Peter Bleksley - Gangbuster. I Dont Care How Hard You Are, If You Cross Me Ill Bring You Down

He was the best undercover cop the police ever had.

In a ten-year career with Scotland Yards most secretive squad, Peter Bleksley helped nail dozens of crooks and stopped millions of pounds worth of drugs and counterfeit cash hitting the streets.

He bent the rules but he got results.

A master of disguise, a crack shot with a pistol, his exploits in the dangerous world of criminal subterfuge earned him 13 commendations for bravery and a reputation that spread throughout Europe and America.

He was the cops own crook, skilled in the dangerous ways of the underworld. He knew more about cocaine, heroin, cannabis, LSD, Ecstasy and amphetamines than any other serving officer. He needed to. His skill in handling drugs, of talking the language of the perilous world of international trafficking, kept him alive.

Peter Bleksley adopted the guise of a big-time drug-dealer, gangster, counterfeiter, even hit-man, to combat some of the most powerful and ruthless crooks in the world.

He went deeper undercover than any other detective before him. A maverick by nature, there were times when he crossed the line, taking cocaine and cannabis when necessary to prevent detection by suspicious and sometimes paranoid pushers.

Bleksley was the James Bond of Scotland Yard, slipping effortlessly into countless roles in seedy drug dens or five-star hotel suites. He once made love all night to a cocaine-addicted aerobics instructor as he pursued a leading envoy suspected of smuggling huge amounts of cocaine into Britain in his diplomatic bags.

He faced shotguns, pistols and knives. He faced the wrath of the Mafia and the IRA. So successful did he become in penetrating the inner sanctums of international crime, that the godfathers of organised crime in New York hired a professional hit-man to fly to London to kill him. Hed blown one of their big operations out of the water and they wanted him dead. That threat still exists today.

Bleksley was regularly hired out to police forces across Britain to carry out dangerous undercover missions their own men could not, or would not, undertake.

Posing as a swaggering drug-dealer, he regularly set traps for international traffickers and baited them with up to 350,000 of the Metropolitan Police Commissioners money.

He was at the centre of many spectacular police operations in which armed officers seized some of the worlds most dangerous crooks and met violence with violence. The words courageous, fearless and professional feature readily in his numerous commendations. The top award, the Commissioners High Commendation, can only now be made public because any media publicity at the time, in 1990, could have placed his life in even greater danger.

In his recommendation for the honour, Bleksleys boss, Commander Roy Penrose, head of the Yards SO10 branch wrote, All of us who know DC Bleksley, and more especially those of us who have had the pleasure of working with him or observing him at work in an undercover role, have come to accept the high standards of excellence, bravery, and ingenuity he continually displays.

At the same time, I am sure that none of us fully realises the extent of the danger and few of us would want to change places with him. He is an officer dedicated to his role with the unique ability to think quickly on his feet as the circumstances change. While it is impossible to quantify, it is nonetheless an indisputable fact that DC Bleksleys actions in bringing about the early arrest and successful conviction of so many career criminals has saved this force in particular and the police service in general many thousands of pounds in man hours that would have been necessary to achieve a similar result by more conventional methods.

DC Bleksley has consistently over a period of years maintained the highest standards of professionalism and integrity in the most difficult and dangerous role of undercover officer, both within and beyond the Metropolitan Police District. Moreover, he has shown a level of bravery far beyond the normal course of his duties and, in my view, is richly deserving of the Commissioners High Commendation.

Peter Bleksley lived under a multitude of different aliases as he hunted down criminal scum the length and breadth of the country. Many swore revenge. Bleksley, now retired, still keeps a wary eye over his shoulder and is cautious of any unexpected knock at the door.

He could have written this book with the protection of yet another pseudonym. But he has decided to come out of the shadows and tell his remarkable story in his own words and under his own name, with candour, with courage and with humour.

Co-author Mike Fielder was the former Chief Crime Reporter of the Sun newspaper. His previous bestsellers include KillerontheLoose, the story of the Rachel Nickell murder on Wimbledon Common, and AlibiatMidnight, the story of the Barn restaurant murder in Braintree, Essex.