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2024-03-29T14:20:26Z
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Exclusive: ‘The Art of Smuggling’ by Britain’s first drug baron
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/exclusive-the-art-of-smuggling-by-britain-s-first-drug-baron
2016-08-25T10:58:44.000Z
2016-08-25T10:58:44.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/exclusive-the-art-of-smuggling-by-britain-s-first-drug-baron"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237076265,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237076265?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Francis Morland, Jo Boothby</p>
<p>Little has been written about the early history of the modern cannabis trade. Its pioneers are shrouded mystery, yet they laid the foundation for what became the biggest illicit business in the world. Francis Morland was probably the first British-born “drug baron” of the 1960s, an acclaimed sculptor from a well-connected Quaker family who exhibited around the world but found his lifestyle outstripped his income. He spotted the potential market for drugs among the rising counterculture, and in the mid-1960s, before the word “hippie” was commonplace, made vital connections with suppliers in Morocco and Lebanon. Soon he was shifting substantial quantities of hashish to both the UK and Europe.</p>
<p>But the real money in the Sixties’ pot market was in the USA, where demand was far greater and prices higher. In 1971, Morland was busted by Scotland Yard’s Drug Squad, but was released from custody on bail to await trial. Rather than sit around to face his day in court, he and Harvey Bramham, a former roadie with the folk-rock band Fairport Convention, loaded a yacht called Beaver with a ton of high-quality Moroccan resin and sailed it across the Atlantic to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Their plan was to move it from there to the mainland – and to make a small fortune, as Morland recalls in his <a href="http://milobooks.com/milo-books/the-art-of-smuggling/" target="_blank">newly-published autobiography</a>:</p>
<p>Our plan was based on a chap called Ken Wainman, an American whose parents had kept a holiday home on St Croix, the most southerly of the American Virgin Islands. According to him, Christiansted, one of its main settlements, was a laid-back port full of lotus eaters like himself. More importantly, it had an international airport with regular flights. Ken claimed that once you landed on St Croix you were officially in the United States, so if you then caught a plane to Miami or New York you were effectively just taking an internal flight, without having to run the gauntlet of US Customs. That sounded good.</p>
<p>The next day, we reported to Customs and Immigration. Our story was that we had been cruising the Virgins with the owner, a New Yorker, and he had gone home. We were here to fix up the boat and so on, and expected to be in town for at least a month. We booked a slot in the boatyard for the following day and got permission to remain on the jetty until then. Then we reported to the Stone Balloon, a louche coffee bar favored by the young and, apparently, draft dodgers avoiding the Vietnam War, long-haired and well into “the scene”, The walls were draped with posters of Che Guevara, Marsha Hunt and Huey Long, worn copies of Rolling Stone magazine lay scattered about and the Grateful Dead played on the jukebox. The barman was an elegant black guy, a retired police officer from New York. I loved it.</p>
<p>Ken seemed a bit shifty when we met. And he was amazed to hear what we had come with.</p>
<p>“A ton? You’re kidding me.” He didn’t seem pleased. “How are we going to move a ton here?”</p>
<p>“Here,” I spelt out, “is the biggest market in the world.”</p>
<p>“What, a hundred hippies?”</p>
<p>“No. I mean the United States of America.”</p>
<p>“Oh, the US. Who is going to take it there?”</p>
<p>“Well, you are, aren’t you? You said you could get girls to fly it over there twenty kilos at a time.”</p>
<p>“You seen what a bottle of whiskey costs here? They’re giving it away. Why do you think that is?”</p>
<p>I had noticed this phenomenon: lines of shops selling watches and cameras at giveaway prices.</p>
<p>“Because they are duty free?”</p>
<p>“Exactly. Arriving in the US from here is the same as from everywhere else. Worse in fact. Because of its duty-free status, they are especially careful about smuggling.”</p>
<p>“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us that?”</p>
<p>Ken tried to pretend that this was some new development but the truth was he’d been guessing with his previous story – and dreaming. It was back to the drawing board.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237076861,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237076861?profile=original" width="350" /></a>Over the next few weeks we sold a kilo on the island so that we had some money to fix the boat and live. Another forty kilos we buried inland. The bulk of our cargo we were going to sail to the north-eastern US; Ken was to arrange for us to be met at Providence, Rhode Island by his sister, who had a place there. Harvey resolved to fly to New England, where the Woodstock Festival was coming up, to warm up some contacts there for our eventual delivery. He said he would take charge of the money side of things and needed to arrange bank accounts in Switzerland. That was a huge burden off my mind, because it was not my plan to sail home with $1 million in cash stashed in my hold to a Europe now no doubt on the lookout for me. But I needed a crew and that meant talking with the hip crowd in St Croix to find reliable lads who would sail up the coast of America with me and deliver to Rhode Island.</p>
<p>It was July by the time we left. With me were Red and Brad, both in their early twenties with military call-ups to avoid. Red turned out a good sailor and Brad a good cook. They also liked the boat to be shipshape. They were to get five kilos apiece for their work, on delivery. I left forty kilos stashed on an island called Fallen Jerusalem, my ace in the hole in case anything went wrong. Intrepid treasure hunters may like to seek it out, for I never went back to get it, although what nature has done to it I dare not guess. Then we were off.</p>
<p>The journey took three weeks and was beset by a lack of wind for days at a time. We followed the coast of America, perhaps 300 miles out, and there were times when heavy mist fell and we seemed to be moving through a muffled cloud of steam. My well-honed navigation skills with the sextant were rendered useless and for days at a time we didn’t have a clue where we were. The three of us talked a lot. Brad, who knew Ken Wainman well, didn’t trust him. I wasn’t sure I did. Brad was also unwilling to go to Rhode Island because he feared our reception there. I was for cutting straight to the chase, where the market was: New York.</p>
<p>“You want to sail up the Hudson and dock in New York?” exclaimed the astonished Red. “No way! More pigs there than a Chicago abattoir.”</p>
<p>Brad was of the same view. They had the typical amateur understanding of smuggling: find a small cove, land the cargo at night, rent a car, load the gear. This is a mistake made by smugglers and dealers who believe that farms and empty country with no cop station for miles ought to be safer than the main street of a great city. They’re wrong. Life is quiet and uneventful in the country; everything gets noticed and tongues wag in the local bar.</p>
<p>“I want to hit the dock and hail a yellow cab,” I said.</p>
<p>“You crazy? The place is stiff with cops.”</p>
<p>They were adamant; they would go up the Hudson with me, but then they were off. They were having nothing to do with the unloading.</p>
<p>I did agree that I needed to reconnoiter the 79th Street marina, on the Upper West Side, and book a slot. And it would be wise to make some phone calls to see the lie of the land. That was how we came to make our first stop in Sandy Bay, opposite Manhattan, a low-lying, dreary New Jersey foreshore used mainly by working boats. I didn’t want to stay long, as it was not an obvious place for a stylish yacht to spend its time. I dinghied ashore, walked for what seemed miles before I could find a cab, then went into New York City and booked into the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street. It was time to make some calls.</p>
