The gun plants were so convincing that even MI5 thought they were real secret stashes. To get more credit, Haase pretended that he could help seize IRA guns, ammo and explosives destined for use in atrocities on the mainland. Haase was so devious that he knew this stash would get the authorities ‘drooling’.
The IRA was the government’s number one priority. A few months before Haase was arrested, on 24 April 1993, an IRA bomb at Bishopsgate devastated the City of London’s financial centre, killing one and injuring more than forty people. The renewed campaign shocked the nation. Now the IRA was threatening other prestige targets, including the then newly built skyscraper at Canary Wharf in the capital’s Docklands and, more worryingly, the under-construction Channel Tunnel. Canary Wharf was eventually bombed three years later in 1996 and a ceasefire was hastily declared before the Channel Tunnel was hit. The tunnel was one of the main British motivations behind peace.
Haase’s ruse was nothing short of criminal genius. First, he bought £20,000–£50,000 worth of weapons from associates of Glasgow godfather Paul Ferris and a Manchester-based Scot called Rab, the heroin dealer once supplied by the Turks. Then Haase arranged for a car full of guns to be dumped near a British ferry bound for Ireland. To make it sing, Haase had his men go to the Republic and get Irish newspapers that were left on the back seat on return to the UK, and even cigarette stumps from pubs in Dublin, to make it seem that Irishmen had been driving the car. Haase tipped off his handlers, and an M15 observation team watched the car for three days to catch the phantom IRA operatives picking up the guns. Of course, no one turned up, but the authorities trumpeted the seizure as a great coup in the fight against the terrorists. This equalled Brownie points for Haase. Ferris said, ‘They were planted in a car in Holyhead ferry terminal in North Wales and a lock-up in Liverpool, and Haase said they were IRA. Customs never found out the truth.’
Haase’s devious operation was nearly exposed after a close brush with the law. Some of the guns were transported from Manchester to Liverpool by two stunning women (one known as The Supervisor) who were close to Haase. The idea was that a couple of dolly birds, who looked like they had been on a shopping trip to Manchester, were unlikely to get a pull off the police. But the ladies’ sports car was stopped almost immediately for speeding. The boot was crammed full of assault rifles and hand grenades. The scantily clad girls did their best to distract the traffic cop away from the boot, flashing their legs and cleavage. It worked. He let them go with a ticking off without searching the car.
In another extraordinary incident, the operation nearly came crashing down amid fears for public safety. According to uncorroborated underworld sources, Haase’s men claimed they planted a cache of Semtex and several small arms in a car near a pub called Black George’s on Park Road in Liverpool 8. The pub was run by the Ungi family, and Haase hoped the find would throw some guilt by association on them, at least enough for a bit of harassment. But the plan backfired when the car was stolen by joyriders before the police could seize it. A massive police operation was mounted to find the car and eventually it was spotted by a patrol car being driven at high speed by a teenager and his pals through the streets of Walton. The joyriders were awestruck when they were suddenly roadblocked by nearly 20 police, an armed-response unit and a bomb-disposal unit. The Semtex was found in the boot untouched. The kids hadn’t even noticed it and were never told. There was a collective sigh of relief. This anecdote has not been confirmed by Merseyside Police and the validity of the information cannot be verified.
Other seizures included 7,534 Ecstasy tablets, 5 kilos of amphetamine, 58 litres of methadone, the recovery of 100 LSD tablets, the locating of a skunk (cannabis) factory, 200 cannabis plants and a machine gun – all planted by Haase.
But there was only one problem – no one had been arrested, and the lack of bodies was now raising suspicions. Despite nineteen ‘raids’, there was not one single arrest. Police invariably arrived at the location of a tip-off to find a deserted safehouse or an abandoned car with a holdall full of guns in the boot. All fingerprints had, of course, been wiped clean. All of the vehicles had mysteriously been purchased for cash a few days earlier by untraceable men, who, despite numerous appeals in the press, never came forward.
