Gangbuster

by Peter Bleksley

  ‘Everything OK?’

  Three clicks.

  ‘Can you put the hit in?’

  Three clicks.

  ‘As soon as you’re ready, do it.’

  We crept out of our hiding places, put on our Kangol hats with the chequered band, pulled out our fluorescent torches and moved in over the small wall. There was so much clonking and chattering going on as they humped the heavy bales into the vans that no one was listening for us. We were right on top of them before they realised what was happening.

  ‘ARMED POLICE, STAY WHERE YOU ARE.’

  Torches straight in their faces. You’ve never seen shock like it. They could not believe it. By then a van full of hairy-arsed Old Bill had crashed through the main gates of the yard and screeched to a halt by the bales. The driver said, ‘Oh shit, I thought we were going to get a piece of the action … but you’ve got ’em all lined up on the floor like dummies doing everything you tell them.’

  I think they were all hoping for a bit of a dust-up to brighten a long night. We were delighted with the result. We’d taken out some big names on the British drug scene. There were other people waiting at the local railway station who were crooks and we nicked them too. There was a string of simultaneous arrests right across the south-east of England wiping out a big chunk of the British cannabis distribution network.

  Bobby Mills was arrested as he celebrated prematurely in a London restaurant. Feviet and Locatelli, either by luck or design, had already left the country. They weren’t going to hang around to dirty their hands. But what they hadn’t realised was that for months we’d built up a dossier on them that could put them behind bars for 20 years.

  Meanwhile, out in the stormy Atlantic, the Royal Navy had moved in for its own nautical assault on Poseidon. Under special authority from the Defence Ministry, a team from the Special Boat Section – forerunners of the SAS and every bit as tough – were lowered by helicopter to seize the swaying vessel. It was the first time since World War II that the Navy had put a ‘prize crew’ aboard a vessel in international waters, effectively an act of piracy on the high seas. The SBS took control of Poseidon. Then she was sailed back towards the UK by the Navy, its remaining cargo of hash impounded by Customs and eventually destroyed. The ship was sold for £1 million and the money put into public funds to help offset the huge cost of Operation Dash.

  Nobody aboard Poseidon had offered physical resistance to the hard bastards of the SBS as they swung aboard down the helicopter winches. No one, that is, except a former French paratrooper called Gilbert Astesan, who had grabbed the helm from Dutch skipper Peter Seggermahn as the Navy attacked. Astesan fancied he was smart enough to outrun the British Navy. He zig-zagged through the Atlantic at maximum knots trying to prevent the SBS chopper squad from boarding. But there was no way a drug-dealing freighter was going to outrun Her Majesty’s Navy. The Navy stormtroopers boarded her in appalling conditions and detained the entire crew, which included the skipper’s wife. They were winched off to a fleet auxiliary vessel to be transported back to Britain to face arrest.

  The SBS lads had saved a little surprise for the swashbuckling Astesan. He was the last to be winched from the Poseidon’s deck. And his adventure of a lifetime was about to begin. He was fitted with a rescue harness, winched to 100ft then taken on a gut-churning, vomit-inducing whirlwind spin over the roaring Atlantic waves in pitch darkness to teach him a lesson. Don’t mess with the Navy. It must have petrified the poor sod. It’s a funny thing, but after Astesan was brought back to England with his cronies, he had acquired the utmost respect for the Navy and the SBS.

  It was one of the most incredible operations I had ever been associated with. I can only say I was as proud as punch to have been involved, and awash with pride at the heroism of those undercover guys, police and Customs, who went out into the Atlantic to bust this gang. I think about those heaving decks and 20ft waves and wonder if I would have acquitted myself with such honour. I hope so, for the sake of SO10.

  One memory of the operation still seared on my memory is that of our man Paul frantically trying to offload the bales of cannabis in nightmare conditions and trying, at the same time, to get recorded evidence for the prosecution case. He was fitted with a tiny hidden tape recorder for blow by blow commentaries. At one point, he talked breathlessly about the desperate attempts to offload the cannabis from Poseidon on to the slippery decks of our trawler. Then he can clearly be heard throwing up over the side. ‘Urrrghh,’ breakfast overboard. Poor sod.

