Gangbuster (3 page)

A
force nine gale was sending waves crashing over the two vessels as they nudged closer together in the Atlantic, 600 miles off Portugal, to offload a massive £25 million cargo of cannabis resin. The navigational skills of the two skippers couldn’t prevent the terrifying clash of metal on metal as they were finally thrown together. The crews were undeterred by the danger, for those in peril on the sea had chosen to be there as part of the world’s biggest cannabis smuggling ring – except two. They were undercover detectives, and probably the bravest men I ever worked with.

We were involved in one of the most amazing undercover operations of all time, on land and sea, pitted against a drugs gang whose army of traffickers would have required a dozen stickers on a world map, from Britain to Croatia, to Holland, to Canada.
Venezuela, France, Spain and beyond. This was Operation Dash, a combined venture by law enforcement agencies triggered off by a South East Regional Crime Squad surveillance on an old-time villain looking to pull off one last big job before he retired.

It all went wrong for Bobby Mills and his cronies when the entire haul of 6.5 tons of high-grade hash was snatched from under their noses in a combined operation by the police in six countries, Customs, and Royal Navy. It was the first time, in fact, that British Naval vessels had been used to round up drug smugglers on the high seas.

I was on secondment from SO10 to the SERCS office in Tottenham Court Road in 1993 when we received an underworld tip-off that Bobby Mills was ‘at it’ again. I say again because Mills was already in prison serving ten years for exactly the same crime, smuggling puff in huge quantities into the UK. He’d been a good boy inside and had been transferred towards the end of his sentence to HMP Latchmere House, on Ham Common, near Richmond, Surrey, as part of a resettlement programme. He was allowed out on a daily basis to ‘reintegrate’ into society and get used to returning to the routine of work. Or that was the idea. Mills had managed to get a friend of his, as most of them do, to say that he was going to be offered employment when he left jail. The authorities allowed him out in the morning and back at night. But Bobby Mills was never intending to work. He was busy sorting out a major league cannabis importation that he reckoned would set him up financially for the rest of his life. Mills became our number-one target. He was the key to bigger things. We were discreetly watching
him as he toddled off daily to his non-existent job.

We discovered he was working in cahoots with a world-renowned international drug-dealer called Marc Feviet, a Frenchman, and a Sicilian Mafia figure called Locatelli who was known to be involved with Columbian-organised crime gangs. Our surveillance work stretched from weeks into months. The unmistakable message was simple: something really big was on the go. Finally our intelligence network picked up the information we needed; the job was to be the biggest-ever shipment of cannabis into a South of England port. It was to be picked up in the Atlantic from a ‘mother ship’ operated by an international drugs cartel. The 1,000-ton vessel, called
Poseidon,
was fitted with state-of-the-art navigational systems and satellite communications. In effect, it was a floating warehouse from which the world’s drug-dealers could buy their supplies. That is, if they liked a sea trip and had the bottle to brave the Atlantic ocean at its most unpredictable.
Poseidon
operated solely in international waters. No cosy handovers in the calm of coastal waters. She returned to port only to re-stock with more drugs, normally in Morocco. The gang were dealing in tons of the stuff on a wholesale basis. Ganja galore; Spliffs ‘R’ Us.

Our intelligence network gained a major breakthrough when we discovered Mills and his associates were looking to hire a boat, plus crew, to make a trip out to
Poseidon
to pick up 6.5 tons of hash for distribution to UK dealers. The boat would sail out to meet the
Poseidon
at a given point off the Portuguese coast and ferry its valuable cargo back to a British port under cover of darkness. A chance, at last, to infiltrate the very heart of this huge cannabis
conglomerate. Step aboard SO10. Undercover operators required.