So Haase set to work in finding a criminal who would knowingly sacrifice himself for cash. In January 1995, nearly a year after the phoney gun-planting had begun and at the point when some Customs officers were becoming suspicious and demanding ‘bodies’ to back up the Scouser’s intelligence, Haase was saved from the brink. A low-level drug runner called Billy the Hamster agreed to hide three handguns in a toolbox in his house which would then be reported to the police by Haase. He would take the rap, go to jail and get a big bung for his trouble. On the day of the bust, the Hamster was arrested on suspicion while his house was searched. But then things went badly wrong. According to underworld sources, farcically, the first police rummage team failed to find the guns. And by the time of the next search, the search-warrant period had allegedly expired. The guns were found, but the evidence was inadmissible, and by this time Billy had had second thoughts about getting himself mixed up in such a hare-brained scheme, refusing to give a statement to back up Haase’s plan. He was mysteriously released from custody and not charged. He then tried to blackmail Haase for £5,000, threatening to blow the lid on the gun-planting scam, but was quickly silenced and bashed up by Chris No-Neck.
In another attempt to show that ‘real bodies’ were behind the crimes that Haase was ‘uncovering’, Haase invented a story that The Vulcan had put a hit out on the family of Customs Officer Paul Cook. A total fabrication, but Cook and his family went into the witness-protection programme. (Customs had to take this seriously; a Liverpool Mafia heroin gang had put a contract out on several Customs officers in 1992, even firebombing one of their houses. For many Customs officers, this had been a big motivation for taking out Haase, as he was a Liverpool Mafia boss.) Haase then got the glory when he said that he used his underworld power to get the contract called off. This may have been an early attempt to meet the conditions of winning a Royal Pardon – by helping to prevent danger to a law officer.
In fact, the only people that Haase had ‘grassed up’ up to that point were corrupt law officials – a crooked prison officer, a corrupt CPS manager, a rogue solicitor and a bent copper. This super-selective targeting of ‘enemy’ fall guys clocked up extra Brownie points on the street. The villains were happy that Haase hadn’t actually grassed any villains up. The breakout was a triple-whammy success – the most audacious escape plan since Steve McQueen went over the wall on a liberated German motorbike. Haase became an instant underworld legend.
JOHN HAASE: On the outside, Bennett and me had been working overtime. When Bennett and me got nicked, we had over 50 kilos of brown [heroin], which is worth £1,150,000. Chris No-Neck, who was an associate of ours, had control of this heroin. This heroin was sold and we used some of the money to purchase weapons which were later planted so that the police and Customs and Excise could find them. Bennett already had a couple of hundred thousand pounds of cash and so did I, so we had plenty of money.
Tommy Gilday got a lot of guns for us, but no favours were done. We paid for everything – machine guns, AKs, hand pistols. When we were first getting the machine guns, they were £2k each, but later on, when we were getting them in tens, the price was reduced. One of our main contacts was a Londoner. A lot of our stuff was guns. This was a member of the underworld. I met him in prison when the guy was in prison doing an 18-year sentence for armed robbery. I can confirm that some of the guns that I bought had originated from a police depository – that is, they had been confiscated by the police in previous crimes, but then had been released back onto the streets for resale.
A lot of them were coming in from eastern Europe, especially the AKs. I was getting them in the end for £750 from my London contact. There were loads of people involved in getting us guns. People from Sheffield, Manchester – tha
t’s the one where they found the car in a car park with machine guns in it.
We got a couple of garages, a couple of flats, eight to ten vehicles, cars and vans. One of the vans we parked in Bootle on the McDonald’s [car park] with 80 shotguns in it. All this information I used to pass to Mr Nelson. All the guns were spot on. I was getting them and telling people where to put them so that I could inform Customs and Excise of where they could be found. It was a con all the way, but for some reason they were delighted to get the guns off the street.
The police wanted to get involved after the first couple of things had been found. Tony Nelson asked me could the police come and see me. I said, ‘No, I’m only dealing with the Customs.’ The Customs wanted information about anything but for some reason they were delighted – they couldn’t get enough of it.
These little stashes get the deals going. For instance, there was bomb-making stuff in Lower Breck Road [in Liverpool]. Someone went out of town for me. This was because I met this guy on remand in Manchester prison. I was talking to him, got a bit friendly with him and asked him if he had any guns up there. He said, ‘I’ve got loads, what do you want?’
I said, ‘Whatever you can get me.’
