Costa Del Crime

by Wensley Clarkson

  Micky is hardly what you might call a traditional-looking Scotland Yard copper. He’s got shoulder-length hair, a muscular, stocky body and a Santa Claus-style beard that makes him look a lot older than his 39 years. ‘My job was to infiltrate a gang of drugs smugglers who were importing cocaine from South America and paying runners to drive the drugs through Europe back to Britain. It was a very sophisticated operation, very slick and well organised. The guy who was running it was a hardened, old-school gangster and I had to work my way in.’

  Micky – who’s done a spot of bare-knuckle fighting in his time – managed to get himself work as an enforcer, or debt collector, for the gang. ‘Luckily, I had the contacts back in the East End who vouched for me so I was able to get into the gang quite easily.’ Proving what they were up to was a different kettle of fish. ‘This lot were mega-careful,’ recalls Micky. ‘Even their drug runners were followed by other members of the gang to make sure they weren’t police grasses. No one was trusted apart from the men right at the very top. I was taken on two or three debt-collecting operations and had to actually threaten a couple of fellows who hadn’t paid their drug debts, but this was chicken-feed for us because it didn’t prove anything against the Mr Big who was running the operation. I had to be patient and wait for the right type of evidence to materialise which we could then use in a court of law.’

  For the next six months, Micky ate, slept and drank with the gang and was never once able to call his wife and three kids back in the East End. ‘That was fucking hard on me and my family, but we simply couldn’t afford to risk blowing my cover. These fellas were so careful, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were monitoring my mobile phone calls. Some nights I’d collapse exhausted into the bed at my tiny apartment and wonder what the fuck I was doing there. All I wanted was to be at home with my wife and kids back in the normal world.’

  Micky kept going for a very good reason. ‘A nephew of mine died from a heroin overdose,’ he reveals, ‘and it was so fucking sad to see what that did to his family. These evil bastards who sell drugs have no idea about the misery they’re causing to normal, law-abiding families. Every time I got close to quitting that job in Spain, I thought of my nephew and realised I had to keep going.’

  Careful about communicating with his police bosses back in London, Micky only used internet cafés to contact them. ‘And then I used a pseudonym in case anyone back in London grassed me up to the villains I was working for in Spain. In this game, you can’t trust anyone, not even the detectives you work with day in, day out.’

  Eventually Micky found himself completely accepted into the gang, which was based in Torremolinos, and was told by his new boss that he was required to travel to South America to provide protection for the gang while they met cocaine barons in Cali, Colombia. ‘It was the last thing I wanted,’ says Micky, ‘because there was no way I could travel to another country with them as I couldn’t risk a problem with a false passport. But without going on such operations with them I couldn’t gather enough direct evidence to ensure they would all go down for a very long time.’

  Micky had no choice but to pretend he was seriously ill and cry off the Colombia trip. ‘They were right pissed off with me and started looking at me like I wasn’t to be trusted. That’s a bad moment in any undercover copper’s life. It means people start asking questions and there’s a risk they might find out the truth.’ Within days, Micky’s bosses pulled him out of Spain. ‘I was willing to carry on, but they said it was too big a risk. I was very disappointed because I genuinely wanted to nick this lot, big time. They were a bunch of evil bastards who didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone. What bugs me now is that no one has since managed to infiltrate that gang as successfully as I did, which means they’re still thriving. This can be one hell of frustrating job at times. I just hope we get them one day.’

  Micky quit the police in late 2003 and got himself a job as a security consultant. He explains, ‘I truly loved the job but, after what happened in Spain, everything seemed a bit mundane. I found it really difficult back in London dealing with domestic crimes and burglaries after what I’d been through. In the end I knew I had to make a fresh start away from the force. Some of my best mates are still in the job but it’s not for me any more. Maybe if I’d never gone to Spain in the first place then I’d still be a happy detective aiming for thirty years’ service and a nice fat pension, but that’s just not the way it turned out.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RUBIO CHRIS

  Chris Lees in Bristol – the Costa can wait

  RUBIO CHRIS

  He’s called Rubio because of the blond hair and fair skin, which used to turn red in the searing Costa del Crime sunshine. The word means blond in Spanish. But Oldham-born Chris Lees is anything but a typical Brit in Spain. This 42-year-old entrepreneur has had his finger in a lot of pies, and he nearly paid for it with his life.

