Cocaine Confidential

by Clarkson, Wensley

  At one stage in the mid-1990s, Ronnie claims he had to ‘do’ a couple of smalltime dealers on his manor near Puerto Banus, who were trying to muscle in on his coke trafficking business. ‘Stupid bastards tried to undercut my trafficking fees. I warned them to go away but they underestimated the strength in depth of my team.’

  Ronnie declined to say if those smalltime smugglers were still alive today.

  ‘Let’s just say I never saw ’em again.’

  Ronnie then deftly changes the subject by explaining to me how the coke travels from South America through the European hub of Rotterdam in Holland or via West Africa, where Colombians have started turning some poverty-stricken nations into their personal cocaine fiefdoms.

  ‘Back in the old days I got on fine with the Colombians and Mexicans but these days they tend to stay in the shadows. Mind you, we’re all a bit paranoid about police listening devices and stuff like that. It’s a Big Brother society we live in today, which means it’s quite tricky to make phone calls or write emails without someone, somewhere monitoring what you’re up to.’

  Ronnie has nothing but praise for the Colombians, though. ‘They are polite, superbly well organised and extremely tough but they are decent, if you don’t upset ’em. In the old days you knew they wouldn’t rip you off as long as you didn’t rip them off, which is fair enough.

  ‘I’m not surprised they’ve started to use West Africa as a shipment point now, though. It’s been on the cards for years. Those countries need money from anyone and the Colombians know how to spread it all around and get full loyalty from the locals. They are past masters at it.’

  But Ronnie’s main priority is the ‘coke business’ he runs from southern Spain. ‘Thank gawd the white stuff is still in demand. That’s part of the reason why this part of Spain remains an important stopping-off point for shipments of coke whatever route it takes to get into Europe.’

  Ronnie reckons it’s unlikely he will retire ‘until the day I die’.

  ‘I like what I do and I consider myself to be the top professional. I’m a bit of workaholic I suppose. A lot of my mates from back in south London are the same. We like to earn money, not just to spend it but to feel we’re providing for our families. I guess that attitude was ingrained into us by our fathers.

  ‘I know I’m pushing my luck by staying here so long in this game but I can’t let go of the buzz, the excitement, that feeling you get when you pull off a half-decent deal. It’s indescribable. It’s like you’re on top of the world and you’re lookin’ down at all those ordinary folk who earn in ten years what you just made in one cocaine deal.

  ‘It’s a fuck sight better than takin’ drugs, me old son!’

  CHAPTER 13

  STAN

  After word got out that I was working on a book that delved into the cocaine underworld of southern Spain, I was granted an audience with one of the most feared British gangsters of all time, who’s resided on the Costa del Sol for nearly thirty years.

  We’ll call him Stan and I’ve had to change a few of the details about his back story to prevent many criminals involved in this area’s vicious cocaine wars from knowing precisely who I am talking about. Stan is a member of one of the UK’s most famous criminal families and he said he wanted to ‘get a few things straight’ for my book.

  Stan might have been in his mid-sixties but he stood ramrod straight and spoke with a soft voice that seemed to underline his hardness in a twisted, chilling fashion. He wasn’t big by any means but he had the darkest eyes I have ever seen. They were matt black, with not a sparkle of emotion in them.

  Stan said he’d ‘done business’ with all the main cocaine players on the Costa del Crime and I suspected he continued to operate with impunity along the entire coastline. Yet he seemed charming and relaxed as we spoke in a Spanish restaurant situated far away from the usual criminal haunts. Earlier he’d rolled into the car park driving a brand new Spanish registered Range Rover.

  ‘I don’t like those hooker joints full of coked-up villains,’ Stan told me. ‘I appreciate Spain for what it really is: a wonderful, diverse place full of easy-going pleasant people who enjoy a rich, good lifestyle compared to all the miserable sods back in Blighty.’

  Stan’s low-key tone enables him to make even the most criminal of enterprises sound so normal. ‘Look, I ain’t no angel but I’ve run a very successful group of businesses down the years and a lot of people have got very rich off the back of me.’

