June 18, 2024 • 35 mins
On the streets of northern England where chaos reigns among those doing the selling.
David Collins spends time in Merseyside, speaking to those working in the retail arm of the cocaine business.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Some way, in some shape or form, if you don't
get arrested. Karma plays a role in it. Let me
tell you can go through that life without certain amount
of bad luck, bad ju ju or bad karma coming
and just darkening your door.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Let me take you back to where we started this series.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
They banged on my door, then got me up powder
and they opened the doors. So you said it was early.
We need to go the gospel.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The brutal murder of a twenty six year old woman
called Ellie Edwards, who was just standing outside a pub
on Christmas Eve. Ellie was wholly innocent, caught in the
crossfire of a conflict between two local gangs. She was
shot dead by Connor Chapman, a twenty two year old
low level cocaine.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Dealer, the very first day of the trial. He walked
into the courtroom. Within twenty minutes, he never looked at
me again because he's just a coward.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Now, my colleague David Collins is retracing Chapman's steps.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
So I'm just driving Pastor and Asda, about to turn
onto wood Church Estate and cross into what feels like
a bit of an invisible line into an estate which
is the central kind of hob for one of the
most dangerous gangs operating right now in Britain, which is
(01:50):
the wood Church Estate Gang.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
The wood Church Estate is where Chapman grew up. It's
a few kilometers from Liverpool City center on the Wirral Peninsula.
Around eleven thousand people call the wood Church home. The
majority they're honest, hard working, many of them families.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I can see kind of small masonets, small terraced houses.
It feels to me at the moment quite typical of
a lot of housing estates in towns and cities across England,
slightly run down.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
This estate is also a retail hard for the cocaine business.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
It's strange to think, as I'm driving through this estate,
which feels quite peaceful at the moment, that it is
the epicenter of one of Britain's most brutal and bloody
gang wars. In some of these houses may well be
(02:55):
the weapons. The guns, the scorpion guns that are used
have been used by the wood Church Estate Gang.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Ellie's killing took place in December twenty twenty two. A
few months earlier, another innocent young woman, Ashley Dale, was
at home in Liverpool when her front door was forced open.
The intruders were looking for a man from a rival
gang her boyfriend. He wasn't home, so instead they murdered
(03:27):
Ashley with a Scorpion submachine gun, the same kind of
high powered weapon as the one Chapman used to kill Ellie.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
She ran for her life into the dining room in
a desperate attempt to reach the back door, Bullet markings
left embedded in the walls and on the floor.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
The next day, again in Liverpool, a man pushed his
way into the home of a stranger to escape another
man shooting at him. The gunman shot at the front door,
the bullet missed. The man passed through the wrist of
the woman blocking the door and straight into the chest
of her daughter, Olivia prat Corbel, killing her. She was
(04:12):
just nine years old.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
The murder of Olivia has rocked our communities, who are
quite rightly upset and outraged that such an abhorrent crime
has occurred here on the streets of Merseyside.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
These three deaths, they were unrelated, but they did have
something in common. The victims were all collateral damage in
the conflict between gangs who between them have divided up
and fight over the local drug market because it's here
on Merseyside, thousands of kilometers from the coker fields of
(04:51):
Columbia and six hundred kilometers from the huge port of
Rotterdam where tons of cocaine are shipped into Europe. That
the next stage the global business plays out, the retail
operation where cocaine is bought and sold by street dealers
who live in the same parts of town as Ellie Ashley,
Olivia and other innocent people like me or you. I'm
(05:23):
Fiona Hamilton and from The Times, The Sunday Times and
News Corp Australia. This is Cocaine Inc. Episode five, the
wood Church Estate. Okay, it's worth looking at where we've
(05:46):
got to in our investigation, working in a team with
three reporters, myself, David Collins from The Sunday Times in
the UK and Stephen Drill from News Corp Australia, exploring
how the cocaine trade works as a business. Steven's been
in Columbia and Mexico looking at the production and supply
(06:08):
roots of the drug.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
Eight hundred kilograms in the ceiling of two containers.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
As well as how the first cartels grew from small
scales smuggling outfits into a multinational, billion dollar operation.
Speaker 7 (06:29):
The Medigan Catel changed everything in the cocaine business. They
were the first to industrialize the process, shipping and flying
cocaine vast quantities out of the country, according.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
To American officials, controlling as much as eighty percent of
the world supply.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I went to Europe's largest port, Rotterdam, which functions as
a logistics hub in which shipping containers filled with cocaine
moved through a global distribution network.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
They need somebody from inter for health information. You see
corruption everywhere.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Now David is back where we started, in the north
of England, where cocaine is sold on the streets and
near where Ellie Edwards was murdered. A bit of background.
The wood Church estate is the largest housing estate on
the Wirral, but many here feel like they've just been
(07:28):
left behind. Local news reports say economic cuts and a
lack of opportunities mean children and teenagers in the area
are simply left with little to do and that creates
a vacuum and it certainly creates a problem. Now you
might be thinking that because Liverpool is a port city,
(07:48):
this is where the coke comes in, but actually surprisingly
little does. When the coke leaves Rotterdam, for example, in
shipping containers, it makes the short journey across the English
Channel to the UK's southern coast. Usually it gets loaded
onto lorries and distributed to the major cities like Manchester,
London and Liverpool where gangs receive the drugs. They sell
(08:13):
it on the streets of Merseyside or distribute it to
nearby smaller towns and rural areas. What David wants to
find out is how does this part of the cocaine
business run, How do the gangs involve turn a profit
and what happens to that money.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's a wet, windy autumn day that The center of
the estate is the main road that runs through the
wood Church. It's called the Whole Road and known by
everyone in the area. On it there's a small supermarket,
a pharmacy, a betting shop and a chippy. In recent years,
the police have put in what they call a Public
(08:55):
Spaces Protection Order. What this means is that anyone who
was in a group of two or more around these
shops between three pm and ten pm must leave when
asked to do so by the police. There's a list
of other things you can't do, such as racing bikes, scooters,
wearing anything to disguise your face, or drinking alcohol. It
(09:18):
sounds pretty repressive and it's designed specifically to tackle gangs.
