Cocaine Confidential (23 page)

‘Looking back on it, I must have been stark, staring mad,' says Steve today. ‘But I had to find a way to earn a living and doing this seemed the answer because it combined a bit of adventure with making a few bob. My mate was more up for it than me, so I kind of got swept along by his enthusiasm.'

How had he made the first connection with someone in the cocaine ‘business'?

‘We'd met this cocaine dealer in my local pub and he said there was a real shortage of pilots and planes, so we set up a meeting with a middleman in London. We only met him for about ten minutes. He said he'd had us checked out and we were fine by him. I was amazed that he could be so certain about us since he hardly knew us.

‘Anyway, he called me three days later and said he'd be in touch with all the coordinates for our first pick-up. When I asked about payment he said “two hundred grand”. I gulped with amazement because it was even more money then we had hoped for. What neither of us realised was that they always pay you well the first time and then it's downhill all the way.'

Steve and his fellow ex-soldier's first assignment involved hiding ‘at least £5 million worth of cocaine' in the wings of their light plane. ‘It was a right hairy journey because the weather was shit and we flew very low across the Channel to avoid being picked up by radar. But I have to admit that when we touched down back in Suffolk the feeling of
excitement was overwhelming. It was the nearest thing to being back in Iraq and Afghanistan and I guess that was really what we were both looking for.'

That first cocaine deal netted the pair the promised £200,000 in cash from the gang. It only then emerged that the gangsters had urgently needed to find someone to complete the final leg of the cocaine's journey from South America after their original pilot let them down. ‘I guess that's why they paid so much that first time. We were chipper about the money, though. It was more than either of us had ever seen in our lives,' explained Steve. ‘It all seemed so easy.'

Within a month, the pair had agreed to fly back across the Channel to pick up another shipment of cocaine. ‘But this time it was a much bigger amount,' says Steve. ‘We suspected that first pick-up had been a bit of a test by the gangsters who hired us and now we were being put to work properly but we really didn't care. They casually mentioned a fee of £500,000. We were gobsmacked. The money was out of this world.'

This time the two men took off in their light aircraft from a farmer's field in Suffolk and headed across to Holland where they were instructed to land on a small airstrip before taxiing to a large warehouse on the edge of the runway.

‘Looking back on it, it was a bit of a voyage into the unknown. But we were used to that feeling in war zones and at least this didn't seem nearly as dangerous. We hadn't been told much about the people we were picking up the coke from and I remember turning to my partner [Steve refuses
to name him] and saying, “What the fuck are we doing here, mate?” and then we both laughed nervously and thought about all that money which would be in our pockets within a few hours.'

As the plane taxied towards the warehouse after touching down, six men appeared from inside the building armed with Uzi machine guns. ‘That was the first sign that this really was a much heavier deal than that first run. D'you know? We'd never even seen anyone with a shooter on the first job.'

Within moments of turning off the plane's engine, the six armed men had formed a ring around the aircraft. ‘It was as if they were saying to us that we couldn't now leave until they decided it was time. It was a bit unnerving because it suddenly dawned on us that our lives were entirely in their hands. At least in a war zone we'd have been able to shoot our way out but we'd both decided not to carry guns. How stupid was that?'

Steve says the other really unnerving thing about the operation was that virtually no words were exchanged between the armed men and the two ex-servicemen. ‘I never quite worked out if that was because they didn't speak much English or because they simply did not want to give anything away about themselves. But it made the atmosphere even more tense.'

Steve and his partner abided by the no-speaking rule and stepped to the side of the plane where they both lit up cigarettes and tried to look relaxed while the coke was packed onto the plane.

‘Not once did any of them ask us where was the best place to stash the coke but it soon became obvious that these guys were the real deal when it came to packing cocaine onto a small aircraft. They quickly found compartments I didn't even know existed and the coke was carefully spread all over the aircraft. The guys were real professionals.'

Just one hour after landing at the isolated strip in Holland, the six armed men stepped back from the plane and nodded at Steve and his partner to take off. ‘It was weird but the moment they stepped back we realised they'd finished packing it all on board. So without so much as a smile or a word between us, we boarded and took off.'

The forty-minute flight was relatively uneventful. Steve explained: ‘We had all the coordinates for where to land and soon we spotted the roofs of a bunch of cars, which had been carefully parked on a field to help guide us in. My partner was at the controls and he got us down with relative ease.'

Steve continues: ‘The adrenalin rush when we landed safely was extraordinary. It looked as if everything had gone smoothly and now all we needed to do was make sure this lot unpacked all the coke and we'd get our £500,000. When my partner turned off the engine after we'd taxied to the far corner of the field, he turned to me and punched the air and said, “Yesssss!” We both laughed. It all seemed so easy.'

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 …

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 that 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.'