The Cartel The Inside Story of Britain's Biggest Drugs Gang

by Graham Johnson

  ‘In some ways we are blighted by the travelling Scouser.’

  As the parochial networks spread out across the UK, their tentacles began to link up with the bigger, international lines coming in from Holland, France and Spain. All the time, the networks were becoming more efficient and less visible, meeting away on farms in Shropshire, trawler boats in Cornwall and roll-on, roll-off ferries in the north-east.

  The Analyst said, ‘There’s almost that acceptance, more historically than currently, that the criminal from Liverpool gets out there because they’ve got that reputation. If you ask me why a drugs cartel was established here, with an international presence, then it’s because we’re probably 15 years ahead.

  ‘When the drugs trade started to gather momentum and people started to get involved, the Merseyside criminal could draw on previous experience and say, “We’ve got the makings of the networks in place already.”

  ‘For instance, if they’d have gone out into Holland and robbed a jewellery shop and then got the stuff back over here, then they got it back somehow or other – effectively they had established a distribution network which was then exploited for drugs.

  ‘It needs to become more sophisticated, but the principles are in place already. Being ambitious and up-front as they are in going about their business, they exploited the opportunities and were ahead of their colleagues.

  ‘They then gave the product to their colleagues in other UK cities, so it stopped them from having to gain the knowledge. If you were from Newcastle or Birmingham, it was easier if you took a 200-kilo batch off the Liverpool criminals, because it was easier than setting up a distribution network and an importation network yourself. Why bother when every two weeks you could have the 200 kilos from the Scousers?’

  CHAPTER 21

  THE SEQUEL

  1993

  SUDDENLY THE REGIONAL Crime Squads were rallied to stop the process of the Cartel spreading across the UK. On one occasion, the Cartel was sending 200 kilos to Birmingham every month. Sometimes, it was sent as one batch. On other occasions, it was split into batches of between two and twenty kilos, and ferried on a train by a fleet of backpackers. Even heavyweight dealers from other parts of the country felt comfortable dealing with the Cartel, because the networks were already established. In London, the Turkish Connection felt so confident that it virtually stopped mass distributing heroin to anyone who wasn’t part of the Cartel. All of its UK heroin was sent straight up to Liverpool, to gangsters like John Haase, and in smaller amounts to the Banker. John Haase was given virtual monopoly rights on the Turks’ heroin. He then distributed the drugs to London, Scotland and elsewhere. What was strange was that the godfathers from these cities were happy to go along with the arrangement.

  The Analyst said, ‘If you’re in London or Glasgow, why do you have to reinvent the wheel? You might not make as much money, but there’s enough for everyone, and you share the risks. You’re sitting there on your patch, and you’ve seen it become more organised over the years with the Liverpool criminals, with a greater propensity to travel. So it’s a safe bet for you. From that perspective, the arrangement then seems to become logical.

  ‘With regard to the Liverpool drug dealers, their life experiences of being in prison and meeting people from across the region inside jail helped in this respect, some of them being troublemakers who were shipped out of Liverpool prison to others around the country. It helped them. Or if they were arrested in a different city, they turned it into an opportunity. They were suddenly meeting people from different criminal groups and using it to enhance their local knowledge in that area, and experience, by learning from those people.

  ‘They are effectively travelling to prison-based universities – universities of life. So, the Scousers spend their time in Strangeways learning from Manchester criminals. If they are in Haverigg, they are learning about Cumbria and so on.’

  Some of the senior Cartel members began to behave like businessmen. The Banker gave £100,000 to start a community project for children. The donation had started out as an investment in a property-development scheme with a well-known former gangster, but it overran and suffered business problems. When the former gangster shelved the idea and said that he now wanted to turn it into a community project, the Banker agreed and waived the loan, saying that if it was going to a good cause then that was fair enough. Later the building became a successful resource for helping children from poor backgrounds. But other Cartel members were taken aback by the Banker’s avarice. One said: ‘The Banker was sick with money, he was that tight. He was fucking scared to lose it. Making money gives him a buzz every day. However, he’s not a clown, and people love him even though he’s someone who cannot be messed with. That’s because he’s made a lot of people rich as well.’