And it's because in twenty twenty two the Woodchurch suffered
a year of extreme violence. There were four separate shootings
in or around the estate, all young men caught in
gang related crossfire. More broadly, on the Wirral, in the
(09:39):
last six months of twenty twenty three, police launched the
Coordinated Operation to clear out gang activity. They made seven
hundred and twenty two arrests, seizing crossbows, knives, drugs and
more than thirty eight pounds in cash. I want to
know what it's like to live in an area with
(09:59):
this going on. I go to one of the roads
on the estate where there was a shooting in twenty
twenty two. So it's boys. I'm from the Times newspaper.
(10:20):
I'm doing a podcast. You know there was a shooting
it last year.
Speaker 9 (10:24):
Yeah, I don't. It's more it was more down that
side of the road than the other end.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Thank you, all right. I'm a journalist for the Times.
Would you mind a quick way my brain at the moment. Okay,
an day, I can't work out what's less appealing, an
investigative reporter or the weather. Yeah. Yeah, but eventually I
(10:53):
meet someone who's willing to talk.
Speaker 10 (10:56):
I mean, I was twenty three when I moved off.
I'm seventy four now, got four shield in. I had
no problem whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
They talk a lot about the gangs, don't they in
the shoes?
Speaker 11 (11:06):
Well that's what it's all over, isn't it.
Speaker 10 (11:08):
It's just a few between here over on the other
states and the two estates.
Speaker 11 (11:13):
It's been like that for years?
Speaker 4 (11:15):
How long?
Speaker 11 (11:16):
Oh, I say about fifty years?
Speaker 10 (11:19):
So even when you were Alhen, I moved up here
because I've had a bad name.
Speaker 11 (11:24):
Man, you're not going on the woods here, are you.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
What are these rows about?
Speaker 11 (11:28):
Do you think you know what it's about. I don't
have to say the word, you know, the word drugs.
I'm getting out today.
Speaker 10 (11:36):
Okay, okay, thank you.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Right, So let's have a look at this so called
gang rivalry. The Wood Church of State is less than
two miles from a place called the Beechwood Estate. It's
separated by the M fifty three motorway. The Beachwood was
particularly notorious back in the day. In the early eighties,
it was estimated that one in ten sixteen to twenty
(12:02):
four year olds were heroin addicts. At that time it
was known as the Ford Estate, but it essentially rebranded
to try and distance itself from its troubled past. Now
on the Beechwood and wood Church, it's well known that
the two gangs deal in cocaine and other drugs, and
competition for control of that retail market has led to
(12:25):
years of tip for tat crime, savage beatings, burglaries. In
a violent year on the wood Church estate in twenty
twenty two shootings including a twenty three year old man
shot multiple times in broad daylight on the whole road
in front of children. This is former Detective Superintendent Richard Carr.
(13:00):
These days Richard, as a lecturer at Liverpool John Balls University,
was sitting in a small, white walled room. It feels
like the kind of room where he might start interrogating me.
What made you want to be a police officer?
Speaker 12 (13:15):
Something I always wanted to do? So I started in
industry act So I left school at sixteen, went into
industry for a few years, doing an apprenticeship, and then
joined the police at twenty one in Merseyside in nineteen
eighty seven. There's no policing in my family. I was
going out with a girl at the time. Her dad
was a police officer. He was a detective. So this
(13:37):
is early eighties and things were very different then.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Richard's a tall, gangly chap with short hair and looks
every bit of retired copper. He spent thirty years investigating guns,
gangs and murders in Liverpool and across wider Merseyside in
the mid noughties. He remembers a change.
Speaker 12 (13:56):
For fast forward to two thousand and six or seven.
That's where it became really apparent to me around the
gang culture. What we were seeing was an escalation in
firearms criminality. That was really as a sergeant, my first
exposure to gang criminality.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Around this time a unit called the Matrix was been
set up. Richard was part of it. The Matrix is
famous on Beersey side. It employs some of the toughest
and hardest coppers about. They go in, knock doors down,
slap handcuffs on that kind of stuff. Richard retired from
(14:39):
the police in March twenty seventeen, five years before Ellie's murder,
so if you.
Speaker 12 (14:45):
Get a crime the likes of Ellie Edwards, then there
is a clear drive to respond to that in a
quick and robust way because you want to provide some
reassured us to the public that the police are doing
something about it. Do you want to put those that
are responsible on the back foot. In my experience with
(15:07):
crimes of this nature, it wouldn't be unusual that you may.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
Be doing search warrants at midnight.
Speaker 12 (15:14):
So traditionally you might waite until the early hours, but
if you're trying to keep the pace of things going,
you may do search warrants through the nights to just
try and keep the pace of the investigation going. So
you're looking to try and manage your intelligence, you're looking
to manage your staff, you're looking to try and deploy
your resources, and you're looking to provide.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Gang violence and drug running in the UK is not
unique to Liverpool and Merseyside. Cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham
and Glasgow all have their problems. Liverpool's police force is
regarded as one of the national leaders in tackling gang crime,
being consistently praised by the UK's Police watchdog.
Speaker 12 (15:56):
So Yeah, Merseyside are an outstanding force certainly are out
dealing with this early and they've just been categorized as
the same again for twenty twenty three, which is nice
to see.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And in terms of how the cocaine trade works with
those gangs and the violence between them in mind, how
do you see the cocaine trade operating.
Speaker 12 (16:16):
If you look at a triangle. At the top of
the triangle, you've got the head of the organized crime group.
At the bottom of the triangle, you've got the street
dealers and such. And I've got to say, I'm not
sure how organized some of these groups are. You know,
if you think about it in terms of the issues
the urban street gangs, which are the street level dealers
(16:36):
and the ones that are fighting over territory and maybe
scratching around for sales and aspiring to be crime groups
in their own right, they're protecting their empire and it
generally involves violence.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
So it really dealing.
Speaker 12 (16:51):
With cocaine or drugs, well, generally you're just trying to
tackle that structure.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Gangs like the wood Church estate of money in cocaine terms,
and they're making.
Speaker 12 (17:05):
I'm not so sure they're making as much as you
might think, because if they could elevate themselves.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
They would.
