I asked no questions. When the police found the guns, it usually was in the papers – big news. But it was never mentioned that Semtex was found. That was very strange; it was never mentioned in the paper. It was to be organised in a plant to make it look like a terrorist link. I asked him [No-Neck] about that. He said, ‘Don’t worry about that. It is not a problem.’ It was very strange, seeing as they were going on about bazookas, guns and that.
I done about four plants over a couple of months. Only for a certain amount of time, before Haase and Bennett came out of prison. They was on remand. They’d been using fucking no-marks, idiots, before then.
There were other people high up in the city who were saying, ‘I can get you this or I can get you that.’ At the time, they [Haase’s gang on the outside] had endless amounts of drugs. Some of it was shit, but they were bashing it for more than it was. From 3 ki to 6 ki. That was done so it could be planted and it would make a bigger find for the Customs. The busies aren’t arsed because they’re getting it off the streets. Tablets were also used in the phoney plants. But at the end of the day, the gear was shite, so it was worth giving in rather than selling. That’s the way they were looking at it. I did guns but one lot was a drugs plant. The drugs were got by me calling in lots of favours.
I knew all the fellas No-Neck was using [to buy and plant guns]. There were a lot of people. Money bought some, but there were also friends. Everyone in the underworld wanted to geg in on it to get credit for it [from powerful Haase when he got out]. I had lads coming from Preston, Leyland, Manchester, Wales with six or seven guns. I ended up buying some in town.
It didn’t matter if it was any good. It was just for plants so the Customs could find them. Buy anything: hand grenade, stun guns, bombs. Some of the guns were from Davy Crockett days [old-fashioned] . . . but at the end of the day, a gun is a gun. As far as the Customs and police are concerned, it’s off the street. They’re happy.
A lad from Manchester, a football hooligan, he had ten in a suitcase. The quicker you stashed them, the better it was for Haase. The money was no problem. Some young kid [The Bank Clerk] would drop the money off to me to pay for the guns. I’d phone him and say, ‘I need five grand.’ The five would be brought round in the hour.
Billy the Hamster – how did he get off with all them guns in the box? He said the warrant expired. I’m not having that. The busies came with the warrant and searched the house. There’s a big steel box with guns in and they never found it. Chris No-Neck rang John Haase and told him the busies haven’t found it. He was fuming. The busies went round the next day, found the box, but he got off with it because the warrant had expired.
I did a few of them. I was still carrying on doing a bit of graft at the same time. Then one day I get a phone call telling me they [Haase and Bennett] are out. Then Chris No-Neck comes round to me and says, ‘They’re out.’
And I said, ‘Fuck off!’
A couple of weeks later, John Haase comes round to see me. Shakes my hand . . . says, ‘Thanks a lot.’ Nice fella. No one got nicked. No one got hurt.
For Chris No-Neck, the massive logistics in organising the fake plants – buying huge amounts of weapons and shipping them all over the UK undercover – proved to be a nightmare. Plus there was the added hassle of dealing with unscrupulous gangsters who wanted to make a profit. On one occasion, two black gangsters from Toxteth – known as The Iceman and The Security Boss – were given money to buy guns to plant for Haase. Instead, they bought a cache using Haase’s money and then sold it for a profit. All-out war was prevented when The Iceman and The Security Boss got hold of a second cache and put it Haase’s way.
But there were reliable gangsters including Tommy Gilday who provided many guns. It was No-Neck’s job to liaise with Gilday, get him money and make sure that the guns were handed over to a runner and then planted without Gilday knowing what was going on. The cell structure ensured secrecy. No-Neck was obsessed with getting the detail right. Sometimes, No-Neck would observe gun handovers from afar with binoculars, disguised as a lycra-clad professional cyclist.
CHRIS NO-NECK: I helped John and Ben get out of prison because Ben was my best mate before John come out in ’92. I had been grafting with Ben until then – but they fucked me off when John got out. They said they never wanted me in on their graft. Now, if I had been in on the graft in the first place, they and the Turks wouldn’t have got nicked. The reason they got nicked was simple – because John had the same crew that worked with me and Ben for five years before John took over. Why didn’t they break the pattern up? Where’s the common sense in that? So it was their own fault – but I agreed to help because of Ben. He was the first proper friend to me. I would have died for him.