  The rapid advance of the Cartel caught a lot of traditional gangsters off guard. A few refused to join on the grounds that dealing drugs was a taboo. For some, like doorman Shaun Smith, the culture clash would set him on a course that would nearly cost him his life, leading him to spend years involved in a vicious struggle with his enemies and, eventually, to a long prison sentence. For others, like the softly spoken hard man Paul Burly, staying independent of the Cartel and its tentacles would mean a life of careful politicking combined with extreme measures. Paul was a traditional street-fighter, a kind of underworld maverick who stuck by the old-fashioned code of respect. That code was, as far as Paul was concerned, set in stone. It was as if he drew a red circle around him, and anyone trespassing into that circle was expected to adhere to his way of life. However, Paul’s bugbear – and Achilles heel – was bullies. He hated bullies, and whenever he could, he stood up to them. Once his reputation had been established, many ordinary people whose lives and businesses had been affected by intimidation approached him for protection, which he offered freely and without strings. Paul had started out as a general labourer, whose life in those days was dominated by casual labour: literally fighting for work with other job-hungry family providers on what was known as ‘the Stand’. There were many such stands dotted around the docklands of Liverpool. He was known as a ‘tough little bastard’ and eventually ended up running some of the roughest pubs and clubs in Liverpool for years without taking liberties.

  Although Paul had run-ins with Cartel founder Fred the Rat in the mid 1970s, he’d always left the door open for compromise so that an escape route could be followed if the heat of their disagreements ever burst into flames. It was due to those ever-open escapes that his conflicts were never seen as bludgeoning. His run-ins with Fred had shown the Rat that things could have been worse, which caused him to back away from full-fronted retaliation. Paul’s policy was simple: to react ruthlessly if and when he felt intimidated by anyone, especially drug dealers . . . but an escape route was always open. On one occasion, he’d been caught in a fist fight with a certain Cartel family during which two of them had been severely hurt, but, knowing of their ways, he had organised some friends to come and help out. The tactic of that Cartel family was to storm a place, which they did, only to find it full of Paul’s friends. As the door closed behind them, the sounds of their cars being destroyed outside could be plainly heard within the walls of that club, amplified by microphones that had been strategically placed in the street. The following clatter of their weapons sounded like an ovation of surrender as the floor became littered. He had won without a cut or bruise to anyone; they had chosen the door of capitulation. He was happy at that, for his friends had not had to put themselves in any more danger than they already had, and his enemies merely had to let the acid of humiliation dissipate.

  When he was on the border of easy retirement in the early 1990s, Paul was faced with a dilemma. He received an anonymous threat written on a piece of paper. The message stated that his son was going to be killed. Paul didn’t know the exact reason why. Was it because he had refused to join the Cartel? Or was it because he’d upset someone else in an unrelated feud? If so, which bloody feud had it been? Cri
me author Peter Stockley has written about the events that followed in his book Extenuating Circumstances.

  His first reaction was to lash out at the enemies who were immediately around him. He put one man in hospital before deciding that he couldn’t have written the letter, because he couldn’t read or write. Paul then spent a lot of time and effort systematically assessing the threats against him. He thought about all of the people he had upset. He had served two prison sentences, but he concluded that the threat must have come from someone he had upset outside prison, and much more recently. After a brainstorming session with his underworld and twilight pals, he narrowed it down to three suspects with whom he had gone head to head since last coming out of jail. What became clear was that all three suspects were taxmen linked heavily to the drugs trade and the Rat’s Cartel. The dilemma Paul faced was what to do about it.