Speaker 12 (17:12):
My assessment is at the street level, lets us blow
that cash.
Speaker 11 (17:19):
My lads, how are you doing?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Back in a mud church estate, I meet a couple
of young lads hanging around on a bench near the
boarded up leisure center. I get chatting to one of them.
Speaker 13 (17:34):
You get used to her. With the stuff that happens
around here. It's always the same stuff though, like all
the shootings and all like the activity and everything with
the police about being about it's just a regular occurrence.
Speaker 9 (17:51):
To be fair.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
We've only been talking for barely a minute, but straight
away he's brought up shootings and the presents. He goes
on to tell me he thinks the violence is mainly
related to reputation rather than business disputes.
Speaker 13 (18:09):
I think more disrespect and then on the money side
as well.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Would you like to go on to Beechwood.
Speaker 13 (18:17):
I'd never go on there because you know what's from
the wood churge. What would happen if you went on,
probably get shot or something, or just hairt or something made.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
That that might sound extreme, paranoid even, but it gives
you a sense of how deep the fault lines go
and the impact it has on everyone young boys and
men feel scared to leave their estate. I have no
reason to believe this teenage was connected to the cocaine trade,
(18:49):
all the gangs in any way. In fact, because he's
openly chatting to me and using his real voice means
he almost certainly isn't. But I'm struck by this idea
that he won't go on to the beach with a State.
Speaker 14 (19:03):
It's crazy evidence just to play.
Speaker 9 (19:07):
You know, where one day someone's windows done, or you
may get arrested. There's something different every single day.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
This is Johnny. That's not his real name. His words
are being spoken by an actor to protect his identity
and also for his safety. He was until recently part
of a gang, but his circumstances have now changed.
Speaker 14 (19:32):
Someone's windows got done on the Ford the State last night.
Speaker 9 (19:36):
Here the body and straight away and there exactly it
would be, and here it was and what it was over.
Speaker 14 (19:44):
This is stuff that's been going on for years.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Johnny's from the Beach with a State, which he still
calls the Ford.
Speaker 9 (19:52):
It's always remembered. If it's a big thing, it gets remembered.
Someoney's name got mentioned day and straight away I remembered
from when I was a kid. He went to jail
when he was eighteen for stabbing someone, and he's late
twenty five now.
Speaker 14 (20:10):
So these sorts of things last forever.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
The rivalway between these gangs has been around for decades,
but technology has created even more problems.
Speaker 14 (20:29):
Social media is the waste it runs the entire world.
Speaker 9 (20:33):
A lot of people that I was friends with were
having argument on social media. People getting embarrassed on social media.
You know these days, if there's a fight gets recorded,
or if five kids are gonna go and jump one lad,
one of them would fill me and then plastered it
(20:54):
all over Snapchat to embarrass the person, and then in
response to that window might get done.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Getting your windows done is slang for deliberately smashed or broken.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
Eviden's just about how do I embarrass them? It's not
about do I hate them? Because you know the point
of doing someone's windows isn't to say you need to
pay for that damage. It's to say, your week, we've
got to do your windows. What are you gonna do
about it?
Speaker 14 (21:30):
It?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Talking to Johnny confirms what Richard Carr, the X copper
told me. The street gangs that make up the retail
arm of the cocaine business aren't really that professional. Actually,
they're pretty disorganized, volatile, and if you're running a business
and looking to make money, that's a problem.
Speaker 8 (21:54):
One of the keys to Apple is Apple's an incredibly
collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple,
No zero.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Take Steve Jobs, the co founder of Apple. Somebody knew
a little bit about running a business and making money.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
They have no committees.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
This is Jobs being interviews at business conference back in
twenty ten.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
We're organized like a startup and we all meet for
three hours once a week and we talk about everything
we're doing, the whole business. And there's tremendous teamwork at
the top of the company, which filters down to tremendous
teamwork throughout the company.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
So that's the secret teamwork, But that depends on having
a team who work together.
Speaker 8 (22:46):
And teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to
come through with their part without watching them all the time.
And we're great at figuring out how to divide things
up into these great teams that we have.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
The challenge then is finding those great people, which has
made much harder if you're in the cocaine business because
it's illegal In some parts of Latin America, drug gangs
were putting out job ads written on blankets, which were
then hung on bridges so the locals could see them.
On those blankets it said things like we offer you
(23:21):
a good salary and food, or we offer benefits, life insurance,
a house for your family and children, a new car
or truck your choice. That might work in Mexico, but
in Merseyside the police are much more likely to notice
something quite so obvious and do something about it. What
(23:46):
we're talking about here is hr human resources, which is
a challenge for any modern business, let alone the cocaine business.
Get it right, employing people you can trust without you
having to watch them, and you can make a fortune.
Get it wrong and you end up with the crucial
(24:07):
part of the cocaine business, the moment when it's sold
to the customer, reliant on some violent, unruly street gang
like those on the wood Church estate, who are likely
to lash out over some embarrassment on Snapchat, and at worst,
the likes of Connor Chapman who shoot up pubs, killing
(24:27):
innocent people, bringing your business to the attention of the police.
Can you remember where you were when you found out
about Ellie Edwards.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, I can. I found out of Ellie's auntie. I
remember when she formed me to tell me what has happened.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I was like, wow, and can you remember what she
said to you?
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I could just remember the tone, and you know when
someone's in shock because you're just getting that monotone and
there's no there's no emotion in it because you're just
stuck in that moment. I just offered support.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
I'm talking with Paul Warmsley.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I used to be a career criminal and was written
as most wanted, but now I helped those who are
struggling to get out of these estates.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Paul is short and stocky. He's warm and friendly, but
also as an intense stare in the air of someone
who you might not want to cross. It's probably because
I know a bit about Paul's past that I feel
this way. In the nineties, he was a successful drug
dealer and by the naughties was making a lot of money.