  Bobby Mills’ case was dealt with by me and seasoned detective Freddy Bateman, former Flying Squad, former Regional Crime Squad, and as sound as a pound. Mills was an absolute gent to deal with, one of the old school of villains. He realised just how much in the shit he was. He was nearing the end of one ten-year sentence and was now nicked for another big ’un, having been identified as the British agent for the top drug-smuggling cartel around. He was walking back into another ten-year stretch and knew it. He’d almost cracked it, almost completed his porridge; why on earth had he risked it all again? Well, he would have come out to thousands of pounds if all had gone well, I suppose that’s reason enough.

  He didn’t try for deals. He told me and Freddy, ‘I’m not going to talk to you, I’m not going to tell you a fucking thing about it. But I’ll save you work and plead guilty in court.’ Being a man of his word, he duly did so. But no way in the world was he going to grass anyone up to get a lesser sentence. He could have told us a lot. He was in his mid-fifties, his criminal career was over and he was looking at prison walls for many years to come. But he retained that old underworld code you rarely see now and we had a grudging respect for his values. You could say his life had totally gone to pot.

  The rest of the gang were brought back to the UK on a British destroyer, held captive in specially equipped secure cabins for the three-day journey and minded by a Customs team who’d sailed with the Navy. We were all standing on the quay at Portsmouth Naval base when they arrived. The SBS guys came off first, all cloak and dagger. No cameras, no fuss, no celebration drink. I think they probably went for a bit of private R and R of their own as they slipped away with kitbags over their shoulders. We all went aboard then with the Customs officers and arrested the Poseidon mob, a real united nations bagful, an international crime corporation. They were read their rights, told what they were being arrested for, and taken off to various police stations in the South of England where they were charged with drugs offences and sent to remand prisons to await their trials.

  Although Feviet and Locatelli, effectively the company chairman and managing director of this gigantic offshore venture, appeared to have slipped the net, we had enough evidence to issue an international arrest warrant. We’d managed to get photographic evidence of both men meeting up with Mills, including at Heathrow Airport, during the run-up to the Poseidon seizure. We had damning evidence from the surveillance teams. Locatelli was arrested a few weeks later at Madrid Airport for the Poseidon drugs shipment and a range of other drug-related offences. He was in the company of an Italian criminal court judge. I make no comment. Feviet was arrested later in connection with Poseidon, pleaded guilty in court and received what appeared to be a paltry four-year sentence. Then it emerged that Poseidon was just the tip of the iceberg. He was wanted in Canada for the illegal importation of six tons of cocaine. In cash terms, that dwarfed the six-and-a-half tons of puff we had seized. The value of the coke would have gone off the Richter scale in drug-trafficking terms – hundreds of millions. The Poseidon, it appeared, had also been used in that smuggling operation. It illustrated just what a top villain Feviet was and why it was so vital to hunt him down. He was duly extradited to Canada and is now serving a substantial prison sentence there. Having had his boat confiscated, his drugs seized and burned, hopefully Feviet will never reap the rewards of his criminal activities.

  A total of 18 people were arrested over Poseidon, and all but three were convicted and jailed in a series of trials lasting th
rough until June 1995. A huge and sophisticated foreign drug cartel, with the UK as its principal target, had been taken out in what was hailed as one of the most successful joint operations ever between police and customs, a combination, I must say, that did not always sing from the same hymn sheet. With the unique involvement of the Royal Navy and SBS, it was a fantastic example of courage and cooperation in the face of the gravest danger.

  The trial judge at Croydon Crown Court, His Honour Judge Devonshire, was unstinting in his praise of the undercover officers, Customs and police, who had risked their lives in that petrifying drama on the high seas. He said the rivalry between police and Customs had often been commented on but, in Operation Dash, ‘it was uplifting to see the cooperation evident in this case.’ I’d certainly had some unfortunate run-ins with the Cuzzies over the years, and I was grateful to see a new era of collaboration.

  Customs boss Dick Browne was equally fulsome in his plaudits to Mick and Paul and the courageous roles they played. And in a letter to Commander Roy Clark of the South-East Regional Crime Squad, he noted how much humour our Team 12 had shown during the long months of surveillance leading up to the quayside ambush.

  ‘I would like to single out DI Chris Jameson,’ he wrote. ‘His enthusiasm and professionalism greatly impressed all of us here and we have come to regard him as a credit to SERCS and to the police service in general.’

