by Neil Woods
‘Yeah man, I’m fine. Just need a ting, mate. What are you on about?’ I laughed, as if I genuinely assumed he was enquiring after my health. It’s the game of misdirection and double-bluff that all undercover work is based on.
The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. Jacko was committed.
I followed him down another piss-stained walkway, then hung back as he knocked on a door, noting the flat number and scoping the hall for escape routes in case things got out of control.
The door opened a crack, and Jacko immediately launched into a flurry of the thickest West Indian patois I have ever heard. I had by now developed a decent ear for Caribbean dialects, but this exchange was so fast and convoluted I couldn’t pick up a single word.
The meaning, however, was crystal-clear. Jacko was frantically trying to ‘sell’ me to this Darren character, to convince him that he knew me and I could be trusted. There was a tense, high-volume exchange before I was motioned forward.
I walked up to the door and locked eyes with Darren. He was a tall West Indian guy with long dreadlocks and a stare that went straight through you. One look at him and you knew this was not a man to cross. I played it as submissive and non-threatening as I could, casting my eyes down furtively – letting him know that he was in charge of the situation.
Darren said nothing. We just stood there looking at each other for about 15–20 seconds, which, when you’re an undercover cop getting a death stare from a Yardie gangster, feels like an eternity.
Then, without a word, Darren thrust out his hand and handed me a rock of crack in a cellophane wrap. The second it was in my palm, the door slammed violently shut.
The moment I was out of Jacko’s sight I rushed to a phone box and called in an evidence drop. We needed lab results on this, and we needed them fast.
That one rock of crack proved to be the key piece of evidence in breaking open one of the major drug rings in the Midlands. It’s incredible how much we were able to figure out just by tying the lab analysis of that single £20 rock to one flat in a tower block.
It all came down to the chemical signature. The mid to late 1990s were a revolutionary time for crack production. Up until then producers had had to refine pure cocaine to make the stronger, smokable product. Then benzocaine hit the scene. Benzocaine is a local anaesthetic widely used by dentists. If you’ve ever had a filling and felt a disconcerting kind of numbness in your gums, chances are the dentist was using benzo.
What the drug cartels realised in the 90s was that not only does benzocaine produce a similar numbing effect to cocaine, making it the perfect cutting agent, but, crucially, it freebases at exactly the same temperature as pure coke. This meant that instead of producing crack with pure powder cocaine, then cutting it, dealers could now freebase already-adulterated coke, exponentially multiplying their profits.
The real masters of this process were always the South American and Caribbean OCGs. The European gangsters were way behind in the crack market.
When we got our lab results back on Darren’s rock, they showed a unique chemical make-up with an extremely high density of benzocaine. This was far purer than anything I was getting from JB’s crew, which was full of lidocaine, a far inferior and very carcinogenic cutting agent.
Using these results, we were able to separate out the Montserratian supply chain from where JB was getting his stuff. Through EMSOU we triangulated our results with intelligence from Interpol, who in turn contacted the American Drug Enforcement Administration.
The DEA results were stunning. The unique chemical signature of the rock I scored tied Darren to a major Jamaican drugs cartel that was running crack through the Caribbean and supplying a large section of the British market.
I scored off Darren several more times, just to make sure my first encounter hadn’t been a fluke. All further lab tests confirmed our conjectures. Darren and the people he worked with were tied to a massive international smuggling operation.
Obviously, in my guise as a street junkie, I couldn’t get any higher in the organisation than Darren himself. But after I identified the flat, another squad was able to undertake surveillance and put together a picture of how his crew operated. When the bust finally came down months later, it wasn’t just Darren who had his door kicked in. Our lab results matched his product with a crack network stretching all over the country and even back to Jamaica and the US. It was a major operation involving multiple teams across the country, and resulting in hundreds of arrests. But it all came down to that one little £20 rock that I had managed to score.
The brass were overjoyed with our breakthrough and so was I. It felt good to finally be making leaps forward. But our elation was cut brutally short.
We were sitting waiting for our morning briefing when Jim Horner entered the room with a grim, stony look. He paused gravely, before saying the words that every undercover operative most dreads. ‘It’s my duty to inform you that one of our operations in Leeds has been compromised.’
He paused to steady himself before continuing.
‘Our officer was identified by a powerful OCG, but was unaware that he had been discovered and went out on a routine drug buy. He was told to go to a certain payphone, then to another. They moved him from phone box to phone box until he was in an isolated industrial park. It was only then that he twigged there was something wrong. He panicked and tried to run. The targets chased him down some alleys, then they… there’s no other way to say this – they beat the fuck out of him with baseball bats and left him for dead.’
There was an appalled silence in the room as we took in the mental image of one of our own being herded to a remote industrial estate, then chased down and battered. Once again, it was the drugs war arms race playing itself out: for every new police tactic like advanced undercover work, the gangsters needed to send a more savage message.
The Leeds officer spent months in hospital fitted into a wire brace. It was a stark reminder that the guys we were hunting weren’t charming playground guitarists, but calculating, brutal gangsters who would maim or kill anyone who got in their way.