  Had the Rat allowed their upsets to fester while waiting for new beasts – beasts with no fear of firebrands such as Paul – to come along? The Cartel’s new power base were doormen knee-deep in the nightclub E trade. Tony Sinnott was a machete-wielding hotheaded football fan who had blown up his TV set with a shotgun after England lost a game. He was forever involved in the many wars with rival door firms and always carried a knife with a straight edge for a smooth scar and a jagged one to make the mark look ugly. Paul had once disarmed and beaten up one of Sinnott’s gang after he had tried to stab a customer at a pub where Paul ran the doors. It was hardly a massive thing, but to Sinnott it was an affront to the fearful power base that he had established. He then threatened to tie Paul up and rob him. Paul later waylaid Sinnott at a petrol station and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his feet. With the words: ‘Never come near mine to rob me, otherwise I’ll personally stick your knives up your arse and rip your innards to bits!’ Paul felt the job was done. It was hardly a life-threatening thing and nobody had witnessed it, but Sinnott was the type of person to hold a grudge and threaten the easier target, Paul’s son.

  George Bromley was one of the new generation of ‘taxmen’ who robbed non-Cartel-affiliated drug dealers. Paul had merely warned Bromley’s brother over a row in a pub. The man had been threatening the bar staff and used his taxman brother’s name as back-up. When George objected, Paul merely smiled in his face, saying: ‘Lad, your enemies are ten times my number, don’t double your problems by bringing me into your shitty world!’ Only words, Paul recalled, as he and his friends reflected on that moment only to decide, unanimously, that Bromley was suspect number two.

  Number three was voted in as Kevin Maguire, a nasty piece of work. He’d been a doorman at the Quadrant Park nightclub, where he’d honed his violent tactics. Maguire was hoping to leapfrog into the Cartel through hardcore violent acts, which they, especially the Filipino cartel who had recently hit the town, loved their enforcers to be capable of. Maguire was also taxing rival drug dealers with George Bromley. He was a formidable force whom few messed with. Maguire was known to be a bully. On one occasion, he kidnapped a police inspector’s son and put him in the boot of his car. He was later jailed and claimed to have found God. One day, he picked on a used-car salesman and stole three cars from his forecourt. The car dealer had come to Paul Burly for help. Paul had humiliated Maguire merely by walking into his many known haunts with a cloth cash bag over his hand, demanding that Maguire get in touch. Mad Dog did so, thinking Paul to be looking for him with a gun. The cars were returned. Again, no blood had been spilled but face had been lost.

  Burly now had the three possibilities in his sights: Maguire, Bromley and Sinnott – all psychopathic, all somewhat deranged and all had proven that they had no compunction about killing . . . even a kid if they felt like it. Paul started making plans.

  Meanwhile, the underworld was booming, but the legit economy remained stagnant. Just under 40,000 people in Liverpool were still on unemployment benefits, representing 14.1 per cent of working-age people in the city compared with a national average of 7.8 per cent. Life on the streets was getting tougher, but there were glimmers of good news. By 1993, the Toxteth Triangle was ostensibly back under the control of the police, mainly because strategy, tactics and goals had all been changed – and the new policy was paying dividends. Drug dealing on Granby Street had been made the priority crime. On the ground, the Merseyside Police Toxteth Section had formed itself into Proactive Teams, each consisting of an inspector, a sergeant and 14 constables. Virtual round-the-clock cover was enforced. Between 8 a.m. and 2 a.m., drug dealers were relentlessly pursued, harassed and disrupted within the quarter-of-a-square-mile area of south Liverpool. The results were self-evident. In two months, the operation clocked up 106 stop and searches, 92 arrests and 74 detected crimes. The top brass liked the stats, but in the ranks there was a sense of gloom that was becoming hard to shift: a sense that it was already all too late.

  The Analyst carried on regardless. He had moved on to a new position. He was able to study one of Curtis Warren’s deputies up close, a notorious E supplier to nightclubs known as Johnny Phillips. Phillips’s case was in a way symbolic of where the Cartel had reached.

  The Analyst said, ‘In 1993, I was the custody sergeant in Wavertree police station and Johnny Phillips came in. Phillips said that he was making a £100,000 a year, no tax. He was boasting, of course, but he was also explaining something important. There was an underlying message.

  ‘He was talking about a change that had occurred – the message was that his form of criminality was now far removed from the street. He was almost describing himself in terms of a businessman, like a white-collar criminal, and that consequently he was not part of the world of a normal bobby.