I was up for it but had to admit I hadn’t the best sea legs and would throw up on a cross channel booze cruise let alone hack it against an Atlantic storm. My guv’nor decided I wasn’t crew material, not through a queasy tummy but because I’d been involved in the protracted surveillance operation watching suspects in bars and hotels and my face might trigger alarm bells. We couldn’t risk it. Although I’d never spoken to any of them and had worked in various disguises, my face might have registered with one of them thinking, I know that bloke from somewhere. Maybe I’d moved up close in a bar trying to hear a conversation or followed someone into the gents to see if a meet was going on. It was decided the undercovers on the boat would need to be guys who’d had no contact at all with the suspects. I was disappointed in a way because I knew we were hitting big-time operators and the drug haul was going to be massive. But professionally, it made sense for me to stay with the land-based team.

We had two blokes among the SO10 ranks who were suitably qualified for the maritime mission on the pick-up vessel. As part of their training schedule they had been sent on specialist courses to acquire nautical skills. One had a skipper’s licence, the other seagoing skills which would equip him to handle pretty well any crisis, all part of SO10’s rigorous training programme paid for by Scotland Yard in the ever-expanding and diverse battle against crime. We had people trained in anything from armaments to accounting ready to swing into action at a moment’s notice. Even against the mighty Atlantic. Once we knew the gangsters were looking for a boat and a crew we were able to effect the
introduction of our undercovers, two of the bravest cops I’ve ever met. Mick, whose surname must stay secret, was the potential skipper. He was a guy I had the utmost respect for, personally and professionally. His skill and courage were unquestioned. Hard as nails, dedicated to the job. Through the contacts we had made with unsuspecting gang members, we arranged the hire of a British-registered fishing trawler for the Atlantic voyage. I can’t say where or how this was done because they still use the same methods against drug smugglers. But one thing was for sure about our little boat. This would be its biggest catch.

The surveillance and intelligence-gathering had by now gone on for over eight painstaking months. Tension mounted as we neared the time for Operation Dash to be launched in the hope of smashing the world’s biggest drugs syndicate right out of the water. We followed the suspects, we photograped them, we logged our evidence in mounting dossiers. Our units were fed information by international police units on the movements of the two big players, Feviet and Locatelli. These were master international criminals with a lifestyle to match, flying in and out of Britain and half-a-dozen other countries – Canada, France, Italy, Spain, you name it –
they had contacts there as part of their crooked enterprises. They lived high on the hog in the process with only the best hotels and restaurants good enough for their lavish tastes.

By now the three key members – Mills, Locatelli and Feviet – were having regular meetings in London. We watched them having dinner one evening at a five-star hotel in Mayfair and with a hastily acquired search warrant decided to give their room a spin. Feviet had booked in and the other two had joined him there – it
was a perfect opportunity to look for incriminating evidence. We desperately needed pointers to exactly where the big drugs trade was due to take place. We had undercover guys in the restaurant watching the suspects stuff their faces, appearing to be casual diners as well, but in secret radio communication, watching every move the drug barons made, ready to warn the search teams if they looked in danger of returning suddenly to the room, or even if they just stood up and walked out for a piss.

The search squad hit the room running, knowing it was a race against time to get in and get away. First in was the Polaroid Man. It was his job to move round the room taking instant stills of everything that was likely to be rummaged. Vital because we had to make sure that every single item was replaced exactly as the suspects had left it, not even a millimeter out. This was the sort of detail that made SO10 the best in the world at this kind of thing. After the Polaroid Man had taken his snaps, the gloved-up search teams swung into action. Drawers, cupboards, desks, cases, clothing – we searched every inch. Then we found the shipping charts. Great evidence which told us where the Atlantic exchange would take place; plane tickets told us where they had been flying to and from, hoping it would point to the source nation for the cannabis. We found fantastic first-class evidence which reinforced our belief that we were dealing with the foremost cannabis gang in the world.

With the maritime charts, we were now able to play our ace card – the trip out to
Poseidon.
The Royal Navy were put on standby, with ministerial consent, to shadow the entire operation and seize the
Poseidon.
Every scrap of evidence we found was photographed
on conventional film for the evidence file. Then we put everything back where it was when we started, using the Polaroid shots to ensure 100 per cent accuracy. ‘Move that curtain to the left a bit, the suitcase to the right a bit. Yes, that’s it, spot on.’ All the time, we had our covert earpieces tuned in to the guys downstairs in the restaurant watching the suspects. At one point, Feviet got up from the table to go to the bog. Fucking panic stations upstairs. Shit, was he coming up to the room? Heart-stopping stuff. No, just a piss.