But in twenty eleven, Paul, who being on the run
(25:52):
hiding out in Costadel Saul in southern Spain, handed himself
in to the police. Dubbed the cost to Crook, Paul
left pras in twenty sixteen unlicense. These days he's a
researcher at Liverpool University as well as participating in various
projects to help young people.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It was a state a students at school. You know,
everyone thought I was going to go and play for
a football club or maybe even go to university. But
I just had None of them thought I was just young,
very naive, obviously stupid and yet never thought I was clever,
never thought I was intelligent, was just living life.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
What made you first get involved in the drugs trade?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I think identity wanted to fit in, wanting to be
one of the lads with father died at an early age,
so you got some attachment issues going on there. And
then it wasn't until I was forty that I was
realized that I was groomed. I just thought these older
lads like me, and he thought I was cool, and
then it's just spidals out of control.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
And just on the wood Church States. There's obviously the
wood Church a state gang which we know about they
dealing drugs. How do you think they work as a business.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So there's a hierarchy, there's a chain where there's a hierarchy.
In a chain, everyone wants to climb. In my experience,
it's very chaotic, and it's in the little pockets of
where you'll get four or five lads who are just
honor and working together. They might have older lads who
(27:34):
are controlling them and feeding them, and them older lads
might have other older lads who maybe don't even live
in the country, who are organizing all that.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do the kids from these estates trust the police?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Some of them do. Don't forget you know we're talking.
It's a minority of these young people who are involved
in gun and gang and violence, and they don't. But
they don't trust anyone. They don't even trust the lads
to work and with never mind trust the police.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Paul went to jail after he was found guilty for
being part of a three point five million pounds heroin plot.
But how much as similar drug deal in groups making today.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
It depends where you are in the scale of things.
It depends what age, what eschel on you're on, Who
runs you, who doesn't run you. Have you got your
own little crew?
Speaker 6 (28:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Have you got your own little thing going do? Is
your ship taste? You know you're running all this and
you know it can go from anything from fifty grand
to I don't know, maybe a couple of mil, maybe
twenty mil, who knows.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
So if you've got two businesses, illegal businesses, side by side,
the wood Church estate is a gang making say a million,
and the Beachwood of state is another drugs gang next
door making a million. Is this a about a hostile
takeover situation where one of those wants to earn two million?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
It could be, but more than likely it won't be.
More than likely to be something stupid. Anything can trigger
a spout of violence and some beef with these young people.
They're making more money is an afterthought. It's saving face,
which is the first thought. It's saving face and reputation.
(29:29):
It's all about the reputation, because if he's from a
deprived area, that's the only thing that's going to make
him any money.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
But despite this perceived need by a lot of these
young men to save face, if they weren't working in
drugs gangs, could they succeed in a more legitimate line
of work.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
It sounds a little bit ridiculous and a little bit
far fetched, but all them skills that are also transferable
into business. Loads of these young people are stute. You
know if he can go and set up a business
at the age of twelve, thirteen, fourteen and have the
goal to do it, and they've got something about them,
But no one's ever told them that they've got a
(30:09):
business sense about them.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
The young ones that get involved in the drugs trade. Yeah,
out of one hundred drug dealers, how many would you say,
in the end get away with it? None? Really?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
None, some way, in some shape or form if you
don't get arrested. Karma plays a role in it.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Let me tell.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
You, you can't go through that life without certain amount
of bad luck, bad juju, or bad karma coming and
just darkening your door.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Because to operate a business like that, I guess you
have to inflict violence.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's what it brings.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
It's what it brings.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
If you dish it out, it will come back in
some way, shape or form.
Speaker 12 (31:05):
So I'm a mid point drug dealer and I am
trying to think of ways that I can make my
criminal money into legitimate money.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Richard car the ex copper. Again, as well as the violence,
another issue for those involved in the cocaine business at
the retail level is how to turn their dirty money
into something cleaner. How do they loander their profits.
Speaker 12 (31:34):
One way of doing that is through businesses that generally
deal in cash, you know, sow your tanning salons, your
fast food outlets, your taxi ranks, so on and so forth.
There will be an element of legitimacy to the business.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Much like the dealing. It starts at street level.
Speaker 6 (31:55):
So for give an example around the tanning salon.
Speaker 12 (31:58):
So I would put someone in that and they get
aways perhaps or they may be part of the group.
But what I want to do is make sure or
give the appearance to the money coming into that salon
is legitimate. And one way of doing that would be
to manipulate the accounts. Their books will say that there
(32:20):
are one hundred customers coming through the tanning salon per day,
all paying three pounds for a tan when the reality
is that there might be one or two. So there's
very small legitimate turnover. Those that are semi legitimate, but
maybe funding criminality and the purchase of drugs through a
semi legitimate business. So they're turning the money over.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
And then after the money has gone into the tanning
salon and it's part of the books and the profits
and the earnings of that business, how do then criminals
access that money.
Speaker 12 (32:55):
Well it's clean, then it can then go into the
banking system, so it become legitimates and it becomes very
difficult then for law enforcement to take acting against that
unless to can prove it.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
So let's take that tanning salon example. Is it possible
for police to keep on top of this?
Speaker 12 (33:15):
So for me to prove a money laundering operation against stars,
one way of doing it would be to have a
couple of police officers sat out on counting people coming
in and coming out.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Does that go on?
Speaker 14 (33:26):
Do you do that?
Speaker 6 (33:27):
Sat outside the addresses? Very rarely. Don't got the resources.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Apart from using tanning salons, fast food outlets, taxi ranks.
How else can you make the money clean? How do
the guys at the top of organizations get the big bucks? Well,
one way of doing it is by feeling a few
suitcases full of millions of pounds in hard cash and
simply carrying it onto a plane to a country where
(33:57):
money laundering rules are very like following the next step
in the cocaine business, I meet a woman who did
just that. She was part of one of the most
audacious cash smuggling operations in UK history. I couldn't believe
how much it was.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I didn't really think it was going to be into
the millions.
Speaker 11 (34:20):
And I thought, what the fuck have I got myself into?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
That's next time on Cocaine Inc.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Cocaine Inc. Is a joint investigation from the Times for
Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters are David Collins,
Steven Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series is produced
by Sam Chanterassak. The executive producers are Will Row and
Dan Box. Audio production and editing is by Jasper Link,
(34:56):
with original music by Tom Burchill. Johnny was voiced by
Alex Whittle. Special thanks to Matt Gibbs at the Carbridge
Center on the wood Church Estate for his assistance with
this episode and if you want to get in touch
with any questions or thoughts on the series, email Cocaine Inc.