It also had implications for our own operation. Leeds wasn’t exactly close by, but it was close enough to assume that OCGs from there had some contact with the crews we were tracking.
And things were now beginning to spin out of control on our own turf as well. We had two independent teams in place, each led by competing DIs pushing for higher numbers. There were simply too many undercovers, making too many buys, from too many different dealers. Inevitably, the gangsters were starting to catch on.
It was a matter of criminal psychology and basic arithmetic. A junkie’s only concern is maintaining a steady supply of dope. If they have a reliable dealer, they will keep going to that one guy until he gets arrested or killed. Our squads were being pushed to score off one dealer in the morning, then another that same evening. This generated more evidence for their DS, but it was totally inconsistent with realistic addict behaviour. The dealers in Leicester weren’t stupid. They observed our patterns, and shared info the same way EMSOU did between enforcement agencies. Things were starting to get frightening.
I noticed it most with JB and his crew. I remember once walking down a narrow alley between two council blocks when JB skidded around to block my way with his bike. ‘Why you ain’t been to see me, man? Why you buying off those other twats?’
I froze on the spot. I could tell he was suspicious, and for a kid who still did his heroin deals on a pedal-bike, JB was a mean, hyper-aggressive little bastard. He’d kick your head in as soon as look at you. I had to be careful how to play this.
‘Well mate… that last rock you gave me was all right but, y’know, I’ve got to go where the really good stuff is, man.’
It was a gamble. By insulting the quality of his gear, I risked getting a smack. But I did have one advantage. I had seen the lab results. When I said his product wasn’t anywhere near as good as what the West Indian guys were pushing, I was right. And I knew t
hat he knew I was right.
JB just kissed his teeth in contempt, then moved his bike a fraction of an inch so I had to squeeze by while he stared me down and spat on the ground.
Back at HQ I worried that we were rushing things – building trust with ruthless career criminals takes time and patience. I talked to Carl and he responded with some platitudes about the need to move the whole operation forward, but I couldn’t help feeling that he was more concerned with the idea of the Beaumont Leys squad achieving better results.
I appealed to my Cover Officer, Rajesh, for some backup. This was the guy whose sole job it was to protect my interests. But despite the fact he was a skilful Level 1 undercover himself, he seemed reluctant to step out of line.
The Beaumont Leys team seemed to be operating in a similar way. There appeared to be an urgency to do more and more, instead of better and better. It was always going to end badly.
In a way, I’m glad it was me who ended up bearing the brunt of the resulting crisis. If it had been one of the less experienced members of the team, it all could have ended so much worse.
Cate and I were making our usual walk into Highfields to buy a twenty-bag of smack off one of JB’s crew. We had a place and time set, but as we approached, he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the whole area was weirdly empty. None of the usual faces were about. Street after vacant street seemed beset by an eerie calm.
The silence was broken by the tinny ring of my cheap, early-model mobile phone. I recognised our dealer’s number and picked up.
‘Yeah mate. Come down Abney Street.’ The phone went dead.
Cate and I reversed our direction and headed towards Abney Street. Just as we got there the phone rang again.
‘Mate – had to move. Come up Dore Road, yeah.’
Once again we changed course and followed the instructions. And once again the phone pinged to life.
‘Nah bruv. Walk up Hazelwood Road – nah nah, not that, I mean, come up Rowsley Avenue, yeah Rowsley Avenue.’
This was not right. Something was very off. Visions of that undercover cop in Leeds getting herded and battered flashed through my mind. But if we cut and run now, our entire cover would be blown. There was only one thing to do – hold our nerve.
We were directed from one street to the next, doubling back on ourselves, taking routes that made no sense whatsoever.
Finally we found ourselves walking up Gwendolen Road, usually bustling; today it was completely deserted. The silence hung heavy in the air. A car came out of nowhere, slowed down to a crawl as it passed, obviously scoping us out, then sped off.
I could feel Cate, who was as tough and resilient as they come, starting to get panicky beside me. Under her breath she whispered, ‘Neil, what the fuck are we going to do?’
The truth is I had no idea. But I did know the one thing we couldn’t do. We couldn’t run. That’s what had doomed the cop in Leeds. He had panicked and tried to escape – he had abandoned his cover story. And in undercover policing, your story is all you ever have.
‘Just front it out,’ I whispered, ‘no matter what they do, no matter what they say, don’t break character. Just front it.’
Turning a corner into one of the council’s recently blocked off through-roads, we were immediately faced with a gang of seven well-known Highfields gangsters leaning against a wall.
My eyes flicked from one side of the alley to the other, looking for possible escape routes and trying to assess the situation. This group was made up of people from two different gangs – the only reason they would be cooperating like this was if they had put their heads together and picked us out as potential narcs. I could see JB at the end of the line, furthest from me, shifting from one foot to the other with nervous, belligerent energy.
But somehow, a little voice in my head told me to stay calm. If these guys had known we were cops, then we would have been battered into a bloody mess long ago. The only answer must be that they had suspicions, but hadn’t yet made up their minds. This was an investigation, not an execution. Everything depended on our reactions, on how well we could hold our grit and remain in character.