Doing the stashes was very stressful. It was severe pressure for three years, but I handled it. I went the gym a lot to box and started running – it was that training got me through it. That’s why I ended up doing the London Marathon. I did quite a lot of gun plants. It was heavy. That’s why I’ve gone grey. At the end of the day, what I did for them got them out of prison. And I did it because I cared about Ben – not for money, cos I got nothing out of it. I asked them for sixty quid [sixty thousand pounds] later but I got fuck all. But it didn’t matter. Ben was an old mate.
They have never told me their innermost darkest secrets – so at first I had to make sure they weren’t properly grassing. I’m not a gringo, I’m a grafter. Never crossed the line for anyone. Never grassed for nobody. But John said he was fucking the system. I said I’d do it for my bit. Not for John, but for Ben.
It was simple – I created crimes for Ben. Then I relayed the information, via a phone box, to a mobile phone [which Bennett had in prison]. That information was then passed on to his solicitor, who then talked to whoever it may be [Customs]. The people I know [the gun-planters] went through me. I done it. I knew what I got myself into.
The things were placed in certain places. I wouldn’t pass any information over to John until I knew they [the gun-planters] were well out the way. They are clear, get off now. I got 200 brand-new shotguns from Southampton, in boxes. Two hundred quid a go, a mate of mine offers me. About eight grand in total. I said, ‘Yeah, give us them.’ Got a mate of mine to pick them up. Got a mate to go disguised, go to Birkenhead in a Rascal van, put them all in a van and parked them outside a McDonald’s in Bootle. We left them there for two days to see if anyone was watching. Then I phoned John up and said, ‘That’s there now, blah, blah, blah.’ I did another one where I got a fella’s car full of guns and dispersed them wherever. In effect, we were creating crimes. No crimes done but it looked like they were. It was a good scam. Haase has got more audacity than Saddam Hussein. And he’s got some front, hasn’t he? Fucking kite [face] on him as well.
Tommy Gilday used to come to my house every day. Loved me, he did. I bought things [guns] off him. Not that I bought them, but Haase and Bennett would give me the money and I bought them. When I was doing the plants, Gilday couldn’t fathom what was going on. He used to get me a few things but I’d plant them and that. So he didn’t know about that stage. One exchange took place between Gilday and one of my lads. To make sure it went well, I was on a railway in Tuebrook with a pair of binoculars on my mountain bike, all the official gear, right. I looked a right plonker, but I did it. Proper Tour de Liverpool, it was. I goes up the embankment and I had my binoculars because I had set it up for the lad to go and pick those things up from Gilday. Gilday turned up in a red Audi. I focused in on him so I knew exactly what he was wearing, right, during the meet.
When I went to see him afterwards, I said, ‘Everything sound?’
He said, ‘Yeah, yeah. Can I use your toilet?’
Then I said, ‘Didn’t you have a loud, bright red T-shirt on, a stripy one, in your red Audi?’
That made him go right para’. He said ‘How did you know that?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘I was watching you.’
And he said, ‘I had someone watching your mat
e as well.’
Gilday was a hard-case but I clued him up that I wasn’t stupid. He realised I was astute. Then he respected me for everything. In my house after that, he told me everything. Tommy’s both sides of the fence. Classic saying was ‘that’s put to bed’.
John also put a fake contract out on Cook. One day, John and Ben asked me to go to the Crown Court. They had told Cook beforehand that there was a contract out on him but they was going to stop the contract. Now, if I showed my face in the Crown Court that day, that would give Cook the signal that they had called off the contract on him. That was the shit they were giving him. But it was a lie. A fabrication. Like a lot of things I done for him. I created crimes that never existed. Because people owed favours, whatever. That was the way their freedom was sorted.