At The Times dot co dot uk
Some way, in some shape or form, if you don't
get arrested. Karma plays a role in it. Let me
tell you can go through that life without certain amount
of bad luck, bad ju ju or bad karma coming
and just darkening your door.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Let me take you back to where we started this series.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
They banged on my door, then got me up powder
and they opened the doors. So you said it was early.
We need to go the gospel.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
The brutal murder of a twenty six year old woman
called Ellie Edwards, who was just standing outside a pub
on Christmas Eve. Ellie was wholly innocent, caught in the
crossfire of a conflict between two local gangs. She was
shot dead by Connor Chapman, a twenty two year old
low level cocaine.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Dealer, the very first day of the trial. He walked
into the courtroom. Within twenty minutes, he never looked at
me again because he's just a coward.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Now, my colleague David Collins is retracing Chapman's steps.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
So I'm just driving Pastor and Asda, about to turn
onto wood Church Estate and cross into what feels like
a bit of an invisible line into an estate which
is the central kind of hob for one of the
most dangerous gangs operating right now in Britain, which is
(01:50):
the wood Church Estate Gang.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
The wood Church Estate is where Chapman grew up. It's
a few kilometers from Liverpool City center on the Wirral Peninsula.
Around eleven thousand people call the wood Church home. The
majority they're honest, hard working, many of them families.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I can see kind of small masonets, small terraced houses.
It feels to me at the moment quite typical of
a lot of housing estates in towns and cities across England,
slightly run down.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
This estate is also a retail hard for the cocaine business.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
It's strange to think, as I'm driving through this estate,
which feels quite peaceful at the moment, that it is
the epicenter of one of Britain's most brutal and bloody
gang wars. In some of these houses may well be
(02:55):
the weapons. The guns, the scorpion guns that are used
have been used by the wood Church Estate Gang.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Ellie's killing took place in December twenty twenty two. A
few months earlier, another innocent young woman, Ashley Dale, was
at home in Liverpool when her front door was forced open.
The intruders were looking for a man from a rival
gang her boyfriend. He wasn't home, so instead they murdered
(03:27):
Ashley with a Scorpion submachine gun, the same kind of
high powered weapon as the one Chapman used to kill Ellie.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
She ran for her life into the dining room in
a desperate attempt to reach the back door, Bullet markings
left embedded in the walls and on the floor.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
The next day, again in Liverpool, a man pushed his
way into the home of a stranger to escape another
man shooting at him. The gunman shot at the front door,
the bullet missed. The man passed through the wrist of
the woman blocking the door and straight into the chest
of her daughter, Olivia prat Corbel, killing her. She was
(04:12):
just nine years old.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
The murder of Olivia has rocked our communities, who are
quite rightly upset and outraged that such an abhorrent crime
has occurred here on the streets of Merseyside.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
These three deaths, they were unrelated, but they did have
something in common. The victims were all collateral damage in
the conflict between gangs who between them have divided up
and fight over the local drug market because it's here
on Merseyside, thousands of kilometers from the coker fields of
(04:51):
Columbia and six hundred kilometers from the huge port of
Rotterdam where tons of cocaine are shipped into Europe. That
the next stage the global business plays out, the retail
operation where cocaine is bought and sold by street dealers
who live in the same parts of town as Ellie Ashley,
Olivia and other innocent people like me or you. I'm
(05:23):
Fiona Hamilton and from The Times, The Sunday Times and
News Corp Australia. This is Cocaine Inc. Episode five, the
wood Church Estate. Okay, it's worth looking at where we've
(05:46):
got to in our investigation, working in a team with
three reporters, myself, David Collins from The Sunday Times in
the UK and Stephen Drill from News Corp Australia, exploring
how the cocaine trade works as a business. Steven's been
in Columbia and Mexico looking at the production and supply
(06:08):
roots of the drug.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
Eight hundred kilograms in the ceiling of two containers.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
As well as how the first cartels grew from small
scales smuggling outfits into a multinational, billion dollar operation.
Speaker 7 (06:29):
The Medigan Catel changed everything in the cocaine business. They
were the first to industrialize the process, shipping and flying
cocaine vast quantities out of the country, according.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
To American officials, controlling as much as eighty percent of
the world supply.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I went to Europe's largest port, Rotterdam, which functions as
a logistics hub in which shipping containers filled with cocaine
moved through a global distribution network.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
They need somebody from inter for health information. You see
corruption everywhere.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Now David is back where we started, in the north
of England, where cocaine is sold on the streets and
near where Ellie Edwards was murdered. A bit of background.
The wood Church estate is the largest housing estate on
the Wirral, but many here feel like they've just been
(07:28):
left behind. Local news reports say economic cuts and a
lack of opportunities mean children and teenagers in the area
are simply left with little to do and that creates
a vacuum and it certainly creates a problem. Now you
might be thinking that because Liverpool is a port city,
(07:48):
this is where the coke comes in, but actually surprisingly
little does. When the coke leaves Rotterdam, for example, in
shipping containers, it makes the short journey across the English
Channel to the UK's southern coast. Usually it gets loaded
onto lorries and distributed to the major cities like Manchester,
London and Liverpool where gangs receive the drugs. They sell
(08:13):
it on the streets of Merseyside or distribute it to
nearby smaller towns and rural areas. What David wants to
find out is how does this part of the cocaine
business run, How do the gangs involve turn a profit
and what happens to that money.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's a wet, windy autumn day that The center of
the estate is the main road that runs through the
wood Church. It's called the Whole Road and known by
everyone in the area. On it there's a small supermarket,
a pharmacy, a betting shop and a chippy. In recent years,
the police have put in what they call a Public
(08:55):
Spaces Protection Order. What this means is that anyone who
was in a group of two or more around these
shops between three pm and ten pm must leave when
asked to do so by the police. There's a list
of other things you can't do, such as racing bikes, scooters,
wearing anything to disguise your face, or drinking alcohol. It
(09:18):
sounds pretty repressive and it's designed specifically to tackle gangs.
