Tony Thompson - Gangland: From Footsoldiers to Kingpins: The Search for Mr. Big

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Gang Land

Tony Thompson

www.hodder.co.uk

Also by Tony Thompson

Gangland Britain

The Infiltrators (with Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard)

Blogs 19

Gangs

Reefer Men

First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright Tony Thompson 2010

The right of Tony Thompson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been

asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise

circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and

without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Epub ISBN 9781848949751

Book ISBN 9780340920060

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

www.hodder.co.uk

For Harriet

Contents

Introduction

He made the prediction just moments before they shoved him unceremoniously into the back of the waiting van. For months the twenty-something leader of the notorious drugs gang had lived like a king while spreading fear and misery among the residents of the inner-city estate where he was based. His reign, and that of his gang of dealers, finally came to an end when a team of police officers in full riot gear smashed through his front door and, after a brief scuffle, dragged him out in handcuffs for the start of a journey that would ultimately end with a long spell in prison.

Half the neighbourhood turned out to see him taken away, hopeful that now, at last, life on the estate could start to improve. The gangster scowled as he surveyed the onlookers before uttering the words that would leave them in no doubt that their dream of a brighter future was destined to turn to dust. You think were bad? he bellowed. Just wait till you see whats coming next.

It is a sentiment that has been repeated all across the country many times since, but only recently has the hard evidence emerged to back it up: gang members are getting younger, more violent and are resorting to lethal force much more swiftly than they would have a generation earlier.

Crime in all its many forms is rarely out of the headlines of the national press, but for many it is the rise of youth gang culture that is by far the most worrying aspect of the underworld. Such gangs have always existed and, to some degree, have always been associated with violence, but as little as fifteen years ago they were still considered a phase that teenagers went through, a simple rite of passage.

Today, however, those in youth gangs find themselves on the edge of the world of grown-up organised crime. Children in their early teens have the opportunity to earn vast sums of money through armed robbery and drug dealing. They can look to older or former members of the gang and see the success and material wealth they have gained and set themselves goals of achieving the same. Rather than a phase, gang membership for many is now the first step on the criminal career ladder.

Since the publication of my first book on Britains underworld landscape more than fifteen years ago, that career ladder has changed beyond all recognition. When writing Gangland Britain I split the chapters along ethnic lines because at that time there was little interaction between the different factions. Ten years later in Gangs , the lines between the different groups had become far more blurred. Yardies from Jamaica still dominated the crack trade, but dozens of other groups were also involved. Furthermore, many of the so-called Yardies werent Jamaican at all; the Jamaicans had been usurped by gangs of home-grown Yardies.

In the space of a few short years, the picture has changed once again. A recent study by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) found that the underworld economy is worth around 40 billion and that some 15,000 individuals are thought to be involved in organised crime, split among at least 1,000 separate criminal networks. Of the hundreds of crime bosses the researchers identified, twenty-seven were believed to be running their organisations from behind bars.

Some of Britains criminal networks have sophisticated hierarchies and use a management structure almost identical to that of a FTSE 500 corporation; others are little more than loose-knit groups. Some are involved in well-known rivalries such as that between the Longsight Crew and the Gooch Close Gang in Manchester or the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew in Birmingham. Others are intimately associated with the names of particular families such as the Adams in London or the Gunns in Nottingham.

Despite an influx of syndicates from Eastern Europe and South East Asia, crime continues to be dominated by home-grown groups. There are, of course, occasional turf-wars but most of the time these groups manage to exist in relative harmony. In fact, if the opportunity presents itself, these groups will come together and form loose coalitions, sharing their specialist skills and contacts in pursuit of the highest possible profit with the lowest possible risk.

The drug trade remains by far the most popular area of operations, todays gangs will deal in any commodity and turn their hand to any activity they believe will make them money. This new blending of criminal interests has had a dramatic effect on gang structure. They are quite unlike the Italian mafia model or the Turkish groups, says the author of the ACPO report. There are no set ranks, rules and structures. They are more fluid, flexible and opportunist. There are Mr Bigs, but the person you start out thinking of as the Mr Big is quite often not. These are people who are flying below the radar and you may not realise who they are for a long time.

Gang Land is an account of a journey in search of those shadowy, elusive characters who sit at the very top of their respective organisations, the de-facto CEOs of modern-day organised crime. It is a journey that begins with the street gangs, low-level dealers and hired thugs that make up the ranks of the foot soldiers, that passes through the world of the smarter, wealthier middlemen and continues on to the place where the kingpins and godfathers reside.

Along the way I hope to shed light not only on exactly who is coming next, but also on where this new generation of criminals that are working their way up through the ranks might ultimately end up.

Tony Thompson

London 2010

PART ONE

FOOT SOLDIERS

Street dealers

The rush is fast, furious and almost unbelievably intense.

My heart is pounding inside my chest so hard it feels like Im going to crack a rib. My mouth is bone dry; my palms slick with sweat and my mind is racing. I can breathe only in rapid, shallow bursts. Each and every one of my senses touch, smell, sight, hearing, even taste has become heightened to the extreme. A heady mix of fear, euphoria and adrenalin is coursing through my veins at the speed of light. A full-body high.

Im tingling all over. I feel energised, somehow bigger, more powerful than before. The world has become a very different place and I sense that my position within it is for ever changed. But like most highs, this one is ultimately short-lived. Almost as quickly as they began the feelings start to fade and reality kicks back in. All I can do is wait for the next time and contemplate the realisation that its true what they say: the buzz you get from selling drugs is every bit as powerful as the one you get from taking them.

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