One time, I went to visit Ben in Strangeways [to talk about organising more plants face to face]. I never used to visit Haase. He was always on the next table with his bird. You could see his grey hair and that. Ben said, ‘I know these lads who have done a bit of graft.’
I said, ‘Who?’
He said, ‘The Security Boss and that. Sort it. Get on with them.’
That meant I had to buy guns off them for planting.
So I phoned up The Security Boss and The Iceman and said, ‘You want to see me?’ I went down there [to Toxteth] to meet them, and him and The Iceman are there. They wanted money. So I went and got some dough off lads I know and came back to them and said, ‘There’s our dough for our part of the bargain.’
Listen to this what happened afterwards: they get the graft in but they hold on to the guns, to sell the guns. They wanted to use my people on another second trip. But I thought, ‘That’s our dough they’ve used. They’ve got the fucking parcel there.’ So I goes down the Southend [Toxteth] on me own. I asked them for the money but they wouldn’t give me a penny. And these lads had a reputation, especially the one they call The Iceman. I said, ‘Listen, this is nothing to do with John Haase or Ben. This is my name here. I can’t walk away. This is my name, my mates, my dough.’
They said, ‘You’re gonna get the dough.’
But it escalated into a little underworld feud. I wasn’t going to rest until there was closure on this – because I didn’t want to lose face. I wanted either the guns or the money back. Later there was like a gangsters’ meeting in Gilday’s house. Curtis [Warren] was there. I said, ‘You know your mate [The Security Boss], I’m going to cap [shoot] him.’
He said, ‘You’re not going to cap him.’
I said, ‘I’m not scared of you, mate. I’m on me own.’
On your own is the best because at the end of the day, you live or die by your own bat. They have millions of pounds between them but I didn’t give a fuck. I’m not a back-stabber. I said to Curtis, ‘I don’t fear you. You could have me scrubbed. But you wouldn’t do it yourself.’ Then I left. Then Gilday comes knocking on me door. He tells me that they like me, that I’m all right. That’s because I’d stood up to them. I said, ‘I don’t give a fuck whether they like me or not. They don’t know me. I shouldn’t have to go down there for the money, Tommy. I shouldn’t have to do that.’
Then Curtis phoned up, said, ‘I’ll get your dough back.’
But nothing happened, so I went in the jug to see Haase and Bennett, right. Sat down with Ben. Then he started backtracking, saying that I shouldn’t have done business with them. He goes, ‘I wouldn’t have done it with them.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘It was you who put them on me. You introduced them to me! Now you’re backtracking.’
I knew I wasn’t getting any sense out of them, so I just decided to sort it myself. I goes back down the Southend, right. Had a meet with The Security Boss and The Iceman. Two of them in the car. I jump in the back of the car. They come in with caps on, plugging [intimidating] me. But I wasn’t wobbling. They thought everyone else would, but I wouldn’t. Stood me ground. Then I said, ‘Listen, lads, I can’t let this go. I’ll die for this. And I will do because I am not having my mates calling me a fucking rat.’ I got the money back in the end. And I thought, ‘You’ll never ever do this to me again.’
After that, I felt that Haase and Ben had used me. But I was loyal so I carried on. They never trusted me 100 per cent. If they had been thrown in [my friends], they would have hated me. I wasn’t a very nice character at the time. I’ve got a photograph in ours that me bird gave to me. It was a photograph when I was doing the clubs. It was me with a pair of glasses on. I had a side part. I scared myself. It was fucking horrible. But I never let all that – the lifestyle – get inside. I’ve no doubt that the police knew [we were planting guns]. Sometimes, some of the lads I was using wobbled under the pressure. For instance, there was a nice lad. I asked him to do something for me [to plant guns]. But once it went off [and the guns were discovered] his arse went to blancmange. He got worried because of the exposure. There was a little bit of telly and newspapers. Every fortnight, the stories [about the gun plants] would be in the paper. [Because the police loved to talk it up.] So I went down to his house and asked, ‘What’s your problem?’
He goes, ‘I never knew this would happen.’