And it's because in twenty twenty two the Woodchurch suffered
a year of extreme violence. There were four separate shootings
in or around the estate, all young men caught in
gang related crossfire. More broadly, on the Wirral, in the
(09:39):
last six months of twenty twenty three, police launched the
Coordinated Operation to clear out gang activity. They made seven
hundred and twenty two arrests, seizing crossbows, knives, drugs and
more than thirty eight pounds in cash. I want to
know what it's like to live in an area with
(09:59):
this going on. I go to one of the roads
on the estate where there was a shooting in twenty
twenty two. So it's boys. I'm from the Times newspaper.
(10:20):
I'm doing a podcast. You know there was a shooting
it last year.
Speaker 9 (10:24):
Yeah, I don't. It's more it was more down that
side of the road than the other end.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Thank you, all right. I'm a journalist for the Times.
Would you mind a quick way my brain at the moment. Okay,
an day, I can't work out what's less appealing, an
investigative reporter or the weather. Yeah. Yeah, but eventually I
(10:53):
meet someone who's willing to talk.
Speaker 10 (10:56):
I mean, I was twenty three when I moved off.
I'm seventy four now, got four shield in. I had
no problem whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
They talk a lot about the gangs, don't they in
the shoes?
Speaker 11 (11:06):
Well that's what it's all over, isn't it.
Speaker 10 (11:08):
It's just a few between here over on the other
states and the two estates.
Speaker 11 (11:13):
It's been like that for years?
Speaker 4 (11:15):
How long?
Speaker 11 (11:16):
Oh, I say about fifty years?
Speaker 10 (11:19):
So even when you were Alhen, I moved up here
because I've had a bad name.
Speaker 11 (11:24):
Man, you're not going on the woods here, are you.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
What are these rows about?
Speaker 11 (11:28):
Do you think you know what it's about. I don't
have to say the word, you know, the word drugs.
I'm getting out today.
Speaker 10 (11:36):
Okay, okay, thank you.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Right, So let's have a look at this so called
gang rivalry. The Wood Church of State is less than
two miles from a place called the Beechwood Estate. It's
separated by the M fifty three motorway. The Beachwood was
particularly notorious back in the day. In the early eighties,
it was estimated that one in ten sixteen to twenty
(12:02):
four year olds were heroin addicts. At that time it
was known as the Ford Estate, but it essentially rebranded
to try and distance itself from its troubled past. Now
on the Beechwood and wood Church, it's well known that
the two gangs deal in cocaine and other drugs, and
competition for control of that retail market has led to
(12:25):
years of tip for tat crime, savage beatings, burglaries. In
a violent year on the wood Church estate in twenty
twenty two shootings including a twenty three year old man
shot multiple times in broad daylight on the whole road
in front of children. This is former Detective Superintendent Richard Carr.
(13:00):
These days Richard, as a lecturer at Liverpool John Balls University,
was sitting in a small, white walled room. It feels
like the kind of room where he might start interrogating me.
What made you want to be a police officer?
Speaker 12 (13:15):
Something I always wanted to do? So I started in
industry act So I left school at sixteen, went into
industry for a few years, doing an apprenticeship, and then
joined the police at twenty one in Merseyside in nineteen
eighty seven. There's no policing in my family. I was
going out with a girl at the time. Her dad
was a police officer. He was a detective. So this
(13:37):
is early eighties and things were very different then.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Richard's a tall, gangly chap with short hair and looks
every bit of retired copper. He spent thirty years investigating guns,
gangs and murders in Liverpool and across wider Merseyside in
the mid noughties. He remembers a change.
Speaker 12 (13:56):
For fast forward to two thousand and six or seven.
That's where it became really apparent to me around the
gang culture. What we were seeing was an escalation in
firearms criminality. That was really as a sergeant, my first
exposure to gang criminality.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Around this time a unit called the Matrix was been
set up. Richard was part of it. The Matrix is
famous on Beersey side. It employs some of the toughest
and hardest coppers about. They go in, knock doors down,
slap handcuffs on that kind of stuff. Richard retired from
(14:39):
the police in March twenty seventeen, five years before Ellie's murder,
so if you.
Speaker 12 (14:45):
Get a crime the likes of Ellie Edwards, then there
is a clear drive to respond to that in a
quick and robust way because you want to provide some
reassured us to the public that the police are doing
something about it. Do you want to put those that
are responsible on the back foot. In my experience with
(15:07):
crimes of this nature, it wouldn't be unusual that you may.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
Be doing search warrants at midnight.
Speaker 12 (15:14):
So traditionally you might waite until the early hours, but
if you're trying to keep the pace of things going,
you may do search warrants through the nights to just
try and keep the pace of the investigation going. So
you're looking to try and manage your intelligence, you're looking
to manage your staff, you're looking to try and deploy
your resources, and you're looking to provide.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Gang violence and drug running in the UK is not
unique to Liverpool and Merseyside. Cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham
and Glasgow all have their problems. Liverpool's police force is
regarded as one of the national leaders in tackling gang crime,
being consistently praised by the UK's Police watchdog.
Speaker 12 (15:56):
So Yeah, Merseyside are an outstanding force certainly are out
dealing with this early and they've just been categorized as
the same again for twenty twenty three, which is nice
to see.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And in terms of how the cocaine trade works with
those gangs and the violence between them in mind, how
do you see the cocaine trade operating.
Speaker 12 (16:16):
If you look at a triangle. At the top of
the triangle, you've got the head of the organized crime group.
At the bottom of the triangle, you've got the street
dealers and such. And I've got to say, I'm not
sure how organized some of these groups are. You know,
if you think about it in terms of the issues
the urban street gangs, which are the street level dealers
(16:36):
and the ones that are fighting over territory and maybe
scratching around for sales and aspiring to be crime groups
in their own right, they're protecting their empire and it
generally involves violence.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
So it really dealing.
Speaker 12 (16:51):
With cocaine or drugs, well, generally you're just trying to
tackle that structure.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Gangs like the wood Church estate of money in cocaine terms,
and they're making.
Speaker 12 (17:05):
I'm not so sure they're making as much as you
might think, because if they could elevate themselves.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
They would.
Speaker 12 (17:12):
My assessment is at the street level, lets us blow
that cash.