Just in case of a potential disaster, we also had undercover guys in hotel livery ready to delay the lifts with baggage trolleys to give us space to get out. Seconds could be vital. But no problems, thank God. Our teams were in and out like ghosts without Feviet and Co ever knowing we’d been there.

It was nearing D-Day for
Poseidon
and our little fishing trawler. Mick, and another SO10 stalwart, Paul, had been accepted as skipper and crewman for the harrowing trip into the wild Atlantic. A couple of equally courageous Customs investigators had also managed to get aboard as decides. The rest of the crew were UK drug-dealers off on a shopping trip to a floating cannabis supermarket.

The trawler left a South Coast port on a cold and blustery day in early November 1993 for its rendezvous with
Poseidon,
which was sitting in a huge Atlantic swell off Portugal. She had been bought by the drugs cartel specifically for the purpose of large-scale
drug-trafficking
, registered under a flag of convenience in the British Virgin Islands, and fitted out with no expense having been spared on equipment and comfort. A considerable upgrade in some respects on her previous life as a somewhat battered remnant of
the German Navy.

By the time our boat had battled its way out to the mother ship, on precise compass bearings given by the master of the
Poseidon,
gales had churned the sea into a terrifying turbulence that was going to make the transfer of the cannabis bales from one ship to another – known as coopering – a hazardous and frightening job. The game plan had been to transfer the entire cargo, packed into dozens of multi-coloured, polythene-wrapped bales, on to the trawler and sail straight back to Littlehampton. But because the sea was now so rough, the hired crane on the
Poseidon
had broken and the crews were left with no alternative but to haul the bales manually from one ship to the other. They started by using a rigid inflatable boat called a rib, which was part of
Poseidon
’s
equipment, to transfer it load by load across a 20-yard expanse of raging ocean. But it began filling up with water as waves crashed over it and the maneouvre was deemed too dangerous to continue, for both men and cargo. Crewman were needed on board the rib to guide it to the pitching trawler and back. Lives could be lost. Cannabis could be lost.

A hurried decision was made to abandon the seaborne transfer after a couple of largely abortive runs and to move on to plan B, the even riskier option of moving the two vessels side by side and physically hauling the cannabis bales from the
Poseidon
’s
deck over the side on to the trawler’s deck. Despite the stomach-churning crunches as the two boats smashed together under the pressure of the waves they managed to offload 2.7 tons of hash. The vessels repeatedly banged together, with the bigger
Poseidon
in serious danger of sinking the smaller fishing boat with,
potentially, a dreadful loss of life, including two undercover coppers and two Customs men. Their very presence was bravery of the highest order and the drama still sends as much of a chill down my spine today as it did when those guys first told me about it at the debriefing in 1993. Under the circumstances, there was no alternative but to abandon phase 2 as well. Less than half the cargo had been shifted. The weather was worsening and it was time to head home. The trawler set a course for quiet Littlehampton in Sussex – the port designated by Bobby Mills – and battled against boiling seas for three or four days before it reached safety. It was shadowed throughout by a Customs cutter sitting discreetly out of sight on its tail.

The
Poseidon,
meanwhile, with the remaining 3.8 tons of cannabis still on board, was being watched by two Royal Naval vessels, equally invisible out there in the vast Atlantic. It was, I believe, the first time the Navy had sanctiond the use of such powerful ships against drug smugglers in international waters. Their job was to keep tabs on the
Poseidon
until after our reception committee in Littlehampton had surprised the drug-runners with a quayside ambush. Then they would move in for the kill.

We’d prepared quite a homecoming. We’d identified the yard on the River Arun where the cannabis would be unloaded. We’d also identified several UK drug dealers who were planning to be there to pick up their share of the dope. I’d been delegated by DI Chris Jameson to lead a team of four blokes to spearhead the ambush. It was a fantastic operation.