  Chris first arrived in Fuengirola back in the mid-1980s. In those days, he explains, he was ‘nothing more than a daft kid ready to try his hand at anything. I was after an adventure, but I didn’t have a brass farthing to my name, so I started getting involved in some right dodgy capers.’ Chris soon found himself working as a tobacco smuggler, illegally importing Spain’s dirt-cheap cigarettes into the UK. ‘Back then it was a great way to earn a decent wedge,’ says Chris. ‘It wasn’t like drugs smuggling and most Customs guys turned a blind eye because they had more important things to worry about.’

  As a tobacco smuggler, Chris found himself mixing with ‘some right dodgy geezers’ and he also worked from some bizarre locations. ‘There was one supermarket in Fuengirola where all the big Brit villains hung out in the canteen in the daytime,’ says Chris. ‘You could buy anything from an AK-47 rifle to a dodgy passport in that place. There was always some scumbag sitting supping a beer, ready to help.’ Being a tobacco smuggler brought Chris into contact with some major criminal faces and on a couple of occasions he upset a few of them.

  ‘I tend to be pretty straightforward, and a lot of them didn’t like that one bit. In the end I got forced out of the smuggling game and life became much more of a struggle.’

  Chris quit Spain in the early-1990s and returned to the UK, but the lure of sunshine, easy money and easy women proved too strong. In 1998 he slipped back to Spain and his old haunts in Fuengirola. ‘That’s when my problems really kicked off. I should have stayed back in Britain, but I was addicted to that Spanish lifestyle. It seemed so much better than cold, bitter, grey England.’

  Chris set up a combined restaurant and disco in Fuengirola; it was a roaring success. Word soon got around that he was making a lot of money and some of the local unsavoury characters decided they wanted a share of his profits. ‘A bunch of British crims turned up one night asking questions about me and saying that they’d heard there was a group of fellas going around Fuengirola, wrecking clubs. What they really meant was that they were going to trash my place unless I bunged them some protection money. Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that. So I told them all to fuck off, which didn’t go down too well. Next thing I know, the Spanish police are threatening to withdraw my licence.’ It was then that Chris Lees found out what a lonely place the Costa del Crime can be if you’re not in with the right people.

  ‘A few days later, I’m nicked by the police on suspicion of being involved in some kind of drugs ring. It was outrageous. The cops claimed that I had knowingly rented my house out to a bunch of cocaine smugglers and that I was part of their gang. The whole thing was a fit-up, and I immediately knew those Brit crims had grassed me up because I wouldn’t pay them protection money.’

  Chris was flung into a notorious men’s prison north of Malaga, where he was locked up for almost a year before the police released him without charge. ‘It was a bad time. I kept insisting I was innocent, but so do most people in prison so no one was interested in listening to me. At one stage I thought I’d be sentenced to ten years when the detectives interrogated me and I refused
to answer their questions.’ Chris was released in the summer of 2002 with no warning.

  ‘They just opened my cell one morning and said I was free to go. No apology, nothing.’ Chris was, by his own account, ‘a changed man. I didn’t trust anyone any more. I had a shorter temper and I was, quite frankly, very resentful at my treatment by the police and prison staff. The jail was a shithole and I found myself sharing cells with some right nutters. It was something I hope never happens to me again.’

  Back in the real world, Chris soon discovered that most of his old mates in Fuengirola didn’t want to know him any more. ‘They all thought I’d grassed someone up in order to get released. People would abuse me in the street and I couldn’t walk into a bar without it going silent. It was a horrible feeling and I realised I had to get away and start afresh somewhere else.’