Speaker 11 (17:19):
My lads, how are you doing?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Back in a mud church estate, I meet a couple
of young lads hanging around on a bench near the
boarded up leisure center. I get chatting to one of them.
Speaker 13 (17:34):
You get used to her. With the stuff that happens
around here. It's always the same stuff though, like all
the shootings and all like the activity and everything with
the police about being about it's just a regular occurrence.
Speaker 9 (17:51):
To be fair.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
We've only been talking for barely a minute, but straight
away he's brought up shootings and the presents. He goes
on to tell me he thinks the violence is mainly
related to reputation rather than business disputes.
Speaker 13 (18:09):
I think more disrespect and then on the money side
as well.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Would you like to go on to Beechwood.
Speaker 13 (18:17):
I'd never go on there because you know what's from
the wood churge. What would happen if you went on,
probably get shot or something, or just hairt or something made.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
That that might sound extreme, paranoid even, but it gives
you a sense of how deep the fault lines go
and the impact it has on everyone young boys and
men feel scared to leave their estate. I have no
reason to believe this teenage was connected to the cocaine trade,
(18:49):
all the gangs in any way. In fact, because he's
openly chatting to me and using his real voice means
he almost certainly isn't. But I'm struck by this idea
that he won't go on to the beach with a State.
Speaker 14 (19:03):
It's crazy evidence just to play.
Speaker 9 (19:07):
You know, where one day someone's windows done, or you
may get arrested. There's something different every single day.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
This is Johnny. That's not his real name. His words
are being spoken by an actor to protect his identity
and also for his safety. He was until recently part
of a gang, but his circumstances have now changed.
Speaker 14 (19:32):
Someone's windows got done on the Ford the State last night.
Speaker 9 (19:36):
Here the body and straight away and there exactly it
would be, and here it was and what it was over.
Speaker 14 (19:44):
This is stuff that's been going on for years.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Johnny's from the Beach with a State, which he still
calls the Ford.
Speaker 9 (19:52):
It's always remembered. If it's a big thing, it gets remembered.
Someoney's name got mentioned day and straight away I remembered
from when I was a kid. He went to jail
when he was eighteen for stabbing someone, and he's late
twenty five now.
Speaker 14 (20:10):
So these sorts of things last forever.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
The rivalway between these gangs has been around for decades,
but technology has created even more problems.
Speaker 14 (20:29):
Social media is the waste it runs the entire world.
Speaker 9 (20:33):
A lot of people that I was friends with were
having argument on social media. People getting embarrassed on social media.
You know these days, if there's a fight gets recorded,
or if five kids are gonna go and jump one lad,
one of them would fill me and then plastered it
(20:54):
all over Snapchat to embarrass the person, and then in
response to that window might get done.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Getting your windows done is slang for deliberately smashed or broken.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
Eviden's just about how do I embarrass them? It's not
about do I hate them? Because you know the point
of doing someone's windows isn't to say you need to
pay for that damage. It's to say, your week, we've
got to do your windows. What are you gonna do
about it?
Speaker 14 (21:30):
It?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Talking to Johnny confirms what Richard Carr, the X copper
told me. The street gangs that make up the retail
arm of the cocaine business aren't really that professional. Actually,
they're pretty disorganized, volatile, and if you're running a business
and looking to make money, that's a problem.
Speaker 8 (21:54):
One of the keys to Apple is Apple's an incredibly
collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple,
No zero.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Take Steve Jobs, the co founder of Apple. Somebody knew
a little bit about running a business and making money.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
They have no committees.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
This is Jobs being interviews at business conference back in
twenty ten.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
We're organized like a startup and we all meet for
three hours once a week and we talk about everything
we're doing, the whole business. And there's tremendous teamwork at
the top of the company, which filters down to tremendous
teamwork throughout the company.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
So that's the secret teamwork, But that depends on having
a team who work together.
Speaker 8 (22:46):
And teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to
come through with their part without watching them all the time.
And we're great at figuring out how to divide things
up into these great teams that we have.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
The challenge then is finding those great people, which has
made much harder if you're in the cocaine business because
it's illegal In some parts of Latin America, drug gangs
were putting out job ads written on blankets, which were
then hung on bridges so the locals could see them.
On those blankets it said things like we offer you
(23:21):
a good salary and food, or we offer benefits, life insurance,
a house for your family and children, a new car
or truck your choice. That might work in Mexico, but
in Merseyside the police are much more likely to notice
something quite so obvious and do something about it. What
(23:46):
we're talking about here is hr human resources, which is
a challenge for any modern business, let alone the cocaine business.
Get it right, employing people you can trust without you
having to watch them, and you can make a fortune.
Get it wrong and you end up with the crucial
(24:07):
part of the cocaine business, the moment when it's sold
to the customer, reliant on some violent, unruly street gang
like those on the wood Church estate, who are likely
to lash out over some embarrassment on Snapchat, and at worst,
the likes of Connor Chapman who shoot up pubs, killing
(24:27):
innocent people, bringing your business to the attention of the police.
Can you remember where you were when you found out
about Ellie Edwards.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, I can. I found out of Ellie's auntie. I
remember when she formed me to tell me what has happened.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I was like, wow, and can you remember what she
said to you?
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I could just remember the tone, and you know when
someone's in shock because you're just getting that monotone and
there's no there's no emotion in it because you're just
stuck in that moment. I just offered support.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
I'm talking with Paul Warmsley.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I used to be a career criminal and was written
as most wanted, but now I helped those who are
struggling to get out of these estates.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Paul is short and stocky. He's warm and friendly, but
also as an intense stare in the air of someone
who you might not want to cross. It's probably because
I know a bit about Paul's past that I feel
this way. In the nineties, he was a successful drug
dealer and by the naughties was making a lot of money.