I said, ‘No one knows you. No one knows you done it. What have you got to worry about? The only person who knows whether you’ve done something is you. That’s the way it is going to stay unless you do otherwise. You fuck it up and you are finished. Never give anyone your word if you are going to betray them.’
While he was inside, people started taking liberties with Haase, thinking that he was never getting out of jail. Some lad was banging a bird he was protective of. [The Supervisor] I warned the kid off. The lad is going, ‘Yeah, yeah.’
I said, ‘You’d better stop it now because you’re not making a cunt out of me. He [Haase] is in there; you’re out here.’ I knew the lad. I said, ‘Stay away or I’ll fucking do you.’ Not for him but because of me. . . . I said, ‘I’ll rip you apart now.’ Then, Haase was my mate. You’re not going to let anyone shit on your mate.
This woman started bending under the pressure. I’ve stopped this bird OD-ing three times, on the Charlie, in front of the kids. Her auld fella’s sitting there at four o’clock in the morning. He rings me and says, ‘She’s popping pills, blah, blah, blah.’
I gets in me car, go down there. She’s slobbering. I said to her dad, ‘Just knock her out! Knock her out right now.’
He was wide-eyed. He said, ‘What?’
I said, ‘Knock her out! Give her a fucking hiding!’ You don’t do that [drugs] in front of the fucking kids. I told the auld fella and her. But they turned Turk on me. They didn’t want to know.
At the end of the day, what I done for them [Haase and Bennett] meant they walked out of prison in ’96 because of me. That was me, right. I never got paid for it. They wouldn’t give me fuck all [for planting the guns]. The money used for it all was really the Turks’ cash – from the missing gear. But they didn’t give a fuck about the Turks. They used their money.
Ben wanted me to meet the Customs. He asked me to meet certain people. But I didn’t want to meet them. No way was I going to sit down with Cook, that motherfucker. Then Merseyside Police wanted to see Haase and Ben but they were fucked off by the Cussies. They were obligated to protect them.
SULEYMAN ERGUN: I knew they were planting guns because Bennett told me on the exercise yard when we were on remand in Walton in about November 1993. Kaya and Manuk were also there. We were demanding the million pounds they owed us for the 50 kilos. But he said – and this was actually before he did it – that he was gonna plant Semtex, guns and heroin to get out and that they were gonna use it to get us out as well. It was a good plan, but I knew the bit about us was bullshit. He was only going to get Haase and himself free. He told me that Chris No-Neck was gonna be in charge, it would be in Liverpool and that they had already done one dummy run. There was also a bird called The Supervisor who was in charge. She was the one who came into prison all the time to see him. Haase was alwa
ys on the phone to No-Neck for hours. On the dummy run, Haase said that they had told the Customs about some guns in a few boxes and that the police swooped on them straight away but there was nothing there. By that time, I had become wary of them. I didn’t trust Haase so I just pretended to go along with them.
Ben later told me about planting the guns on the boat. It was supposed to have come from Venezuela, but it never actually left Liverpool docks. John Haase was the brains behind everything.
Because we kept asking about our million quid, they got themselves shipped out from Walton to Strangeways. John didn’t get nicked in his cell with that vodka, Scotch, pot, the Es and the phone for nothing. That was a set-up so they could move.
Months later, a special visit was arranged for me to go to see Haase in Strangeways in the solicitor’s visiting room. I got a special taxi cab from my prison in Liverpool. By then, they had done a good few plants. They had a message from a mate on the outside. It was from The Banker [Curtis Warren’s boss] offering help. But I kindly refused – I didn’t need it. Haase just said about the gun plants that ‘we’re gonna do more’. All the plants were a massive fucking hoax. Then they started blagging me that they were gonna help me with it. But they were just trying to play me. They had set the meeting up to persuade me to plead guilty. I later found out that they were doing that on behalf of Customs as a condition of the deal to get out. They said I was looking at 15 or 20 years. I told them that I didn’t give a shit – I was gonna go not guilty. Then they told me that they planted 80 shotguns in one go.
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