  Leaning forward, Stan looked at me long and hard for a few moments and then – just like the cocaine CEO that I knew he was – he tried to put me back at my ease. ‘Listen, I know where I come from. I know that certain things have had to be done to ensure my businesses continue but we live in troubled times now and we all need to be more sensible. There’s too much death and violence in the air in these parts. It’s got to stop.’

  Only then did it dawn on me that Stan was hoping to use me to send out a message to his criminal rivals to stay calm and avoid the deadly cocaine wars this book was highlighting. I couldn’t help feeling it was all a bit too little too late for that. Stan must have read my mind because he went on: ‘I know you’re going to write about all the killings and the mischief and how it’s all down to coke. There’s no denying this place is a cesspit in that respect but we have to change the way we operate or else there won’t be any of us left.’

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that one. After all, what right did a multimillionaire hood whose fortune was based on massive shipments of cocaine have to complain about a state of affairs that he’d done so much to bring about himself? But I didn’t pick Stan up on that point. Instead I asked him about the current situation and who was suffering the most from the cocaine wars in southern Spain.

  ‘It’s the Brits who are taking the most knocks. No doubt about it. A lot of these characters are getting on in age now and most of us come from a time when business was business but you never overlapped into people’s normal lives. We considered ourselves soldiers.

  ‘If one of us got killed because of a deal that went pear-shaped, then that was the way it was. It’s a risk we’ve all taken down the years. Sure it’s sad when anyone dies but if you’re a soldier then you have to deal with that sort of stuff. But today it’s different – the up-and-coming youngsters are causing chaos and we’re all suffering as a result.’

  Stan cited a classic example a couple of years ago when an Irish criminal and his family were targeted by a hit squad after a drugs deal went wrong. ‘That was fuckin’ outrageous,’ said Stan. ‘I heard this bloke was in trouble with a mob of eastern Europeans and they went after him, but to target his wife and kids as well. That’s out of order. What is the world coming to when that sort of thing happens?’

  Stan wouldn’t say precisely what happened to the gangster and his family. ‘Let’s just say they were seriously punished and left Spain soon afterwards.’

  Stan believes the foreign gangs are thriving in Spain because of the nation’s inefficient, understaffed police forces. ‘I hate to say it but the coppers are smarter back in the UK and that’s made it harder for those foreign bastards to get a toe-hold in places like London. The cops out here are fuckin’ useless. It’s worked to our advantage for years but now we’re paying the price for it.’ And none of this was said with even a hint of irony.

  Stan told me all about what he calls ‘the real fuckin’ underworld’ that exists on the Costa del Sol. ‘When I first got here I found I could run everything from here with a lot less hassle. At first it was fine. Some of the foreigners popped up now and again but I made sure they realised I was running my own outfit and by and large they left me alone.’

  Each cocaine shipment, explained Stan, required a ‘heavy investment of cash’. He said: ‘D’you know? The go-between on a coke deal usually takes 50 per cent up front for his merchandise. The boatmen rake off another €100 for every kilo shipped across the Strait of Gibraltar, and the cost of yachts, refrigerated lorries and villas rais
es the expenses even more.’

  But Stan conceded that for his first ten years in Spain, the returns were enormous. ‘Back then my main connections for cocaine on the Costa del Sol were the Argentinians who transported the white powder down from the Andes and on to Spain via Buenos Aires,’ explains Stan. ‘They seemed a lot calmer than the fuckin’ Colombians.’

  In those days, said Stan, ‘if someone crossed you then you took care of it, quietly and efficiently’. He explained: ‘The big gangs down here had perfected the old Mafia murder technique of coating their victim’s feet in cement and dropping them overboard about ten miles out to sea.’

  There were other ‘methods’ too. ‘One suspected grass was invited out on a night run across the Strait [of Gibraltar]. He was in the cabin when we came down screamin’ that a Spanish patrol boat was on its way. We had him hide in a sleeping bag and pull it over his head. Then we just tied the top of the sleeping bag so he couldn’t fight his way out and chucked him overboard. It was like drowning a kitten.’