  So Chris quit Spain and moved to Bristol where he had a few old friends. He set up a limousine-rental company, which is now highly successful, and has even managed to be elected a local councillor. ‘Prison taught me never to waste a moment. Since arriving back here I’ve started over and it’s been fantastic. I’ll never go back to live in Spain again, and whenever I talk to any friends over there they always sound either very bored or very broke – or both! The Costa del Sol rots people’s brains, if you know what I mean. It’s an evil place filled with nasty opportunists who’d quite happily stitch up their grannies given the chance. I’m better off out of there now.’

  CHAPTER NINEEEN

  THE PIMPERNEL

  They may well be seeking him here and there, but Mickey Green is definitely the one in the middle

  THE PIMPERNEL

  Costa del Crime resident Mickey Green, described by Eire’s Criminal Assets Bureau as one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers, has become so adept at escaping justice since his days as a notorious London armed robber 30 years ago that he has been nicknamed the Pimpernel by authorities. These days he spends much of his time in Spain, having been released after legal argument. Green is the classic Mr Big, with alleged links to the Mafia and Colombian drug cartels.

  His grand-looking hacienda just east of Marbella is worth more than £2 million, and he even has a friend to live in one of the nearby houses to keep an eye on the property whenever he is on his travels. As one of his Costa del Crime mates says, ‘Mickey’s from the old school. He’s done well for himself and kept on his toes for much of the past twenty-five years. Good luck to him!’

  Now 62 years old, Green has over the years been shadowed by UK, Dutch and French authorities, who suspect him of major criminal activities. British Customs agents have pursued Green for years. One told me, ‘We’ll get Mickey one day. It’s just a matter of time. He thinks he’s cleverer than us, but one day he’ll make a mistake.’

  Michael John Paul Green was born in 1942 in Wembley to a family originally from Ireland, and is described by many who know him as a good old-fashioned London villain. He is also said to be your original medallion man with a taste for birds and booze. He first made his criminal reputation back in 1972 when a notorious London supergrass called Bertie Smalls named him as leader of a gang of robbers known as the Wembley Mob – then the UK’s most successful team of armed blaggers. Green was eventually jailed for 18 years for his part in the 1970 robbery of a bank in Ilford that yielded £237,000, although he was suspected of involvement in numerous other crimes.

  Green got out on parole after serving seven years of his sentence, and was soon back in the thick of things. He teamed up with old Wembley Mob partner Ronnie Dark, and they developed a lucrative VAT scam on gold krugerrands. They bought the gold coins – which didn’t carry VAT – then melted them down into ingots – which did – and sold them back to the bullion house, collecting a hefty wedge of VAT in the process. It is reckoned that Mickey and his pals made £6 million in under a year. ‘It was a brilliant scam,’ says one of his friends in Spain who has known Green for many years. ‘Mickey’s always had an eye for the main chance. He couldn’t resist the gold scam and it made him a fortune.’

  When the police and Customs agents moved in on the gang in London in the early-1980s, Green hotfooted it to the Costa del Crime. One of his closest mates in the sunshine was Frank Maple. They were both perfectly at ease among the thousands of recent ex-pats colonising the Costa del Sol. Maple had fled to Spain after being named as the brains behind the infamous Bank of America robbery in Mayfair in 1975. He also spent three years in an Austrian jail for a £100,000 hotel robbery. Others noticed that Green and Maple seemed to have limitless spending power.

  Some have described the Costa del Crime at this time as being like the Wild West. One old-timer explained, ‘The heaviest, hardest faces were living here then because there was still no proper extradition treaty between Spain and the UK.’ Kidnaps, robberies and killings were being ordered by some of the UK’s most notorious criminals who were based in Spain at the time. No one knows if Green was ever involved in such activities, but he was certainly not shy about throwing his cash around. Back then he was living in a luxury penthouse in the La Nogalera building in Torremolinos, driving a white Rolls Royce and a red Porsche. He also had his own yacht and had become a regular at many of Marbella’s most exclusive restaurants and clubs.

  During the 1980s, Green started building up a vast drug empire, using Spain as his centre of operations to run narcotics into Europe from North Africa. In 1987 he was arrested by Spanish police after two tons of hashish was seized. Green was given bail and fled to Morocco, leaving behind 11 powerboats and yachts allegedly used to run drugs from North Africa.