<p>Harvey was at Woodstock but said he’d fly straight down to New York, where he thought he had a buyer for most of the load. Ken was incommunicado; there was a rumour he’d been busted in Miami and his sister wouldn’t return calls. Harvey agreed that a fast delivery to New York was our best bet.</p>
<p>I was back on the boat that night, and at seven the next morning we saluted the Statue of Liberty as I, under the pseudonym “Charles Hamilton Brice”, skipper of the Beaver with his mutinous crew, sailed up the Hudson to arrive with over a ton of cannabis resin in the heart of NYC.</p>
<p>The boat basin is a largish marina next to Riverside Park, while 79th Street, which terminates there at a roundabout, is an important cross-island thoroughfare. The Washington Bridge loomed upriver in the summer haze. You could say it was bang in the middle of Manhattan, although in those days the area north of Riverside Park was regarded by white people as a dangerous reserve for drug-deranged blacks, called Harlem. The embankment opposite the basin is raised high and built into it was a large restaurant extending out onto a deep terrace. There my crew left me, bags slung over their shoulders and American passports in hand.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237077073,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237077073?profile=original" width="340" /></a>I (right) set about folding and rolling sails, making good the lines and sheets, and adjusting the fenders, watchful for I knew not what. Eventually a basin official with a classic New York girth rolled up.</p>
<p>“Where you come from, buddy?”</p>
<p>“American Virgins, St. Croix,” I said.</p>
<p>“That’s a way. You British?”</p>
<p>“I am.”</p>
<p>“Staying?”</p>
<p>“For a while. I need to replace my crew. Call me Hamilton.” I stretched out my hand to shake his and he gripped in warmly.</p>
<p>“Welcome to New York, Hamilton. You got anything you shouldn’t have?”</p>
<p>“Like what?”</p>
<p>“Food, animals, plants, things like that?”</p>
<p>“Nothing like that. Bit of cheap booze maybe.”</p>
<p>He chuckled. “Hammy, fill in this form and bring your passport by. And have a nice stay.”</p>
<p>It seemed I was in.</p>
<p>Later I walked to the roundabout behind the café. Cabs were no problem, although hauling the product up the slope was going to be hot work. August is a killer in New York. The humidity was terrific, the heat dense and oppressive. Walking a block put you in a muck sweat.</p>
<p>I returned to the Chelsea Hotel downtown and extended my stay there to a week. It was a cool place, proud of its flophouse atmosphere even though it had all the mod cons. Being unkempt and bearded, as I now was after weeks at sea, I fitted right in. Best of all, the Chelsea had telephones in all the rooms, and air conditioning. A remarkable feature of New York at this time was the ubiquitous aircon; every building was festooned with add-on white-boxed machines purring without pause and the most wretched diner would greet you with a blast of cold air. If you had a cab waiting out the front of the hotel, you could get through most of the day feeling the heat only in sudden wafts as you ran between cab and building and vice versa.</p>
<p>I got to work straight away, hammering the telephone. Harvey told me to introduce myself to Bill Linus, who worked in a printworks-cum-publishing office called Alternative Publishing somewhere around 50th. I took a cab there and buzzed the entry phone.</p>
<p>It was a handsome, brick-built industrial warehouse block tucked between the familiar skyscrapers. Each floor was open plan with stays and pulleys in 1920s ironwork still attached to the supporting columns. Between the floors were caged iron staircases and in the corners on each floor were simple cabins open to the floor, where people worked at desks. Over the open areas were hundreds of boxes, some baled, some packed, and rolls of newsprint. I could hear the hydraulic churn of a heavy press somewhere. The building housed several alternative publication businesses, a different one on each floor. Bill Linus was on the third. Posters, flyers, local newspapers, pamphlets, books and other junk bestrewed his space.</p>
<p>Bill was an entrepreneur, tall, slim, dressed in denim and a pioneer of the ponytail. He invited me into his office, a chaotic swirl of signed photos of authors and sexy silhouettes of afro-headed nudes, and sat me down. I introduced myself by putting a kilo block on the desk in front of him. He was cool about that.</p>
<p>“Mind if I roll up?”</p>
<p>He rolled a joint on the desk, lit up and drew deep. Other employees came and went without batting an eyelid. To some of them he offered a toke, and they savoured it like oenophiles with a good Bordeaux. Bill seemed to be getting sleepy.</p>
<p>“That’s a heavy high,” he sighed eventually. “What do you want for it?”</p>
<p>“Eight hundred dollars per kilo, if you take the lot. A thousand dollars if you take only half and climbing if I have to sweat round this greenhouse to find other buyers.”</p>
<p>“And the whole lot is?”</p>
<p>“A ton.”</p>
<p>To my surprise he did not do the usual intake of breath and whistling stuff. He got right up.</p>
<p>“I’ll need to talk to some guys.” And he was gone.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, during which time I read a booklet called How to Bust the Bust, a half-finished handbook on being arrested with drugs, he came back. He handed over an envelope with pictures of Madison inside. I counted them. Eight hundred dollars.</p>
<p>“So the lot?”</p>
<p>“We’ll try and take it all. If we can’t move the whole lot in ten days we’ll look at the price again. Meanwhile, cash on delivery?”</p>
<p>“Harvey’ll be dealing with the money.”</p>
<p>“You’re a cool dude,” said Bill. “Your British gentleman’s word, huh?”</p>
<p>With $800 in my pocket I could get to work. The first thing to do was get all the dope off the boat and for that I needed somewhere to stow it. I rented a one-bed service flat for $300 a fortnight, renewable, on 53rd Street, nice and close to Alternative Publishing. The plan was to move the dope in 100-kilo goes to the flat until the boat was empty. Then I could concentrate on distribution.</p>
<p>I had two Revelation suitcases, my dad’s, which had completed the trip from England with me. The hinges and catches were on a ratchet so you could double the size of the case. I could get anything up to sixty kilos in, with a coating layer of clothes, without it looking absurdly heavy.</p>
<p>And so my routine began: loading the cases on the boat, getting the basin trolley, rolling it up the ramps to the roundabout, calling a cab, loading the cab, returning the trolley, back to the cab and off to 53rd Street. Pay off the cab, haul the cases up three storeys to the flat, unpack and stow it and back down with the empty Revelations into a cab and back to the boat. For some of this I eventually rented a car out at the airport, which I could leave in a car park stack next to the basin.</p>
<p>One time when I was in a heavy sweat pushing the trolley up the ramp to the roundabout, two cops in full uniform joined me, one on either side. I thought they were seizing the trolley but they weren’t. They were helping me.</p>
<p>“Jolly decent of you chaps. You’d never get a British bobby helping out like that.”</p>
<p>“Always glad to help, sir. Have a nice day.”</p>
<p>Harvey arrived from Woodstock and wanted me to get the stuff shifted by making daily deliveries of fifty kilos to Alternative Publishing. But he wouldn’t come the boat. He had sunk into the alternative scene and was picking up the rising paranoia of acid abuse, Nixon and Vietnam. I was happy for him to leave the handling work to me. Each day I would do one or two excursions with the Revelation cases. Then at some time during the day I’d go round to Alternative Publishing with fifty kilos in a case, again by cab. Often I’d hang out there for a while and maybe eat takeaway pastrami-and-ryes with the staff.</p>
<p>There was also work to do on the boat, so I was also busy painting the wheelhouse and resealing the hatches. I had told the guy at the Basin office that I might be selling the boat, so it was not surprising that one afternoon a couple of men who looked like father and son appeared on the pontoon, admiring the Beaver’s lines.</p>
<p>“My dad’s winding down,” said the younger one. “He was thinking of like a retirement thing. A boat he could live in for some of the year with Mom, like the winter months, down Florida and Bahamas. You know what I mean? He wants a good-size yawl.”</p>