  Even as recently as May 2010, the body of a man known by Stan was pulled up in the nets of a fishing trawler off the once thriving fishing village of Mijas. The decomposed corpse had been tied and gagged – with hands and feet missing – and was wrapped in plastic. The victim had also suffered a head injury and a broken nose. The corpse was only discovered because the line from a fishing boat’s anchor had twisted around the neck of the corpse after becoming entangled in the nets.

  An autopsy confirmed that the body had been in the water for at least ten days, but failed to determine the exact cause of death other than suffocation. It was not known if this occurred before entry into the water, or was due to drowning. Police checked records and tested DNA samples as the body had no identifying features. Authorities simply described the man as middle aged, white and well built. But they admitted it had all the classic hallmarks of a gangland killing and police were convinced that the cocaine trade had claimed its latest victim.

  Stan explained: ‘I knew him and we all were well aware that he’d taken the piss out of some other gangster in a bar, so it was only a matter of time before they got him. He should have kept a lower profile and just got on with his work but he got hooked on the bloody white stuff and started shootin’ his mouth off in all directions.’

  Stan still looks back fondly on the 1990s when Spanish police failed to penetrate any of the British gangs because few of them ever hired any locals. ‘I recruited my blokes from the UK only. Much safer than risking the locals here.’

  Often that meant relying on traditional family and social networks, which existed long before even the Krays and the Richardsons popularised the image of the flash Cockney gangster family.

  Cocaine money in southern Spain used to be laundered through reinvestment in pubs, restaurants, clubs and even ‘car fronts’, otherwise known as open-air used motor lots. Criminals also dipped in and out of property deals, often working through legitimate nominees. One well-known Costa del Sol property dealer who owed £600,000 to a gangster on behalf of whom he’d bought a property was shot dead after failing to come up with the cash.

  But, said Stan with a sigh, times have changed. ‘It’s harder to wash yer money these days. You used to be able to make a quick coke deal, buy a house for cash and turn it around for a healthy profit and no one was the wiser. But the recession here changed all the rules and now the law is constantly on the lookout for black money transactions.’

  ‘What’s the knock-on effect of that?’ I asked.

  Stan narrowed his eyes. ‘There’s less money to be made out of cocaine because the costs are going up and up. That means villains are gettin’ too fuckin’ desperate and running round in circles. It’s not good.’

  Stan continued: ‘The other thing is that no one wants to share the profits either. Do you know, the other day one of my oldest mates out here was almost topped just because some Bulgarian fucker decided he wouldn’t share the profits from a cocaine deal, even though they’d been doing that sort of business together for years.

  ‘It’s like a great big spider’s web and if you get caught up in it there is no escape. I’ve still got most people’s respect out here because my reputation is well known but I stay out of the “hot spots” deliberately. That’s why I’m meeting you here in an ordinary Spanish restaurant off the beaten track. Those mugs down in the port [Puerto Banus] are asking for trouble. They’re rubbin’ people’s noses in it and that’s when the trouble starts.’

  So, I pressed, who is running the really big cocaine deals here now? Stan took one of his customary deep breaths. ‘You just wouldn’t believe some of the characters pulling the strings out here these days. There are these two fellas whose names appear in the papers all the time as Russian billionaire businessmen residents and they’re probably cleaning up two-thirds of all the “business” out here. It’s bloody outrageous but there’s no point taking them on because they’re more powerful than anyone you’ve ever come across.

  ‘These two Russians have got entire governments in their pockets. When the Spanish elected a new left-wing government a few years back, I presumed these two characters would quieten down a bit. Far from it. They just chucked some huge bucks in the direction of a few officials in the new government and next thing you know they’re back running things down here.’

  Stan went on to tell me his fears for the future of the Costa del Sol. His face turned to granite as he explained: ‘The bloodbath here is going to get worse. These trigger-happy young hoods don’t seem to have a fear of death like we did. It’s all “live for today because we might be gone by tomorrow” stuff. But it’s stupid and short-sighted because the harder it is to operate, the less cocaine gets through, which means demand falls and in the end it could all collapse.’

