Tony Barnes - Cocky

CONTENTS

PREFACE

AN HOUR BEFORE daybreak on 24 October 1996, dozens of police officers armed with stun grenades, disabling gas, heat-seeking detectors and sub-machine guns burst into two homes and a warehouse in the Netherlands. Their targets were members of a dangerous gang of British criminals engaged in a global drug conspiracy. The co-ordinated raids followed an eight-month undercover probe by Dutch police. Ten men nine Britons and a Colombian linked to a notorious cocaine cartel were dragged from their beds and arrested.

The raids yielded approximately 400 kilograms of cocaine, sixty kilos of heroin, 1,500 kilos of cannabis and fifty kilos of Ecstasy a haul worth 125 million on the street. Also discovered were 960 CS gas canisters, several grenades, a variety of handguns, false passports and 370,000-worth of Dutch guilders.

Simultaneously, British law enforcement officers executed search warrants in premises across north-west England to mop up some of the gangs cohorts. They had been working on the case for even longer than the Dutch: two-and-a-half years of exhaustive surveillance and intelligence-gathering, the biggest joint investigation ever mounted by police and customs officers. They called it Operation Crayfish.

Newspaper headlines heralded the conclusion of a successful operation:

MR BIG HELD AS POLICE SMASH 100M DRUG RING

The Mister Big in question was Curtis Warren, a thirty-three-year-old Liverpudlian dubbed Target One by the press. He has since been called the biggest scalp ever claimed by British law enforcement, the most significant bust HM Customs and Excise have ever had and the richest and most successful British criminal who has ever been caught. The story of how he reached those dizzy, dubious heights, and how he fell so spectacularly, is the subject of this book.

The backdrop to that narrative is an even more important, and hitherto untold, account of how one city came to dominate much of the drug importation into the United Kingdom. There are historical and economic reasons for the disproportionate influence of Liverpool criminals in the drug trade, yet until very recently it went almost unnoticed. One popular contemporary book about organised crime in the UK, Gangland Volume 2 by James Morton, reports a consensus of police, lawyers and sociologists opinion that on balance there has been no organised crime in Liverpool; certainly not on the scale seen in London. About drugs, Morton, a criminal lawyer, adds, Officers maintain, almost certainly correctly, that the trade is minor compared with that of Manchester from where, in the main, the local dealers get their supplies. In fact, the exact opposite is true.

It is not easy to understand how many well-informed writers missed the story so completely. Perhaps it has something to do with the unspoken official secrecy which for so long shrouded the words organised crime and forbade their mention by police officers outside the Met. Perhaps it is testimony to the success of the smugglers in maintaining relative anonymity. Perhaps it is the natural expectation of London-based commentators that the capital must dominate all areas of criminal commerce. Since the first publication of this book in 2000, perceptions have changed. It is now finally acknowledged, not least by Merseyside Police, that men from Liverpool have carved out a unique niche in the international drugs trade, and excel at the importation and distribution of illegal drugs of all types. The truth is now out in the open.

The authors are deeply indebted to those who knew the truth and were prepared to tell it. We could not have written this book without the co-operation and help of many people. From Her Majestys Customs and Excise they include Paul Acda, Colin Gurton, Steve Rowton and Ranald Macdonald and his team. Senior police officers who provided insight and help included Sir James Sharples, Mike Keogh, John Thompson, Phil Jones and, from Holland, Tom Driessen. Many other customs and police officers gave invaluable information on condition of anonymity. We offer our sincere thanks.

We are also grateful to Pat Ashworth, the former Press Attach at the British Embassy in The Hague, to Warrens solicitor Keith Dyson and Dutch lawyer Han Jahae, and to other barristers, solicitors and court officials, particularly the staff at Chur Cantonal Court in Switzerland. Reporters Jonathan Foster of the Independent on Sunday , Angus Hoy of the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette , John Sweeney of the Observer , John Mooney of the Sunday Times and Liz Allen of the Sunday Independent were especially helpful. We are grateful to Colin Hunt and Les Rawlinson at the library of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo for background cuttings and pictures, to Steve Brauner, to Lynda Roughley and Colin Simpson at Liverpool Crown Court and to Nils Heithuis and Peter Elberse of the ANP news agency in the Netherlands. Bill Godber at Turnaround was a model of advice, encouragement and patience, as were the staff at Milo Books.

Numerous underworld sources also spoke to the authors in the course of our research. Not one was willing to go on the record, for understandable reasons. We can, however, vouch that every opinion or anecdote related in these pages can be sourced. In one or two places, where indicated, we have used pseudonyms and occasionally quotes from two people have been amalgamated into one. There were also legal barriers to complete openness, as characters who at the time of publication faced serious charges could not under British law be identified in the text.

Curtis Warren turned down all requests, written and verbal, to be interviewed, as did members of his family. At the time of writing he is in prison in Holland, serving a twelve-year jail sentence and intending to pursue an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against his conviction for drugs smuggling. He also faces a Dutch legal action to seize his criminal assets and a consecutive four-year term for the manslaughter of a fellow prisoner. His English lawyer says he blows hot and cold about whether or not to tell his side of the story; he would like to but feels it is so earth-shattering that no-one would print it. Many of Warrens secrets are too well buried to be found. Partly for that reason, this is not a conventional biography. Rather it is an attempt to use one mans life-story to chart the development of a particularly active arm of the modern drugs trade and the official attempts to combat it. We hope it sheds some light on a dark world but would not pretend for a minute that it is anything like the full picture.