awkward response. ‘She went all quiet after I sat her down and told her. Instead of bursting into tears she just kept nodding her head slowly and saying, “Right.” I then asked her what she was going to do with the information I’d given her and she snapped back at me that it was “none of my fuckin’ business”. I started to get a bit worried then because in my game the last thing you want is an angry wife exposing your identity to a cheating husband, especially when they’re both criminals. I tried to explain nicely to her that she could not reveal my identity to anyone, let alone her hubby. But she then coolly turned to me and said, “I’m afraid he already knows all about you.”
‘“What?” I said to her.
‘She replied, “Turns out he was having me watched by one of his mates and they saw us in the car park when I first met you. He thought you and I were having a fling, so I had to come clean and tell him the truth.”’
Pete explained: ‘Well, my heart sank when I heard her. What a disaster. The husband might come after me, especially if he got paranoid that I’d seen any of his criminal activities, which I hadn’t. I then asked her if she’d told her hubby precisely what I’d seen him get up to. She ignored the question and only mentioned that he was very angry I’d been spying on him.
‘All she cared about was that he’d promised to drop all the women in the flats and not go to brothels any more.’
Pete went on: ‘I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d never change his ways because men just don’t do that on the whole, especially big-time villains. Now my main priority was to ease out of this job without being physically harmed by this woman’s associates or her gangster husband.’
Pete then decided, in his words, ‘to enter the Lion’s den’. He continued: ‘I reckoned it was safer to meet this character than try and run away from him. It was a gamble but it had to be done, so I phoned him up. He was outraged at first but once he’d calmed down we arranged to meet in a very public place, so that he couldn’t let his heavies loose on me.’
It turned out to be a clever move. ‘He was still very upset and called me a piece of scum, which seemed a bit rich coming from him! But then he grudgingly admitted being impressed I’d had the courage to meet him and we actually got on quite well. He even told me his missus had hired two other private investigators before me, who’d both fleeced her of money and done nothing. He seemed to find that quite funny.
‘I realised that this villain had so many contacts in the cocaine underworld that he could become an invaluable source of more work for me. We’ve stayed in touch ever since and he’s recommended me to a number of his associates.’
On another occasion, Pete was hired by the private secretary of a mega-wealthy prince from a foreign royal family living in Mayfair, who suspected one of his most senior advisers was dealing massive quantities of cocaine bought from a Russian coke baron based in London. Pete explained: ‘They thought this bloke was dealing drugs big-time and were very worried that if he was arrested by the police it could embarrass the royal family. They wanted me to get the evidence, so they could confront him and then quietly fire him before a scandal erupted.’
Pete spent two months shadowing the prince’s adviser mainly around central London. ‘The strange thing was that for the first six weeks he didn’t go near anyone who even vaguely looked like a drug supplier, let alone a Russian,’ says Pete. ‘I was about to recommend to the client that we end the surveillance operation when I saw my man walk into a bar in south London that was notorious for its criminal clientele. I was standing right by him when he met with a young-looking Russian type of man. He had quite gay mannerisms and I wondered if they were having a sexual relationship, even though the target was married with two children.
‘Then I saw this other man handing my target a sachet of something when they shook hands goodbye. I followed my target outside to where he’d parked his car in a side street. The moment he got in the vehicle, I watched him open up the sachet and take a massive snort of what was obviously cocaine. He did exactly the same thing the following three nights and it became clear that rather than being a drug dealer this man was using cocaine for his own personal consumption. That’s a different matter altogether and I told my client that instead of firing this man they should try and persuade him to get help for his addiction. That guy didn’t deserve to lose his job, he just needed to sort out his addiction problems, but I later heard that he got kicked out of his job anyway.’
Pete earns upwards of £100,000 a year working as a private eye and he loves the lifestyle. ‘I lead a quiet, simple life when I’m not working. I have a very nice girlfriend and love nothing more than a glass of Rioja and an early night when I’m off duty. I leave all the other sex ‘n’ drugs stuff to the type of characters who so often end up coming to me for help.’