  The scariest thing about Stan was not his menacing smile or his shark-like eyes. No, it was the chilling way he sounded so in control of his emotions. He seemed to be saying he’d already stepped back from the bedlam and was going to watch the rest of the underworld obliterate itself.

  Meanwhile, today’s Costa del Sol restaurants, bars and clubs are starting to close down as the nationwide recession bites even deeper. ‘A few years back this place was heaving. The sun was always shining in every sense of the word. These days, it feels like a doomed land filled with flat-broke Spaniards and trigger-happy foreigners. Not good.’

  But, insisted Stan, it’s not just the ‘foreign lads’ who’re causing all the chaos on Spain’s southern coast. He revealed that some of these younger, flashier gangsters are the children of British expats.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Stan. ‘A lot of the more dangerous ones were born to expat families, who moved out to Spain during the past thirty years.

  ‘Says it all doesn’t it?’ he added with a shrug. ‘These kids have learned how to be villains from their dads but they don’t have that sense of community we all had when we were back in the Smoke when robberies were the game to be in. No, these kids have lost touch with reality in many ways, which makes them much more dangerous than their parents.’

  He continued: ‘I’ve got one old mate out here, whose son started throwing his weight around and tried to start his own cocaine business under the nose of his old man, who was in the same “trade”. Well, it really kicked off when my mate discovered what was happening. They had a row, naturally, and the kid came out with a bloodied nose. But then what d’you think happened?

  ‘The fuckin’ kid came back and shoved a shooter up his own old man’s nostril. Then he panned it down and shot my mate in the foot as a warning. What was that all about, then? You don’t go round shootin’ yer own flesh and blood. It’s outrageous but it sums up how things are goin’ out here. It’s a madhouse and it ain’t gonna get any better.’

  Stan revealed that some of the children of the expats have even gone into business with the Eastern European cocaine gangs, who have flooded the south coast of Spain in recent years. ‘These guys shoot other criminals to send out a message to r
ivals: “Don’t fuck with me.” They’re complete nutters,’ said Stan. ‘They don’t understand all the values and respect of the old-school gangsters.’

  Today it is estimated that more than 30,000 foreign criminals earn their ‘income’ from cocaine on the Costa del Sol. They come from seventy countries, including Britain, Ireland, Russia, Colombia, Albania, Kosovo, Romania and many of the former Soviet republics.

  Stan issued the following stark warning: ‘Crime thrives during recessions but the trouble is that there are all these desperate characters out there with no money and no idea how to work properly. They’re already starting to nick the cocaine off other operators. Soon, World War Three will break out. God help us.’

  In the middle of all this, undercover UK police have been encouraged by their Spanish counterparts to monitor many of the deadly cocaine gangsters on the Costa del Sol. It can be a highly risky occupation.

  CHAPTER 14

  MICKY

  For the past twenty years, Spanish police have allowed small units of British law enforcement officers to operate on the Costa del Sol, mainly because of the cocaine war that’s been raging here for so long. Spanish police say they’re happy to allow the British cops to work on their territory because it can be a useful deterrent to UK villains. As one Spanish detective told me recently: ‘We know very little about the bad people when they show up from Britain, so we need the British police to help us arrest them. Also, many of these criminal enterprises are linked between Spain and the UK, so offences have been committed in both countries.’

  Usually, the UK cops are so effective at remaining undercover that their activities aren’t even acknowledged officially. But when they are exposed by criminals the lawless nature of the Costa del Sol can put them at terrible risk.

  In January 2004, Detective Sergeant Paul Finnigan, 41, was knifed outside a restaurant in Fuengirola after he’d been transferred by Northamptonshire Police to the National Crime Squad to investigate a British-run cocaine ring based in the area. Fortunately he survived, but fellow British undercover cop Micky is convinced Finnigan was attacked as a warning to other undercover officers. ‘The villains here don’t want coppers from back home sticking their noses in their criminal activities. I reckon that’s probably why this guy was targeted,’ explained Micky.