When I was in Manchester with Bennett, we had mobile phones with us so I could speak to anyone at any time. We were co-coordinating the operations and the planting of the guns using mobile phones. I also had one in Hull. On one occasion when guns were brought back from out of town to Liverpool, there was a problem. Coming down the East Lancs Road, back towards Liverpool at about eleven o’clock at night, the two women got stopped by a police car. The car had all kinds of firearms in it – machine guns, rifles, etc. A police officer came to the car, asked the lady if everything was all right. She said ‘fine’, showed him her driving stuff and the officer waved them on their way – a normal stopping. But the guns were never discovered.
In the Southend, in Liverpool 8, we had a stash of guns in there, in an empty flat. One of Bennett’s people was told to go round and put a couple more in. They never went themselves and sent someone else round to put the extra guns inside. The story I got told afterwards was that they didn’t put the right number in the alarm. The alarm went off, they couldn’t shut it down so they ran away. Later, the police arrived and found the guns – so we lost them.
The next one was one of the big ones they were all drooling at. Someone went to Ireland and got an address over there. They got some newspapers and went to pubs over there and got cigarette stumps and all bits and pieces [from ashtrays in the Irish pubs]. A car we bought in Liverpool was booked onto the Holyhead ferry. That was booked through a travel agency in Alderhay [astonishingly through the same travel agency that Haase had used to book drug runs to Ireland. A simple check may have exposed the link]. Booked on to go to Ireland. Thousands of pounds of ammunition, rifles, etc. were put in the car and that was parked in Holyhead car park. The newspapers and cigarette stumps were also put in the car and the keys were left on the back wheel. The car was full of rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition and many weapons. We told the Customs about it. MI5 sat off and observed the car for three days before they hit it. That cache was planted by me and Bennett to give the impression that there was an IRA connection. This was a total fabrication. You can imagine the Brownie points Cook was getting and that’s why the police wanted to get involved. [During this time] I made a tape recording of me in a [prison visiting] room with Paul Bennett, Tony Nelson and Paul Cook. I taped them in prison. The next time, I got nicked for having an unauthorised tape-recording machine.
They can’t be that thick, but they are, believe it or not. How can I be in prison and know information like that? And every time it’s spot on. Every time I told them, they got something. Without knowing what’s going on, I knew it was there. Lower Breck Road: I knew it was there. Loads of guns. That was ours. There was bomb-making stuff in the Lower Breck Road one. That come from London, that. Nothing got robbed before the police found it.
So far they’ve [Customs] got no bodies. But I said to Bennett one day, ‘These are going to get suspicious here, because they haven’t got a body yet.’ Me and Bennett are in custody, so it was left to Chris No-Neck to get a body. Billy the Hamster was nicked with some guns in January ’95. I’d like to know myself what happened because even though he was nicked, he never went to court. Chris No-Neck, Bennett and me know him – he runs drugs around for people. Chris No-Neck got this chap, Billy, to accept to have a toolbox in his house with three guns in it. Loaded hand pistols, they were. The information was passed on to Paul Cook. The police raided this man’s home and found the firearms. He got charged, but never went to court. All’s I know is that he got on the phone to No-Neck after he’d been arrested for the guns and asked No-Neck for £5k. I thought he’d got a bit cheeky and said he’d do something. No-Neck met him/bumped into him, bashed him up and that was the end of the episode. But still Billy the Hamster never went to court. The reason I know this is because when I got the legal papers this time, for my last case in 1999–2001, I saw the papers in the court and they said that he never went to prison.
Remember all the trouble over Cheers? I gave them information – pure 100 per cent luck on my side. We planted a car full of guns near Cheers and two days later David Ungi was shot. That gave the impression to the Customs and Excise that I had the inside track on gangland shootings. Like I said, it was pure luck on my side over Cheers, the information with David Ungi. Said there was a car parked up with guns in and that.
We started the rumour that The Vulcan, the Turkish heroin dealer, was going to put a hit on Cook’s family, because they [Customs] tried to get the Turks to testify against The Vulcan, who was the main man they wanted. But the police said that the Turks were too terrified to give evidence, so me and Bennett said there was a hit on Cook’s family and he went to the witness-protection programme. This added credibility to our con because the Customs said that if you’re going to be a grass, you’ve got to grass someone up. That was us who started the rumour about the hit on Cook, not Curtis Warren, as people thought. To give it more credibility.