<p>And so on. They had a quick look around and purported to consider where a grandchild could sleep and things like that. Then they left.</p>
<p>No sailor would mistake the Beaver for a yawl. I didn’t like it, but what could I do? Keep moving the dope.</p>
<p>Harvey was more wary. He had accumulated a big stash of dough, around $200,000, and we agreed he would fly back to Europe with it. He clearly thought I was doomed.</p>
<p>“Why not wait until we’ve sold the lot?” I asked. “You think it’s going to come on top?”</p>
<p>“It’s what I fear,” he said.</p>
<p>“And you’re going to leave me to face the music?”</p>
<p>“Better you face the music with some money in the bank.” He was right; there was no point us both being wiped out.</p>
<p>After he had gone, it reached a stage where there were about forty kilos on the boat and 400 kilos in the flat; the rest had been delivered and paid for. My deliveries were becoming fewer and clearly I was stretching the capacity of our buyer. Time seemed to slow down, yet there was an unpleasant expectancy in the air.</p>
<p>It came to a head one lunchtime. I was eating peaches out of a tin with a fork on the pontoon when they appeared at one end, a young man and a girl in plain clothes and three other men in boiler suits with the Institution of Customs Enforcement (ICE) slogan across their chests.</p>
<p>“Hamilton Brice? We have reason to believe you have a large quantity of cannabis resin on board this boat and I have here a warrant to search. You want to tell us about it or are you going to make us do it the hard way?”</p>
<p>I was a goner as far as the dope onboard was concerned, but the reference to “on this boat” implied they didn’t know about the flat. I’ve said this before and others believe it too about me: I don’t panic, and I give myself time to think. I’m not a brilliant thinker, in fact much of what has happened to me makes me seem an idiot, and I try to do too much on my own. But what helps a little is that I lack imagination. I don’t in the moment of crisis see the disastrous times that loom ahead, and so I never go to pieces.</p>
<p>“You’ll find it in the forecabin. About forty kilos. When you’ve got that we’ll talk some more.”</p>
<p>They found it alright. They searched me and bagged my belongings, then sat me down in the saloon. While the girl made some tea – “That’s what you Brits like, right?” – they grilled me.</p>
<p>It was time for my damage limitation story. I told them a guy in a bar in Christiansted had asked me to deliver this forty ki to a guy in New York. They had found Harvey’s number but he was safely back in the UK. So OK, I said, it might have been this Harvey. I was to take this dope to the Chelsea Hotel and eventually he was going to come in a cab and pick it up; in fact he was due this afternoon and I had been about to take a cab there. This was sort of true: the last forty kilos was packed into one of the suitcases, although it wasn’t going to the Chelsea.</p>
<p>In the event this was a clever piece of improvisation, because they now wanted to do next was stake out the Chelsea with me and ambush whoever came to collect. I was cuffed and marched up the ramp to their cars and our little convoy proceeded through the midtown traffic to the Chelsea. The young man and the girl walked me into the hotel, I got the key and we went up to my room. I had passed the attitude test and I was no longer cuffed. We stowed the case, then went downstairs and waited in the foyer.</p>
<p>An hour went by.</p>
<p>A yellow cab drew up, and a young couple got out and were paying the driver. I rose to my feet.</p>
<p>“It’s them,” I whispered urgently. “I’ll go and get them in. Wait there!” Amazingly, they did. I walked fast out into 23rd Street and hustled the arrivals away from the driver’s door.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry. I’ll pay. I need this cab. Just go!” To the cabbie I said, “Just go, go, go! I’m being chased. There’s a hundred bucks in it if you can get me away from here.”</p>
<p>It was a complete lie; I didn’t have a cent. But unbelievably he went, as fast as he could. Which, unfortunately in the traffic, was very slowly indeed.</p>
<p>I should have run.</p>
<p>There followed a farcical twenty minutes in which we were blocked in slow-moving traffic, only able to turn right and right again. I was spluttering an incoherent account of being caught up in error in some gang shootout and all the time we were working our way round the block back to where we started. Then a hue and cry went up, police sirens everywhere, blue lights flashing and NYPD cars cutting through the late- afternoon logjam.</p>
<p>I left the cab as quickly as I had got into it, chucking my wristwatch to the cabbie as payment, and sprinted across the road. I had seen a barber and I hadn’t shaved or had a haircut for a while. Maybe if it was all shaved off, I would get away.</p>
<p>No sooner was I inside the barber’s parlour than I could see a cop walking towards us. I ducked back out and ran down towards First Avenue. Coming the other way were two fit and determined-looking plainclothesmen. I surrendered.</p>
<p>They led me to their vehicle and bundled me in. Then two traffic cops came up and tried to stop them. It was the narcotics Feds that now had me, in the form of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and an unholy turf war broke out as to whose prisoner I was. After a lot of crackling radio and heavy swearing, calm was restored and it was conceded that I was the property of ICE, and the narcs handed over their prize. Not that it made any difference.</p>
<p>The BNDD had themselves raided Alternative Publications that afternoon and had been planning to pick me up at the Chelsea, where they knew I had been staying. They had recovered fifty kilos from Alternative and arrested four or five people there. An even more calamitous sequel was that a sharp-eyed exhibits officer puzzled over the boat keys. One looked familiar to him. It was of unusual manufacture and mainly issued by one particular New York locksmith. After some cunning tracing work, they identified the flat on 53rd, and 400 kilos more were recovered.</p>
<p>All that remained was identifying me. Unless I wished to hide from my family that I was to spend the next four years in a federal penitentiary, that too was a foregone conclusion.</p>
<p>Exactly a year after my first arrest in London, I was collected from one of the twenty-man cages that filled a federal warehouse in the Bronx, was taken to the US District Court South, and pleaded guilty in front of Justice Croake. That winter I was sentenced to eight years in prison. My luck had run out.</p>
<p>“IT AIN’T SO bad,” a character called Johnny “the Trick” Manolo told me on the five-hour prison bus ride from the West Street detention centre in the Bronx to Lewisburg Penitentiary, Pennsylvania.. “You’ll be with the crème de la crème. Take it slow. Don’t make any pals you might regret. Take your time, watch, remember. Most important thing, get on the right wing, with people you can get on with. Don’t do nothing in the first week. Guy asks you a question, you answer polite. But brief. You won’t be asking him no questions. Why would ya? You’re not short of time. There’ll be guys say they can get you jobs in the kitchen or the stores. Just say you’ll take your time. You need to get your bearings.”</p>
<p>A guard stood at the front of the bus facing back towards us. This being America, he had some kind of shotgun across his chest.</p>
<p>“That’s good advice you’re getting, Hamilton,” he called out to me. “Now listen up.” He then gave us the welcome lecture to “the federal correctional facility of Lewisburg”, like he was proud of it and wanted all of us to have a good time as his guests. He talked like we were one big happy family, with maybe a trace of sarcasm.</p>
<p>“There’s fourteen hundred of us in eight blocks. There are two floors and four wings on each block. When you leave reception, you’ll be in one of these wings. Some of the wings are freer than others. Depends on your conduct and why you’re here. Some of us are kidnappers with homicide, some are traitors, some obscenity artists, some revolutionaries, some are drug smugglers like Hamilton here. He’s English in case any of you wanna learn to speak good.”</p>
<p>There was a round of sarcastic clapping.</p>