But in twenty eleven, Paul, who being on the run
(25:52):
hiding out in Costadel Saul in southern Spain, handed himself
in to the police. Dubbed the cost to Crook, Paul
left pras in twenty sixteen unlicense. These days he's a
researcher at Liverpool University as well as participating in various
projects to help young people.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It was a state a students at school. You know,
everyone thought I was going to go and play for
a football club or maybe even go to university. But
I just had None of them thought I was just young,
very naive, obviously stupid and yet never thought I was clever,
never thought I was intelligent, was just living life.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
What made you first get involved in the drugs trade?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I think identity wanted to fit in, wanting to be
one of the lads with father died at an early age,
so you got some attachment issues going on there. And
then it wasn't until I was forty that I was
realized that I was groomed. I just thought these older
lads like me, and he thought I was cool, and
then it's just spidals out of control.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
And just on the wood Church States. There's obviously the
wood Church a state gang which we know about they
dealing drugs. How do you think they work as a business.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So there's a hierarchy, there's a chain where there's a hierarchy.
In a chain, everyone wants to climb. In my experience,
it's very chaotic, and it's in the little pockets of
where you'll get four or five lads who are just
honor and working together. They might have older lads who
(27:34):
are controlling them and feeding them, and them older lads
might have other older lads who maybe don't even live
in the country, who are organizing all that.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do the kids from these estates trust the police?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Some of them do. Don't forget you know we're talking.
It's a minority of these young people who are involved
in gun and gang and violence, and they don't. But
they don't trust anyone. They don't even trust the lads
to work and with never mind trust the police.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Paul went to jail after he was found guilty for
being part of a three point five million pounds heroin plot.
But how much as similar drug deal in groups making today.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
It depends where you are in the scale of things.
It depends what age, what eschel on you're on, Who
runs you, who doesn't run you. Have you got your
own little crew?
Speaker 6 (28:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Have you got your own little thing going do? Is
your ship taste? You know you're running all this and
you know it can go from anything from fifty grand
to I don't know, maybe a couple of mil, maybe
twenty mil, who knows.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
So if you've got two businesses, illegal businesses, side by side,
the wood Church estate is a gang making say a million,
and the Beachwood of state is another drugs gang next
door making a million. Is this a about a hostile
takeover situation where one of those wants to earn two million?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
It could be, but more than likely it won't be.
More than likely to be something stupid. Anything can trigger
a spout of violence and some beef with these young people.
They're making more money is an afterthought. It's saving face,
which is the first thought. It's saving face and reputation.
(29:29):
It's all about the reputation, because if he's from a
deprived area, that's the only thing that's going to make
him any money.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
But despite this perceived need by a lot of these
young men to save face, if they weren't working in
drugs gangs, could they succeed in a more legitimate line
of work.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
It sounds a little bit ridiculous and a little bit
far fetched, but all them skills that are also transferable
into business. Loads of these young people are stute. You
know if he can go and set up a business
at the age of twelve, thirteen, fourteen and have the
goal to do it, and they've got something about them,
But no one's ever told them that they've got a
(30:09):
business sense about them.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
The young ones that get involved in the drugs trade. Yeah,
out of one hundred drug dealers, how many would you say,
in the end get away with it? None? Really?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
None, some way, in some shape or form if you
don't get arrested. Karma plays a role in it.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Let me tell.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
You, you can't go through that life without certain amount
of bad luck, bad juju, or bad karma coming and
just darkening your door.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Because to operate a business like that, I guess you
have to inflict violence.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's what it brings.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
It's what it brings.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
If you dish it out, it will come back in
some way, shape or form.
Speaker 12 (31:05):
So I'm a mid point drug dealer and I am
trying to think of ways that I can make my
criminal money into legitimate money.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Richard car the ex copper. Again, as well as the violence,
another issue for those involved in the cocaine business at
the retail level is how to turn their dirty money
into something cleaner. How do they loander their profits.
Speaker 12 (31:34):
One way of doing that is through businesses that generally
deal in cash, you know, sow your tanning salons, your
fast food outlets, your taxi ranks, so on and so forth.
There will be an element of legitimacy to the business.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Much like the dealing. It starts at street level.
Speaker 6 (31:55):
So for give an example around the tanning salon.
Speaker 12 (31:58):
So I would put someone in that and they get
aways perhaps or they may be part of the group.
But what I want to do is make sure or
give the appearance to the money coming into that salon
is legitimate. And one way of doing that would be
to manipulate the accounts. Their books will say that there
(32:20):
are one hundred customers coming through the tanning salon per day,
all paying three pounds for a tan when the reality
is that there might be one or two. So there's
very small legitimate turnover. Those that are semi legitimate, but
maybe funding criminality and the purchase of drugs through a
semi legitimate business. So they're turning the money over.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
And then after the money has gone into the tanning
salon and it's part of the books and the profits
and the earnings of that business, how do then criminals
access that money.
Speaker 12 (32:55):
Well it's clean, then it can then go into the
banking system, so it become legitimates and it becomes very
difficult then for law enforcement to take acting against that
unless to can prove it.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
So let's take that tanning salon example. Is it possible
for police to keep on top of this?
Speaker 12 (33:15):
So for me to prove a money laundering operation against stars,
one way of doing it would be to have a
couple of police officers sat out on counting people coming
in and coming out.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Does that go on?
Speaker 14 (33:26):
Do you do that?
Speaker 6 (33:27):
Sat outside the addresses? Very rarely. Don't got the resources.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Apart from using tanning salons, fast food outlets, taxi ranks.
How else can you make the money clean? How do
the guys at the top of organizations get the big bucks? Well,
one way of doing it is by feeling a few
suitcases full of millions of pounds in hard cash and
simply carrying it onto a plane to a country where
(33:57):
money laundering rules are very like following the next step
in the cocaine business, I meet a woman who did
just that. She was part of one of the most
audacious cash smuggling operations in UK history. I couldn't believe
how much it was.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I didn't really think it was going to be into
the millions.
Speaker 11 (34:20):
And I thought, what the fuck have I got myself into?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
That's next time on Cocaine Inc.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Cocaine Inc. Is a joint investigation from the Times for
Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters are David Collins,
Steven Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series is produced
by Sam Chanterassak. The executive producers are Will Row and
Dan Box. Audio production and editing is by Jasper Link,
(34:56):
with original music by Tom Burchill. Johnny was voiced by
Alex Whittle. Special thanks to Matt Gibbs at the Carbridge
Center on the wood Church Estate for his assistance with
this episode and if you want to get in touch
with any questions or thoughts on the series, email Cocaine Inc.
At The Times dot co dot uk
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