  Mr Browne had heard that we’d never had a dull moment on the job. I won’t argue with that. And it still went on after the bad guys had been rounded up.

  We’d all suffered a bit from the sharp tongue and acid wit of Freddy Bateman and we decided collectively to get our own back on him once the dust had settled. We hatched a little plot. One of the guys on the team knew Freddy’s family quite well and said he had a daughter who was game for a laugh. So we sent Freddy down to the south coast on some spurious inquiry to get him out of the way. Then a team of us went round to his house with a video camera and filmed a Loyd Grosman-style Through the Keyhole. Who would live in a house like this? Well, Freddy did and he was in for a shock. Camera on. One of the girls on the team went into the bathroom, ran a foamy bath and got into it, posing seductively. I got into Freddy’s marital bed, put a QPR poster above it, then his daughter clambered in beside me. ‘Let’s go into the bedroom for more clues …’ Up from under the duvet popped Bleksley and his daughter with big cheesy grins on our faces.

  At the conclusion of the job, we all sat down for a final debriefing. Chris Jameson stood up and said, ‘Before we start, we’ve got a brief instructional video for you all to watch.’ The video film rolled. All eyes were on Freddy. Cut to Chris at the front door of a nice semi saying, ‘I wonder whose house this is?’ Freddy sat bolt upright.

  ‘That’s my house, you bastards.’

  His face was a picture as he watched the guided tour, the beauty in the bath then Blex and his daughter romping in bed. To cap it all, we’d filmed the family’s pet hamster scurrying round inside the microwave (off, of course). ‘Now, who would keep a hamster in a microwave like this?’ Revenge was sweet.

  4: gun law SW5

  The gun was 2in from my face. The business end of a sawn-off, double-barrelled, up-and-over shotgun with enough firepower to splatter my brains over half of West London. And the eyes at the other end were cold, hard and desperate.

  This was the moment I came face to face with one of Britain’s most wanted criminals, on the run from jail after the brutal murder of a bar manager and now holed up on my patch. Vicious James Baigrie was sleeping rough in the back of a white van in a select street in Earl’s Court, where I was then based in the local Kensington CID office and determined to make my mark as a good detective.

  In the few seconds I was peering into the gaping twin holes of that shotgun barrel, I thought my mark was going to be my epitaph. Then instinct and training took over. I had taken Baigrie by surprise, but I was equally as shocked. I had expected the van to be empty when I checked it out in Philbeach Gardens as part of a dawn search for the fugitive Scotsman. I had played a hunch. The police knew Baigrie had fled from Scotland to London, was living in the Kensington area, and was probably working as a builder. A check at a suspected hideout address had proved futile.

  My team had been discussing the important issue of the day – where to have breakfast – when I spotted the white Transit van parked across the road. That, I thought, was the classic jobbing builders’ motor and was worth a quick spin. I peered through the windows. Too mucky to see much except some typical builder’s kit – paint pots, bucket, tools, some sand, that sort of thing. I pulled at the rear door handle, out of inquisitiveness really and – lo and behold – the fucking thing opened. I thought, OK, let’s have a nose around: pulled the door open and stuck my head inside. With that, I saw a slight movement and, all of a sudden, this balaclava-clad head popped up from beneath a blanket. I was totally taken aback because I hadn’t dreamed anyone would be kipping in there. I blurted out the first thing that came into my head which happened to be, ‘Good morning.’ That caused a few laughs later. Anyway my police training kicked in straight afterwards. I yelled at him, ‘I am an armed police officer.’ And no way was I bluffing. I was carrying a gun and I’d undergone intensive firearms training at the Metropolitan Police training centre at Lippitts Hill in Essex – I’d qualified with flying colours – I’d got a 007-style Smith and Wesson .38 six-shot revolver in my shoulder holster and I was ready to use it.