<p>“Each wing has its cells, the good guys get one to themselves generally and they’re open most times to the rest of the wing. Others get sent to the Jungle. You’ll find a day room with TV, shower and washrooms. It’s not so bad. You leave the wing to eat and to work and to recreate but you’d better get on with those guys on your wing. You won’t be partying with the rest of the guys much else of the time. Lock up, 8 P.M. Lights out, 10 P.M. Reveille, 6 A.M. Any questions?”</p>
<p>Actually all the time I was at Lewisburg I was treated with respect. This was partly because I was English and partly because cannabis in America was still a cottage industry with very few big players. I wasn’t treading on anyone’s toes and I made a change from the usual inmate, with my good manners and diffident English style.</p>
<p>The prison was a great big hulk of brick-built blocks astraddle a central corridor, the control building, put up in the 1930s with little expense spared. It had a running track, cinema, gym, library and basketball court. Best of all it had tennis courts, two of top quality clay, and nobody used them. It also had a library, into which they were happy to induct me when they heard that I was a craftsman willing to sort and bind their books, a block transfer of slushy novels from a dull US Air Force base which needed a lot of weeding. I did mornings at the library, then broke off after lunch, when the governor was happy to let me play tennis all the afternoons that the weather, when it improved, permitted. The winner stayed on. I was a university-class player so I got very fit.</p>
<p>Nice though all this sounds, it was, of course, surrounded by a high wall and machine gun towers, floodlit at night and patrolled by dogs on running leashes. This was where the next three years of my life were to be spent. Later we had some Watergate convicts pass through on their way to the open prison at Allenwood, but the guards there were apparently so jumpy that some inmates applied to come back to Lewisburg, where the security was more relaxed.</p>
<p>There’s not a lot to be said for prison. One compensation is that you meet people who have led the strangest lives and done the weirdest things. In the refectory you queued by race: blacks, Latinos, whites. I would join the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam cons because I didn’t know any better and they got spare ribs. I met the likes of Huey Newton and Ishmael X. Once Ishmael X came to me in the library and asked me if I’d rebind his Koran. He’d been good to me in that queue, so sure I would. It was in a terrible state because he gave readings from it every prayer time on his wing. This book was part of a kind of cult issue from Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims; he enjoyed free labour on his big ranch as tribute from his following. They also had to buy a journal of his, Elijah Muhammad Speaks.</p>
<p>His accent was familiar and I asked him where he was from. St Croix, would you believe. We chewed the cud about the island. I didn’t like to ask him why he was inside, but I found out. He was Ishmael LaBeet, one of a group of black civil rights activists who had invaded a golf course in St Croix and shot repeatedly at a group of privileged white tourists, killing eight of them. Many years later, this polite man hijacked an American Airlines plane and diverted it to Cuba.</p>
<p>The Panthers had a strike one day in the furniture department where they worked. We all went on sandwich and Kool-Aid rations and prison lockdown, to the delight of the screws, until the whole prison except the Panthers voted to get back to normal. After that we never saw the Panthers again.</p>
<p>Although we all ate communally, it was along an endless corridor hall connecting the wings. You got to see people from neighbouring wings but not the distant ones. Violent prisoners tended to be segregated away from us white-collar types. I met Jimmy Hoffa, and hung out with Guido, a big-time steel union boss. He was educating himself in the “Mafia structures of Renaissance Italian city states”, believe it or not.</p>
<p>I eventually got onto the “honour” wing, where I used to play a lot of chess. One of the inmates was in a federal prison because he had stabbed an officer in another prison for confiscating a jug of hooch. And he had been in that prison because he’d shot his grandfather, who had shot his dog. I beat him twice quite easily and was playing him a third time when this composed, smart-looking man, maybe ten years older than me, put a coaster under my mug of coffee. Next time I picked it up, I saw he had written the single word “lose” on it. Sound advice.</p>
<p>I got parole and in the summer of 1974 I was transferred by Immigration to Pittsburgh Holding. It was a dreadful place where we slept two to a bunk in our cells. People screamed all night because nothing is more to be avoided for most deportees than their expulsion from the Land of the Free. I made a huge fuss, and when they looked up my story I became a bit of a novelty cause célèbre – someone who was actually looking forward to going home! So I was taken shopping at Sears by the guards and even given a joint to smoke and asked for my autograph. Finally, I was flown to New York, where I spent another ten days in a similar facility. Some of the deportees there were hobbled with leg shackles to discourage them from running for it prior to their flights. Then I was driven to Kennedy, marched across the tarmac, and handed over to a Pan Am air hostess. My passport was returned. For a few hours I was free.</p>
<p>At Heathrow, I emerged into arrivals to see my family there to welcome me. But so were the police. They had not forgotten me.</p>
<p>In September 1974, at the Old Bailey, Judge Abdela took into account the three years I had served in America, handing down a comparatively lenient eighteen months.</p>
<p><em><strong>Extracted from <a href="http://milobooks.com/milo-books/the-art-of-smuggling/" target="_blank">The Art of Smuggling</a> by Francis Morland and Jo Boothby, which is published by <a href="http://milobooks.com" target="_blank">Milo Books</a> and available at their <a href="http://milobooks.com/milo-books/the-art-of-smuggling/" target="_blank">website</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Smuggling-Gentleman-Trafficker-Britain-ebook/dp/190847985X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471969231&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+smuggling" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</strong></em></p>
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Irish gang has its own “supermarket” with dope & guns
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/irish-gang-has-its-own-supermarket-with-dope-guns
2013-11-29T16:26:58.000Z
2013-11-29T16:26:58.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/irish-gang-has-its-own-supermarket-with-dope-guns"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237020488,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237020488?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>With the festive Holiday season upon us, we at Gangsters Inc. felt it was time to point our readers in the right direction when it comes to the best presents. Everything from great deals to enormous steals. Irish organized crime gave a good example as they offered its members a “supermarket” stocked with shelves full of drugs and guns.</p>
<p>Irish newspaper The Independent broke the news yesterday, <a href="http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gang-supermarket-with-shelves-of-drugs-and-guns-found-by-gardai-29790884.html" target="_blank">reporting</a>, “On the 'supermarket shelves' they found quantities of drugs ranging from heroin to cocaine, cannabis resin and herbal cannabis, as well as a sawn-off shotgun and a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition for two firearms.”</p>
<p>Dublin police are questioning the suspected 58-year-old owner of the “supermarket” who, The Independent writes, is “a former associate of Derek 'Maradona' Dunne, who was one of Ireland's most notorious underworld figures and was shot dead in a row at his home in Amsterdam in 2000.” They also suspect him of being a key player in a Dublin trafficking gang.</p>
<p>For more on this interesting story check out <a href="http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gang-supermarket-with-shelves-of-drugs-and-guns-found-by-gardai-29790884.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a>.</p>
<p>A supermarket filled with drugs and guns. That scene from the film <a href="http://amzn.to/IwzkTu" target="_blank">The Boondock Saints</a> in which the main characters go shopping for an arsenal of guns (and rope) in a gun-filled room run by an Irish gang suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all! (<em>Scroll to the end of this article for a video clip of the scene.</em>)</p>