The dealer I was originally meant to score from was closest. My eyes locked with his, and he jerked his head down to the ledge next to him. Lying there was the wrap of heroin I had been after. But there was something wrong. One look and I could tell it was fake. Wraps of crack and heroin come in sealed plastic, so that dealers can carry them in their mouths and swallow them if they get stopped. This wasn’t plastic-wrapped, just twisted in a scrap of paper.
My mind spun into overdrive. This must be the test. They’re looking at how I react to this fake bag of gear. For a moment my mind went completely blank. Cate and my safety, perhaps our lives, depended entirely on my reaction to this trial.
The only problem was, I had no idea what the correct reaction should be.
Should I kick up a fuss, and demand real gear? Should I try to curry favour, and come on extra-obsequious in that way addicts do when they need a score or think they’re in trouble? All this flashed through my head in a single second. I could feel the gangs’ eyes burning a hole straight through me.
Then from nowhere, I had it. If I didn’t know the answer they were looking for, I would give them no answer at all. I would deny them any useful information from my words or body language. If I couldn’t satisfy their paranoia, at least I might be able to confuse them enough to let us walk away.
I dropped my gaze to the ground to hide any involuntary twitch or flicker of my eye. Making the absolute minimum movements necessary, I set down £20 on the ledge next to the dealer’s right hand, and swiped the little paper wrap with my own.
We started to walk away, setting our pace as slow as possible. Everything depended on keeping up the appearance that, in our minds, everything was absolutely normal. The atmosphere was charged with such an oppressive, knife-edge tension that it took measures of discipline that I never knew I had not to panic and sprint off. I could feel Cate almost vibrating with nerves beside me.
Then I heard the shouts.
‘Yeah, and don’t you fucking come back here. You come round here again, you’re dead – you’re fucking dead!’
Just keep walking, Neil, just keep walking, I told myself over and over, the sweat beginning to bead on my skin and run down my backbone.
Then JB’s voice rang out. ‘Yeah, actually come back here. Fucking get back here a minute.’
This was it. There were seven of them against myself and Cate. I tensed to run.
Then Cate saved the day. She spun towards me and said, ‘Just leave it Zack, it’s not bloody worth it, yeah – just leave it.’
I don’t know where she got that, but it was inspired. It was perfectly in character, and could have come out of any scene of street aggro in Britain – the girl telling her fella to ‘just leave it’. It also gave her the perfect excuse to grab my hand and pull me away. I didn’t look back.
Cate and I made our way back through town, both seriously shaken. All we could imagine was some other undercover team being sat down by their own DS and briefed about two operatives in Leicester who had blown their cover and been beaten into a broken mess.
We made it back to HQ and, backed up by Cate, I announced that this operation was over. The brass threw a little tantrum, but we brooked no argument. We were the ones risking our lives on the street while they sat in their offices worrying over stats. And when we described the scene we had just been through, even they had to admit that things had become too hot.
In my opinion it was the bosses who were at fault. They had pushed too hard. If they had shown a little more patience, and a little more willingness to listen to the people in the field, we could have kept that operation going a lot longer.
As it was, I had been deployed in Leicester for several months and was more than happy to see the back of Highfields. And, as I looked around at all the whiteboards set-up around EMSOU HQ, with their interconnected photographs and Intel notes, I did feel
a real sense of pride. Out on the street, I hadn’t realised exactly how much ground we had covered. I was certain that as we moved into the arrest phase, we could take down a lot of really nasty characters.
But there was still one last piece of unfinished business to be taken care of before I wrapped things up in Leicester. Digsy.
Carl called me into the briefing room for a sit-down with Jim Horner. They explained that the bosses at EMSOU were amazed at what we had achieved, and that Cate and I would both be receiving Chief Constable’s Commendations. We had gathered enough evidence to directly charge OCGs operating right across the country. There was one target remaining, however, that had the potential to unlock a slew of other ongoing investigations.
Carl pointed up at one of the whiteboards. There was Digsy’s picture, with a network of strings spidering out, linking him to OCGs from Glasgow to Manchester to London. Through intelligence sharing with other agencies, Digsy had been connected to several high-level investigations. The brass believed that if we could lay a serious charge on him, then he could potentially be flipped, become an informant and give us the dirt on a lot of very major-league gangsters.
‘I totally see all that,’ I replied, ‘and when I first met him, Digsy actually seemed reckless in that he was willing to sell to me on the street. But since then he’s just refused to come out. I’ve tried repeatedly, but he’s lying low.’
‘Look Neil,’ Carl cut in, ‘we know Digsy has withdrawn from active dealing lately, but is there anything – anything at all – you can think of that we could use to draw him out?’
I thought hard. I was more than a little tired of this operation, and looking forward to putting Leicester behind me. But I took Carl and Jim’s point. If there were any way to turn Digsy into an intelligence asset to lead us on to bigger fish, then we should certainly take it. But how? If he was refusing to even sell me a single bag of smack, what was I meant to do? Coming on overly persistent would just arouse his suspicions – this town was already rife with rumours of undercover operations.