  As I spoke Baigrie ducked down and, wallop, had grabbed something. In a flash he had pulled out the double-barrelled shotgun. It was obvious from the steely glint in his eyes that he was prepared to shoot me if needs must. We were in a ‘quickest on the draw’ shootout situation. Except this wasn’t the wild west, just West London. I had been caught unawares, I know, and this convicted killer had the edge on me. The dark glowering holes of the Winchester barrels hovered close to my temples. I was fumbling under my coat and into my shoulder holster to reach for my gun. I thought, Shit, he’s beaten me to it. I’m going to die. I was staring death in the face in the back of a Transit van. I only had one option. I ducked out of his line of fire and legged it up the road as fast as I could, shouting and screaming at my colleagues, ‘Look out, he’s got a fucking gun, leg it.’ They were close behind me and could be in the line of fire. They scattered for cover as well. They knew from my tone and the way I was running like a fucking maniac that this wasn’t one of my jokes. I dashed about 25 yards then dived under a car for cover. I got my gun out and shouted at Baigrie, ‘You are surrounded by armed police.’ That wasn’t strictly true because some of the team, notably my mucker with the other firearm, had already gone off for their bacon and eggs before I opened the Transit door.

  It was now about 7.00am and Earl’s Court was just coming to life. We’d got an armed murderer trapped in a van in a busy street not far from Earls Court tube station, one of the busiest in London. What do we do now to ensure public safety? To make his getaway in the van he’s going to have to come out of the back door and get round the front to the driver’s seat. Will he come out all barrels blazing? I made a decision there and then. If he comes out I’m going to shoot him, whether I see his gun or not. I’m going to put a bullet in him. If he crosses the line, he’s dead. I’ve got to stop him getting away and possibly shooting someone else. All these things were racing through my mind as I made my way towards the front of the Transit, out of the line of fire, from where I’d first been facing the rear. He’d got to come out of the van if he was going to start shooting and that gave me an even chance.

  I had dived down under another car and was quickly joined by my police colleague who by now, amid the action, had for some reason lost a shoe. One had come off as he scrambled to a safe position and was lying in the middle of the road. As more police units raced to the scene for what was rapidly becoming a major incident, there was no movement from the the gunman. It was obvious that he believed my warning about being surrounded by armed cops. Now we had a tense
and dangerous siege situation which was to last for the next 44 hours.

  I could see Baigrie moving about in the van. I saw him close the back door. I didn’t know what his next move might be. Should I reposition myself again to get a line of sight through the back doors? But I knew the might of Scotland Yard would soon be descending on Philbeach Gardens to seal it off. I thought, Bollocks, I’ll stay where I am. I don’t know where he might go, so I remained prone on the ground with as much of me tucked round a parked car as possible and just my head, hands and gun out for exposure. I wanted to present him with as small a target as possible if he did come out shooting.

  By now, all hell had broken loose. People had heard that something big was going on and, human nature being what it is, had come to have a look. That’s the last thing I wanted. I’d got a maniac killer with a sawn-off shotgun in a van in a busy street and members of the public could be in danger. One young woman, I think she was Asian or Mediterranean, had started walking towards me, oblivious to what was happening. I’d hidden myself away as much as possible because I wanted her to get past me and out of the line of fire. She was right between him and me. That’s not where I wanted anyone to be, I wanted them behind me.

  I whispered to my colleague to keep quiet and let her walk up, walk up, walk up until she was safely past us. Suddenly, she looked down and saw me on the ground with a gun and she froze, absolutely froze rigid. I said, ‘Move, move quickly, I’m a policeman.’

  She still stood there frozen solid. In the end I just levelled my gun at her and yelled, ‘Just fucking move, will you?’ At which point she did and legged it off down the road at a rate of knots. She looked petrified but it was for her own good.

  As other people came out to see what was happening, I was shouting at them, ‘Stay indoors, stay inside, there’s a siege going on.’ I lay in the middle of the road behind the car for about an hour-and-a-half, keeping my gun trained on the Transit and its dangerous occupant. It was March, early morning and it was cold so I had to keep changing my gun from one hand to the other because it was freezing cold and I’d got to keep my trigger finger warm. Fortunately I can shoot reasonably proficiently with both hands but I had to keep blowing on them one at a time to keep some movement just in case the situation blew up and I had to take a shot. An hour-and-a-half is a long time in one position in this crisis situation and my gun began to feel like a ton weight. It was as much as I could do to keep it levelled towards White Van Man. I was mightily relieved when armed officers from Scotland Yard’s SO19 firearms unit eventually made their way through the rush-hour traffic and took over from me and my colleague. I went off to brief senior officers who had arrived to take charge of the siege along with trained negotiators who would try and talk Baigrie out of doing anything rash.