<p>Because guns and drugs are kind of a touchy (illegal) subject, Gangsters Inc. will provide you with a different type of ware. The best books and movies dealing with the colorful and brutal world of gangsters and mobsters.</p>
<p>Let’s kick off with the Irish since they were so nice to give me the inspiration for this piece.</p>
<p>Irish organized crime in Europe is well represented. Irish gangsters are operating all over Britain and mainland Europe, from rainy The Netherlands to sunny Spain. One of the most infamous chapters in Irish gangland history is the murder of journalist <a href="http://amzn.to/18bzaH4" target="_blank">Veronica Guerin</a>. Her investigative work got her in trouble with several Irish drug lords who ordered her killed. The story was turned into two movies: <a href="http://amzn.to/IqH6O4" target="_blank">When the Sky Falls</a>, (2000), starring Joan Allen as Sinead Hamilton and <a href="http://amzn.to/18bzaH4" target="_blank">Veronica Guerin</a> (2003), starring Cate Blanchett.</p>
<p>There have also been many books dealing with the murder of Guerin, the Irish mob, and crime boss <a href="http://amzn.to/18bz3ey" target="_blank">John Gilligan</a> who ordered the murder. Books like <a href="http://amzn.to/IqGGXP" target="_blank">Gangster</a>: The Biography of International Drug Trafficker <a href="http://amzn.to/IqGGXP" target="_blank">John Gilligan</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States, the past year was all about the trial and conviction of Boston mob boss <a href="http://amzn.to/180QVxY" target="_blank">James “Whitey” Bulger</a>. Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill wrote a more in-depth follow-up to their 2001 book <a href="http://amzn.to/13wcDmw" target="_blank">Black Mass</a> titled <a href="http://amzn.to/180QVxY" target="_blank">Whitey</a>: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss which offers readers more insight into his childhood while also detailing his criminal career and eventual capture.</p>
<p>Boston and the Irish are (or should I now say were?) the favorite topics of Hollywood producers and writers. Every film set in Boston seems to have a little bit of gangster flavor. Be it masterpieces such as <a href="http://amzn.to/1adzZPh" target="_blank">Gone Baby Gone</a> and <a href="http://amzn.to/1b16NQc" target="_blank">Mystic River</a> or a laugh-your-ass-off-funny movie like <a href="http://amzn.to/1cLLbKF" target="_blank">The Heat</a> in which Sandra Bullock takes on a Boston drug boss.</p>
<p>On television <a href="http://amzn.to/1adANUl" target="_blank">The Brotherhood</a>, loosely based on the <a href="http://amzn.to/IqI2Ss" target="_blank">brothers Bulger</a>, did okay, but was never able to capture audiences like <a href="http://amzn.to/14FCJUi" target="_blank">The Sopranos</a> did.</p>
<p>Ah yes, <a href="http://amzn.to/14FCJUi" target="_blank">The Sopranos</a>. What a show! No matter what the current situation of organized crime is, on the silver screen the Italian-American Mafia still reigns supreme. We’ll see what offers we can present to you for Christmas. And you better not refuse!</p>
<p>All products you buy at Amazon.com via Gangsters Inc. help keep this site up and running. So we thank all of you who have contributed with a few cents here and there. Keep coming back!</p>
<p><strong>Visit the <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc. Amazon store</a>.</strong></p>
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Former Gangsters Beefing About Books
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/former-gangsters-beefing-about-books
2012-09-28T17:30:00.000Z
2012-09-28T17:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/former-gangsters-beefing-about-books"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237024871,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237024871?profile=original" width="424" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>The world of books and authors is a peaceful place far removed from the mean streets where drug dealers sell their product and murder their rivals. But with more and more gangsters getting into the writing business things are heating up. Old beefs, new disputes, and the age-old underworld question: Whose word is law?</p>
<p>Organized crime is booming business. Not just for criminals making money off illegal schemes but also for those that chronicle their deeds. Journalists, writers, and filmmakers alike produce countless articles, magazines, books, documentaries, and movies about the underworld. Even former gangsters get in on the action by telling their story in front of the camera or publishing it in a hardcover book.</p>
<p>With documentaries like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000KLQUUS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000KLQUUS&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Cocaine Cowboys</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000YDOOQE/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000YDOOQE&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Mr. Untouchable</a>, movies like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LPS4BG/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000LPS4BG&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Goodfellas</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EIOOVS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001EIOOVS&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">American Gangster</a>, and tell-all books by a long line of (former) gangsters the men and women with criminal records have proven that they can contribute to the legitimate market of selling true crime to the public. Criminal-turned-author <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/exclusive-interview-with">Seth Ferranti</a> even managed to do so from behind bars.</p>
<p>After having spent almost twenty years in prison, Ferranti is due to be released in a couple of years. In 1993 he was sentenced to 25 years behind bars after he was found guilty of being an LSD kingpin. Now 40 years of age, Ferranti is on a mission to make up for lost time and make it big in the legitimate world of writing, documentaries, and movies.</p>
<p>While behind bars, Ferranti started his own <a href="http://www.gorillaconvict.com/" target="_blank">website</a>, wrote and published numerous <a href="http://www.gorillaconvict.com/shop/" target="_blank">books</a> including hits like Street Legends volume 1 and 2, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615126855/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0615126855&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Prison Stories</a>, and, most recently, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980068746/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0980068746&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">The Supreme Team</a>, about Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff and his narcotics gang that ran the streets of Queens, New York during the 1980s.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236978469,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236978469,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236978469?profile=original" /></a>“Supreme” has been a celebrity of sorts after he started hanging out with music moguls Irv Gotti and Ja Rule of rap label Murder Inc. Other rappers dropped his name and the deeds of his violent crew in their songs as well and pretty soon the name <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-boss-kenneth-supreme">Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff</a> (right) became a household name in the suburbs of white America. For Ferranti it was clear: McGriff’s story needed to be told in an honest way.</p>
<p>“I had first heard about Supreme in the 1990s”, Ferranti tells Gangsters Inc. “When I first came to prison the street legends that everyone was talking about were Supreme, Gerald “Prince” Miller, Wayne Perry and Rayful Edmond.”</p>