  Then Green turned up in Paris and Interpol were alerted. French police swooped on his swish Left Bank apartment, where they found gold bullion and cocaine but no Mickey Green. He was later sentenced to 17 years in jail in his absence for possession of drugs and smuggling. Green’s next stop was California, where he rented Rod Stewart’s mansion under an alias.

  A few months later, FBI agents knocked his front door down as he was lounging by the pool and arrested him. Green was put on a flight bound for France and that jail sentence, but got off when the plane made a stopover at Ireland’s Shannon Airport. Using his Irish passport, he slipped unnoticed past Customs men and headed for Dublin where he had many contacts. Green then took full advantage of the weak extradition laws between Eire and France at the time and settled in Dublin. He even splashed out on a massive half-million-pound farmhouse just outside the city.

  In 1995 Green ran a red light at a busy junction in his Bentley and killed taxi driver Joe White. He was fined and banned from driving, but there was uproar in the local press because he was not given a custodial sentence, despite the death of an innocent man. Under mounting pressure, Eire police made it clear that they were planning to grab Green’s assets, including his farmhouse property. The Londoner disappeared, in typical fashion. It was later claimed during another criminal trial in London that Green bribed two witnesses in the death-crash court case to keep himself out of jail. A female drugs courier told the trial of Green’s associate, supergrass Michael Michael, that she and an Irishman were paid to lie about the car smash that killed Joe White.

  Shortly after leaving Eire, Green turned up once again on the Costa del Crime. It was even widely reported that he had managed to slip in and out of the UK using forged passports on numerous occasions between 1997 and 2000. ‘He was still wanted in France and the UK, so he didn’t want anyone knowing he was popping in and out of the country,’ explained one of his oldest friends. There were also persistent rumours that a senior Scotland Yard detective was supplying information to Green in exchange for thousands of pounds in bribes.

  Green’s Irish lawyer was shadowed to the Spanish city of Barcelona in February 2000 by UK Customs agents investigating Green’s links to the Mafia and Colombian drug cartels and a massive worldwide drug network importing narcotics into the UK. When Green turned up at the Ritz hotel, he was immediately arrested by UK Customs and Spanish police and transported to the nation’
s most secure jail in Madrid. At first, both Spanish and UK police hailed the arrest as Green’s swansong. One Costa del Sol detective even said, ‘Green’s luck has finally run out. He’ll go back to Britain to face the music.’ An extradition hearing was set; it seemed to be a formality before he was sent on his way to London and a long stretch inside.

  Newspapers at the time estimated Green’s personal fortune to be at least £50 million. It was even said that Green had evaded arrest on the Costa del Crime for a couple of years by wearing a disguise and using a false identity. Green also still faced serving the long prison sentence back in France for earlier drugs offences, and it emerged that he had invested many millions of pounds into legitimate businesses in Spain, all financed by his frenzied multi-million-pound drug deals on the Costa del Crime. ‘Mickey was no fool,’ explained a friend. ‘He knew he had to sink a lot of his dodgy cash into proper businesses. It made total sense. If only Mickey had set up a proper business in the first place he might have ended up being a very wealthy, perfectly legitimate businessman.’ But Green told many associates he couldn’t resist the buzz of committing crime. ‘Mickey told me once that’s what got him into being a bank robber in the first place. That incredible feeling you get when you pull off a job. It’s an untouchable experience. Nothing quite matches it.’

  Mickey Green isn’t known as the Pimpernel for nothing. A few months after his dramatic arrest in Barcelona, a Spanish court refused to extradite him, insisting that UK Customs did not have enough concrete evidence to mount a prosecution. Mickey Green was once again a free man. Rumours of bribes swept the Costa del Crime but, in fairness to Green, a Customs source later told me, ‘It’s sickening to admit, but smuggling charges against Green were dropped after we decided that the evidence from his former associate Michael Michael was not strong enough to bring a prosecution back in Britain.’