But Pete is realistic about his future. He explained: ‘It’s getting more and more dangerous out here with cocaine gangsters flooding London from all over the world. That makes it more difficult for investigators like me to operate. I think the time will come when I’ll have to think about another career change, but for the moment I’m very happy with my life.’
That influx of foreign cocaine criminals into the UK is clearly moving the goalposts for many home-grown gangsters.
CHAPTER 31
BERNIE AND SERGI
In the Kent countryside, many old-school British gangsters run their cocaine gangs from isolated farmhouses and mansions with easy access to the Channel ports of Dover and Folkestone.
Bernie is one of the most familiar faces in the county and he told me that today’s up-and-coming young cocaine barons are in danger of turning the UK into an underworld no-go area.
‘It’s all got completely fuckin’ out of hand in recent years,’ explained Bernie, smoking a king-size cigar and supping a vodka and tonic. ‘The youngsters coming through the ranks now are complete and utter psychos. It’s bedlam out there and a lot of innocent people are being knocked off for no good reason. This country is turning into the Wild fuckin’ West.’
Bernie, now in his late sixties, believes he is one of the few ‘old chaps’ given any respect by the younger cocaine gangsters in the UK. ‘But that’s only ’cos I’ve got form,’ explained Bernie. And by ‘form’ he means he’s been in prison for killing a criminal rival and was also busted for running one of the UK’s biggest cocaine ‘corporations’ in the late 1990s.
Bernie insists that he’s free to move around the south coast of England without fear of retribution from rival gangsters. ‘In fact some of the so-called new boys come to me for advice,’ said Bernie between puffs on his fat cigar. ‘But a lot of my old mates are shit scared to be seen out and about in case they cop a bullet from this lot.’
He went on: ‘I’ve been in the coke game for thirty years and when I saw some of these foreign villains turning up here a few years back, I told my mates in the business to watch out because where they come from, life is cheap and they’ve had it hard. That makes them much colder and more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, if you know what I mean.’
Bernie believes he occupies the ‘middle ground’ between the old and the new cocaine barons in the south-east of England.
‘There’s a couple of younger outfits working on my manor, so I went to see them and told them that I didn’t expect any of them to interfere with my operations and I’d keep out of their stuff. All the other old boys I know said I was barking mad but I reckon it’s paid off handsomely. I really do. I sat down with the youngsters and we came to an agreement. That’s all I ever wanted. What’s the point in havin’ a ruck? It don’
t help no one, does it?’
When I met Bernie at his favourite pub overlooking a small south coast marina, he claimed he’d just come from a meeting with a man who represented one of the richest oligarchs in Russia. ‘He’s on the make like all the rest of them,’ explained Bernie, who was wearing a country gent outfit consisting of tweed jacket, checked trousers and brogues. Bernie had met the Russian billionaire’s ‘rep’ at a nearby safehouse, just up the road from the marina. ‘This bloke had ten bodyguards. Can you believe it? He wanted to invest some of his boss’s cash in the coke game and expected me to tell him about what sort of return he could get for his money. I get these type of characters coming to me all the time these days. I tend to avoid them unless they are real pro’s because they don’t really understand the risks. They just think it’s a way to make an easy buck. It’s not as simple as that.’
The bar we were talking in was decked out in garish, swirled wallpaper and looked as if it hadn’t had a lick of paint since back in the days when Bernie ‘invested’ in buying property in the London Docklands development during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.
As we were talking, a burned-out looking blonde woman in her late forties in tight jeans glanced across at Bernie and smiled. He winked back and then continued with his overview of the cocaine gang wars raging in south-east England. ‘It’s changing all the time. A lot of the older Brits have left England and retired to Thailand and Costa Rica and places like that because it’s too fuckin’ crowded here these days. Spain’s too near and it’s not cheap to live in any more.’
But how come, if that was the case, Bernie stayed here in the UK? ‘I’m above all these shoot-ups and shit like that. I’ve been bedded down here for so long I wouldn’t know how to survive anywhere else.’ And survival is the key word here. For Bernie seems to have an ability to duck and dive his way out of trouble.
Cocaine Confidential Page 18