<p>Having been sentenced to a heavy prison term at a young age, but remaining loyal to the code of silence and laws of the streets, Ferranti became close to several of the legends he heard about from other inmates. He says: “I have known, been friends with, and corresponded with several members of the Supreme Team, including Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, Ronald "Tuck" Tucker, and David "Bing" Robinson. These are guys I did time with and I consider them friends.”</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025665,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025665,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237025665?profile=original" width="260" /></a>Ferranti (left) continues: “They shared their lives with me and the parts that they played in the Supreme Team inspired me in a way to do all the writing that I have done on urban gangsters. The Supreme Team article I worked on with Tuck for Don Diva issue 23 was the first cover story I ever wrote. I was very proud of that.”</p>
<p>Rightfully so. The story behind the rise and fall of The Supreme Team story has been told and mythologized in hip-hop, the prison system, and on the streets since the mid-to-late 1980s. Kenneth McGriff’s group played a big role in the underworld of Queens and had a big impact on a lot of the famous artists from that borough like <a href="http://www.50cent.com/" target="_blank">50 Cent</a>, <a href="http://nasirjones.com/" target="_blank">Nas</a>, and <a href="http://www.jarule.net/" target="_blank">Ja Rule</a>.</p>
<p>For Ferranti the experience to hang with its members was huge. “To actually know and break bread with those dudes in prison was akin to hanging out with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-boss-john-gotti-sr">John Gotti</a> for me. That is the type of notoriety these dudes had in prison. So it was a very personal book for me.”</p>
<p>When dealing with such legends an author always has to tip toe around certain issues. Or maybe use different phrasing. Or maybe not publish certain stories. When Ferranti’s book about The Supreme Team was published he received mixed reactions from the men he had interviewed for the book.</p>
<p>“Some of the people that helped me with the material for this book now hold me in disdain for writing it”, Ferranti says. “But that is a burden I must carry, a cross I must bear. I stand behind my <a href="http://www.gorillaconvict.com/seth-ferranti-2/" target="_blank">work</a> and the book. If someone doesn't like it that is their problem not mine. I did the very best I could with the material I had access to and I believe I did a very good job. Although it seems I offended or hurt some people involved with the team in some way, that by no means was my intention I was just trying to chronicle the lore and history of the team that I had been exposed to through the people I knew, stories I heard and publications I read. But sometimes even when you do things with the best of intentions people will find fault with it but I can't help that.”</p>
<p>And then there are those that don’t like Ferranti encroaching on what they view as their territory. People like James “Bimmy” Antney who was a member of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980068746/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0980068746&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">The Supreme Team</a> and has his own book and documentary about the group. When Antney found out about the book by Ferranti he told him in no uncertain terms that Ferranti couldn’t do the book. “He came at me real strong like ‘you can't do the book, who are you, you don't have permission’”, Ferranti says.</p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/">Gangsters Inc.</a> contacted Antney about the book beef, but could not get a straight answer from him. Asked about all the books dealing with The Supreme Team Antney writes: “Number one: I was there!! The people they talk to is nobody's I take care of Prince don't matter what Preme thinks. He was not home for years that's where all these writers got it messed up!! They never touch on the Team. All of it is bullshit... Watch how my book blow they mind. I'm a boss..”</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237026063,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237026063,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237026063?profile=original" width="505" /></a></p>
<p>After Antney’s harsh words Ferranti’s book is effectively shelved. But that’s simply because he is awaiting approval from the only man who has the authority to give it: Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff. The man who gave the group its name. “Once I got in contact with Supreme he says I can put the book out. He tells me to go ahead and that he’s got me in regards to “Bimmy” and Gerard “Prince” Miller. My book is in stores now.”</p>
<p>It’s not the usual way things are done in the book business, but times change. Though the written word cannot be stopped, it flows smoother when it is backed by the spoken word of a powerful individual who can turn what are just written words into a law that cannot be challenged.</p>
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New death threat against author Roberto Saviano
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/new-death-threat-against
2010-11-18T21:15:54.000Z
2010-11-18T21:15:54.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10954542701?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on October 15, 2008<br /> <br /> Monday, October 13, 2008 must've been a very weird day for Italian author Roberto Saviano. The 29 year old 'celebrated' his second year in hiding since the Camorra had put him on a death list because of his groundbreaking crime book Gomorra.<br /> <br /> In Gomorra Saviano takes the reader to Naples and its surrounding cities and shows how the Camorra is damaging the life of millions of citizens through a variety of illegal activities. And he shows this in a deadly way. Instead of giving one example of corruption, he gives entire lists of regional governments that have been infiltrated by the Camorra. And he gives us the number of Camorra related murders since his own birth in 1979: a staggering 3600 murders.<br /> <br /> Besides hitting us with those numbers, he hits us with the personal stories behind them. Who are the murdered people, what did they do to end up killed in the streets? By who? For what? He takes us into the sweatshops where fake designer clothing is made. Out into the deserted countryside where the Camorra illegaly dumps its waste. Waste like ink cartridges. Saviano describes walking over such a dump ground and smelling the penetrating sour stench that rose up from it when it rained. If inhaled that air can cause ulcers, breathing difficulties, even lung cancer.<br /> <br /> When talking about the end result of these crimes it is impossible not to discuss those at the top, making the decisions that wreck havoc on Italy: the bosses. Saviano takes them on. He ridicules them. He analyses their criminal society, its code and culture, and rips it apart. This must have made the Camorra bosses very angry. But it made them furious when the book became an enormous success. Now Saviano had an audience.<br /> <br /> Tommaso Buscetta a member of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra once said: "The Mafiosi are not romantic figures like you see in the movies. They are men of violence, men who let gross amounts of money rule their actions. Until the public really understands this true nature of Cosa Nostra, its power and its violence will continue. I think there is only one way to overcome Cosa Nostra, and that is to educate people, to let them see what these men really are, and how dangerous they are to a civilized society. Then, and only then, will law enforcement truly win its fight against organized crime."<br /> <br /> Robert Saviano showed the true face of the Camorra to millions around the world. To make matters worse for the Camorra, the book has been made into a movie. It is being released world wide and has gotten very positive reviews. It is even being tipped as a candidate to win an Acadamy Award.<br /> <br /> It is no surprise then that a Camorra turncoat, someone related to the jailed Camorra boss Francesco "Sandokan" Schiavone, told police that the Casalesi Clan of the Camorra planned to kill Saviano before Christmas by blowing up his car. Authorities are still trying to verify the truth of the claim. Camorra bosses allegedly had said Gomorra was "creating too much noise, it has become a phenomenon''. The Camorra is under pressure from authorities due to the recent killing of six Africans, the movie will not ease that pressure. Saviano has shown the world the power of the pen. Let us hope the sword will not get a chance to swing.</p>