The Vulcan was a dangerous man. He was the main man but they couldn’t get him. I think he’s done a couple of murders over here. . . . Customs wanted Bennett. And they said they’d let me walk if I gave them evidence against The Vulcan. I said, ‘What’s it worth, because he’s dangerous, him.’
And they went to the judge. They said, ‘Mr Haase does not give evidence against The Vulcan because we can understand that the man is too dangerous.’
I wouldn’t have done anyway, because he’s a good friend of mine. Even Kaya is [my friend]. Been to Istanbul and that. Met his mum and dad.
For him [Cook], it was credibility. If I said I could get The Vulcan, it looked good for him, didn’t it? I said he’d been to my house, The Vulcan. He knows where I live. The man’s got plenty of money. Especially him wanting protection for him and his family. If you’re going to be a supergrass, who are you grassing? You aren’t grassing anyone. That’s why we put the body in. That’s what they wanted. . . .
What you’ve heard there is about a tenth of what went down. Don’t forget that this is nearly three years this is going on. We was on remand for over two years. That’s why Cook kept delaying it. Kept putting it back all the time.
In a bid to ratchet up the terrorist link, Haase promised Customs they would supply information about a container of weapons on board a ship heading for Liverpool, according to uncorroborated sources. The ship was already in Liverpool docks, the container doors booby-trapped with bags of Semtex. The bomb-disposal experts blew the doors off, revealing 50 weapons and some heroin. Then Ken Darcy was roped in by No-Neck to get more Semtex explosive and heroin to add variety to the Customs finds. According to Peter Kilfoyle MP, some of the weapons came from a West Midlands police repository and some equipment registered in North Wales had come through the repository in Liverpool.
KEN DARCY: Just come out of jail [in 1991] from a three-a
nd-a-half-year sentence for half an ounce of cocaine. Come home. Had to move house because the busies took the house, whatever. Knew Chris No-Neck for a long time, through mates. All in all, I’ve known him for 20-odd years. Done this and that with him. So I come out of jail and done a bit of this and that to get by.
Anyway, all these drugs and guns [were being planted] around the city and I ended up getting involved with that. John Haase and Paul Bennett were away. Gets a phone call from Chris No-Neck. There was simply too much for him to do. Half the stuff [the guns and explosives] he couldn’t get, so I come in and got what he needed.
No-Neck had a lot of the firm’s money – all of the firm [Haase/Bennett/Croker] had been nicked bar him. So he was left with all the money, the contacts, control over everything. He was acting on behalf of John Haase and Paul Bennett. All along, they knew they weren’t going to be away for a long time. It was a scam from day one. Everyone knew that Haase and Bennett were going to get out of jail quickly. They were throwing people in [informing]. There was also the gun plants, the gun in the prison. That’s what got them out.
No-Neck would have cups of tea with me, telling me he had planted guns and alarms had gone off and that. That was in the Southend [of Liverpool] where the alarm went off on the house. These two boys had put the guns in, but the alarm goes off. So the find was made by ordinary busies. So John Haase couldn’t ring up the Customs and tell ’em about it. There was a bit of trouble over that. The boys got a hiding over that. That’s the point when I said to No-Neck, ‘I’ll help you now. Make a list of what you want.’
He’s up the wall planting guns every which where. Buying this, buying that. That’s when he asks me about Semtex, when I got Semtex, firearms for him, and I did about four drops here there and everywhere.
I knew one was in Bootle strand. I knew one was in a house in town. I just supplied the firearms, Semtex, bullets . . . I knew a couple of the locations. Got [the Semtex] off these mercenaries from out of town through a mate of mine. I done a favour a few days before for him. Then I called the favour back. Got the Semtex, planted it on Haydock racecourse till it was time to bring it home, back to Norris Green. A man I’ll call Soldier Boy came and collected it. It was gone then and put wherever it was supposed to go, and then it was found. Only one in Semtex. I got paid five grand for just two kilos. Soldier Boy come and took it from me.
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