  ‘He said to me: “I will give you no aggression, nor cause you harm, because you don’t affect my world. Uniformed officers are not a threat to me. You have got your job, and I’ve got mine.”’

  Phillips was very open about his activities to the Analyst, because he believed that a gulf had opened up between the Cartel and law enforcement. Phillips was almost saying that parts of the police no longer really mattered to the Cartel. The police spoke to him because it was a chance to gather intelligence – and to distract him from kicking off. The Analyst’s conclusion was simple: the attitudes of organised criminals had changed completely.

  Meanwhile, a uniquely violent incident gave the impression that the trouble had simply been displaced from the ghetto into mainstream society. On Christmas Eve 1993, in the State nightclub in Liverpool city centre, an altercation occurred between three punters and the doormen. Darren Delahunty and two friends threatened security. The doormen included experienced hands such as John Crokker and Paul Walsh, and all of them were well versed in dealing with mouthy hooligans. The upshot was a fight in which one man got his nose broken and another may well have been knocked out. All three troublemakers were ejected from the club. This was followed by the usual threats that the doormen were going to be shot. Threats were common on the doors and were usually dismissed as hot air; normally they were never carried out.

  However, Darren Delahunty bore grudges. He returned to the State on the same night and could be seen acting very suspiciously outside. He was captured on CCTV trying to goad the doormen, in an attempt to lure them out of the entrance of the club and onto the street. After several failed attempts to engage his enemy, he pulled a gun out from under his top and let loose several shots at the doormen. In a few seconds, bouncers Paul Sergeant and Mick Naylor were lying on the floor. Sergeant was left fighting for his life. Mick Naylor had been shot once in the leg, the bullet passing out of his rear. Sergeant had been shot four times: once straight through the wrist, once straight through the knee and once each in the other leg and back. Miraculously, both doormen went on to make a full recovery.

  Delahunty got 15 years in jail. However, the incident had far-reaching effects. The incident was to have wider notoriety than just in clubland: the CCTV footage of the shooting became a cult hit being passed around from person to person on VHS tapes. The story was shown
on Sky News and made the papers. The images seemed to sum up the out-of-control atmosphere – and it seemed a portent for what was to come, a kind of propaganda video for the Cartel.

  A clever DJ dubbed the soundtrack of the movie Scarface over the CCTV footage. Delahunty’s voice is overdubbed with Al Pacino’s. In the build-up, the haunting film score by Giorgio Moroder plays over scenes from the CCTV camera footage, which showed grainy shots of Liverpool on a winter’s night. Before the shooting, Delahunty mimes the universal gangster mantra: ‘Who put this thing together. Me: that’s who. Who do I trust? Me.’ Then he pulls out the gun. But it’s the way he does it that’s significant. He holds it with his right hand, cocked cockily to one side so that the gun handle is parallel to the floor. It is an iconic stance, for it would become the hallmark of the scallywag gunman of the next generation of Cartel pistoleros, copied by hundreds of other young lads who thought nothing of pulling out a gun on the spur of the moment. Just before he pulls his own gun out, Delahunty seems to say: ‘Why don’t you say hello to my little friend.’ Then he fires off the rounds into the club door as the doormen battle to close it.

  CHAPTER 22

  KILLERS

  1994

  OLD-SCHOOL GANGSTER PAUL Burly continued to investigate three of the Cartel’s most violent street enforcers. His method of intelligence gathering was crude but effective: ‘swaps’. Every few weeks, he called together his most trusted friends who had been ‘swapping’ information about Tony Sinnott, Kevin Maguire and George Bromley. The scraps of intelligence enabled Paul to build up a picture of the lifestyles of the three men, particularly the parts of their lives they kept hidden. Paul was able to find who their enemies were and who they had robbed. He asked his friends to do more exchanges and then began to put his plans into operation. My enemy is your enemy. The basic premise was: feed their enemies with information that would further annoy them and send them proof of who had robbed them. Then he had similar-sized people use the methods of operation that those three used. Their MOs were not hard to duplicate; all one had to do was copy their mannerisms while hurting somebody who would bounce back with mean retaliation.