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Gangs of Britain: From Birmingham to Newcastle
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gangs-of-britain
2010-11-10T15:00:00.000Z
2010-11-10T15:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangs-of-britain"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236985877,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236985877?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Peter Walsh<br /> <br /> Walsh is author of GANG WAR: The Inside Story of the Manchester Gangs and one of the authors of the book Cocky, about British drug baron Curtis Warren.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236985693,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" width="721" /></p>
<p><br /> THE NURSES and orderlies at Manchester Royal Infirmary have witnessed a few punch-ups over the years. But nothing had prepared them for the sight of two armed gangs chasing each other on mountain bikes down the hospital corridors. As staff tried bravely to barricade doors and protect patients, members of the Gooch Close Gang and the rival Longsight Crew hunted each other through the wards, the X-ray department and the fracture clinic. CCTV cameras caught the thugs, masked in hoods, balaclavas and bandanas, using hospital trolleys as battering rams to try to reach parts of the building. The storming of the city’s main hospital, in July last year, followed several incidents earlier that day. A member of each gang had been taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, while another Goochie, Leon Johnson, had been mown down in a hit-and-run attack. Each was being visited by relatives and friends when word spread that the others were in the hospital, and the Longsight thugs phoned for back-up. "The arrival of the second group caused panic,” said prosecutor Robert Elias at a subsequent trial. “Staff, patients and visitors fled for their lives." Ten young men were later jailed for either affray or public order offences. ‘A hospital should be a sanctuary,’ said one exasperated detective, ‘not an arena in which to settle violent disputes.’ Yet the fact that such a brazen display should happen in Manchester’s main accident and emergency hospital came as little surprise. And twelve months later, in July 2005, they were at it again: the Gooch and Doddington gangs fighting hand-to-hand and loosing off gunshots in Manchester city centre at 2.30 on a Wednesday afternoon. The truth is, Britain is in the midst of a gang epidemic.<br /> <br /> As late as five years ago, most British police forces would deny they had a gang problem. Now it seems senior officers are almost falling over themselves to claim ‘my patch is worse than yours’. A retiring Merseyside Chief Constable said Liverpool was unique for the reach of its criminal gangs, particularly in drug importation and distribution. The head of Nottinghamshire Police says his force is ‘reeling with murders’ and cannot cope. The Metropolitan Police this summer identified at least 193 criminal networks in the capital alone, ranging from international cartels to undisciplined street crews. So who are these groups, how numerous are they and where have they come from? The precise number of ‘gangs’ in the UK is unknowable and ever-changing. Compile a chart and it’s out of date within a week, as different groups wax and wane with startling speed. Some researchers also distinguish between ‘crime firms’ and ‘street gangs’. The former come together purely to commit crimes, while the latter may offer social and psychological succour and engage in a range of activities as well as crime.<br /> <br /> Everyone agrees, though, that they are here, they are deadly, and they are growing. When academics from the University of Glamorgan studied data from interviews with almost 5,000 arrestees across England and Wales, they found that 15% had either current or past experience as gang members. This suggests there may be 20,000 active gang members across the nation – and that’s just among adults aged 17 and over. Of course, gangs are nothing new in the UK. One particular kind of mob culture was actually pioneered here: football hooliganism. Every town with a professional soccer club has its hoolie firm, but they have tended to be classed as disorderly thugs rather than criminal enterprises, even though they are monitored by the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Some hooligans entered the rave scene in the late 1980s, as organisers, ecstasy dealers and security teams, but still the police viewed them as a rung below the breed of hardcore ‘gangsta’ that had begun to appear.<br /> <br /> The new breed was propelled by the growing availability of two commodities, drugs and guns. London and Manchester were the first cities to feel their heat. The headline-making conflict that saw Manchester labelled ‘Britain’s Chicago’ erupted in the mid-80s between the volatile armed robbers of Cheetham Hill, north of the city centre, and the frontline drug dealers of Moss Side, to the south. It was followed by an internal war within Moss Side itself, leading to such pointless killings as the murder of schoolboy Benji Stanley. At the time, Manchester’s problems were almost unique – but times were changing. In 1991, Lancashire Chief Constable Brian Johnson told the Association of Chief Police Officers that murderous gangs were fighting to control the drugs traffic in Britain. So powerful were they, and so well armed, that they threatened to steamroller the specialist police units tasked with taking them on. His words had the edge of truth, yet organised crime remained a dirty phrase in British law enforcement. As a senior Liverpool detective told one criminologist, ‘We put organised crime in a box marked, “Do not open, too difficult to handle”.’ Eventually that lid could be held on no longer, and Pandora’s Box blew open. Liverpool’s mid-90s gang war between the white clans of inner-city Dingle and the black lads of Granby was a foretaste of internecine feuds in several cities. The late 90s saw the arrival of such lethal weaponry as the MAC-10, a rapid-fire submachine gun designed for jungle warfare. It soon became a favourite accessory, supplied from former Eastern Bloc countries or by unscrupulous gun dealers who reactivated decommissioned models. One young gang leader, the wheelchair-bound Julian Bell of the Longsight Crew, used his £500,000 compensation from a motorbike accident to buy the guns and body armour to fight the neighbouring Pitt Bull Crew.<br /> <br /> The trend in the new millennium is for the more powerful urban crews to deliberately encroach into nearby cities. Sheffield is the most glaring example. The Steel City had a thriving club and drug scene but no gangland culture. Outside mobs saw easy pickings and muscled in on drug dealers working alone without protection. The recklessly violent Doddington Gang from Manchester appeared there, as did the St Ann’s Crew from Nottingham, one of that city’s three main black gangs. After some of their members were ambushed in a Sheffield takeaway and taxed of jewellery and mobile phones, the St Ann’s lads swore revenge. A hit squad returned in a convoy of cars with a shotgun and blasted to death an innocent father-of-seven, 42-year-old Gerald Smith, as he stood in the doorway of Donkeyman’s Afro Caribbean club in Spital Hill. The tragic irony is that the gang who had mugged the St Ann’s men were not locals but members of yet another outside mob: the infamous Johnson Crew, from Birmingham. “The real background was territorial control and power of rival gangs of young men in Midlands cities,’ said Mr Justice Wakerley, jailing nine St Ann’s men for a total of 195 years for Smith’s murder. ‘You were part of a gang that was ready, by the use of force or firearms, to show your dominance – that you were kings.’ The killers responded with laughter and jeers. Several similar murders in Sheffield prompted South Yorkshire Police to launch Operation Maple. ‘It became evident that criminal gangs from places such as Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and London were infiltrating the area by meeting women, becoming entrenched in society and intimidating the area's own criminals,’ said Detective Inspector Andy Bishop. ‘Robberies, shootings, kidnappings, reports of torture and even murders became linked with these gangs and the drugs trade. They identified criminals they saw as easy targets and it got to the point where the violence [was] becoming a huge drain on police resources.’ Since Maple began, officers have seized almost £2 million worth of drugs, including crack cocaine, of heroin, ecstasy and cannabis, and recovered more than 20 guns. One of their biggest successes was the capture of drug dealer Keisha Williams, aged 23, with £30,000 of crack cocaine. Williams fronted a massive dealing operation from a subway for a Jamaican drugs baron believed to be heavily involved in gun crime.<br /> <br /> The West Indian involvement has been key to the spread of gangs in many UK cities. A 2003 report suggested Jamaican Yardies had invaded Britain at an ‘alarming rate’ and their control of the crack trade had gradually spread north, reaching as far as Aberdeen. Of 43 police forces in England and Wales, 36 reported a problem with Yardie gangs. Yet despite their almost insane brutality, the Yardies have not always fared well against home-grown rivals. In Birmingham, Jamaican interlopers were faced down by the ‘homeboys’ of Handsworth and Lozells: the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew. The Burgers and the Johnnies, however, then turned their guns on each other in a tit-for-tat spiral, culminating in the tragic killing of Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare at a New Year’s Day party. Far from cowing the gangs, such high-profile incidents seem only to heighten their bravado. The Birmingham gangsters have even made and distributed DVDs of their exploits. Leeds was relatively free of gang violence until the murder of towering gangster Clifton ‘Junior’ Bryan in 2000. Having survived at least one previous assassination bid, Bryan was apparently lured to a house in Manchester with another man, Denis Wilson, and shot in the head. Their bodies were then bundled into the trunk of a car, which was later found abandoned in the Harehills district of Leeds. Bryan’s young acolytes, known as The Youth, or Yout’, were then faced with competition from an influx of Jamaican drug sellers, The resultant bloodbath led to the launching Operation Stirrup, which began in 2001 and is now a permanent police campaign against the gangs.<br /> <br /> In London, the term ‘Yardie’ has become so ubiquitous as to mean almost any Jamaican, African or black gang. These include the Cartel Crew in Brixton, the Lock City Crew and their rival Much Love Crew in Harlesden, the Spanglers and the Fireblade in north-east London, the Kinglands Crew and the Hackney Posse in the east, the Ghetto Boys in Lewisham, and the Peckham Boys and Younger Peckham Boys. Then there are the Muslim Boys, the name used by between 50 and 100 members of several gangs in neighbourhoods around Brixton, Peckham, Lambeth, and Streatham, south London. Many of them have access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons and Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, who heads Operation Trident, the Scotland Yard unit that targets gun crime in the black community, blames them for several murders, attempted murders, and a series of robberies. ‘They began using the name Muslim Boys as a macho thing,’ Mr Coles told the London Evening Standard. ‘One or two might have converted to Islam, but it's nothing to do with religion, or terrorism. As far as I'm concerned they're the same thugs, engaged in the same crimes, whatever they can do to make money.’ Ethnic crime groups are heavily represented in London, easily the nation’s biggest and most cosmopolitan city – though it should be noted that the Glamorgan University researchers found most gang members were white.<br /> <br /> London Turks and Kurds control much of the heroin importation to the UK, and occasionally their feuds break out into open warfare, as in the infamous Battle of Green Lanes, when 40 men armed with guns, knives and baseball bats battled outside a social club. By the time police arrived, 21 men had been injured, one fatally. ‘It is family controlled and for years it has remained covert,’ said a senior Metropolitan Police officer of the Turkish heroin trade. “It is extremely powerful, controlled more from Istanbul than London.’<br /> <br /> Outside the major urban centres, gang problems are less acute, but growing. Youngsters from the flatlands of East Anglia to the council estates of Paisley are adopting the street slang, wearing the clothes, selling drugs and even acquiring guns. The gang leaders are usually childhood friends, brought up in poor areas, searching for the elusive quality of ‘respect’ – which in their world often equates as fear. If the criminal world is a layer cake, at the bottom are teenage gangs with members as young as ten, based on housing estates. Members may then graduate to more serious crime gangs, stealing high-value cars, snatching jewellery and watches, dealing wraps of crack and heroin. On the next level are villains who control large-scale operations such as drug distribution – the so-called ‘ten-kilo’ men, and protection rackets on pubs, clubs and bars. At the very top are the big drug importers and moneymen: the Turks, the Asians, the Colombians, and a few indigenous mini-cartels, mainly from London and the Home Counties or Liverpool. Some of these crime groups have political links in their countries of origin. What know single grup has ever done is achieve representation at every level – until now. For some time, Customs officer have been watching a surge in the wealth and influence of Asian gangs, particularly from Pakistan and India. Often fuelled by anti-Western sentiment, they are smart, savvy and ruthless. ‘They control the entire heroin supply chain from cultivation in the Middle east to sale on the streets of the UK,’ said one investigator. ‘No other crime group can do that, it makes them uniquely powerful. And that’s frightening.’</p>
<div style="text-align:center;text-decoration:underline;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">GANG MAP</span></div>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">NATIONAL</span></div>
<p><br /> Many foreign gangs are active across the UK. They include: Chinese Triads (estimated 5,000 nationwide), engaged in loansharking, extortion, gambling, fraud; Snakehead and Vietnamese gangs (350), people smuggling, extortion; Turkish and Kurdish gangs (500-1,000), heroin importation, arms; Nigerian and Ghanaian gangs (1,000), fraud; Balkan and former Eastern Bloc gangs (unknown), prostitution, drugs, guns, contract killing (Serbs), smuggling illegal immigrants; former Communist Bloc - trading in women for vice and pornography, extortion, importing counterfeit goods.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">BIRMINGHAM</span></div>
<p><br /> Two black gangs, the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, have waged an on-off war for a decade. Both grew out of earlier gangs, the Handsworth Nigga Squad and the Inch High Crew, and bizarrely took their names from the food outlets where they hung out. They have forged contacts with outside firms including the PDC in London, the Gooch in Manchester and others in Bristol and Swindon New gangs are Badder Bar Boys, the Champagne Crew and the Rally Close Crew. Members of Birmingham City’s Zulus football firm control many of the pub and club doors in the city and are treated with respect by the younger gangbangers.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">BRISTOL</span></div>
<p><br /> A crack cocaine hotspot. The Aggi crew, who take their name form the initials of their founder members, dominated the cities drug trade until key members were jailed,. When they emerged form prison, they faced opposition from Yardie posses including Hype Cru, the Moutain View Posse and the Back to back gang. Predictably, a spate of shootings and even an attack qwith giant fireworks followed. Police set up Operation Atrium to prevent gang warfare and closed down the Black and White Café in St Paul’s, the most notorious drug-dealing venue in England. Recently they also shut crackhouses in South Gloucestershire and one in Somerset. But the murder of enforcer Stephen Henry in September 2003 indicates that gang conflict in the city has not gone away.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">LONDON</span></div>
<p><br /> The capital has multiple layers of gang/organised crime, from international cartels to school-age street urchins. Turks and Kurds, many linked to the notorious Baybasin clan, control heroin importation. They included the Bombers in Hackney (100 members), the Tottenham Boys (70), and the Kurdish Bulldogs (70) in Wood Green Muslim Boys is the name used by between 50 and 100 members of several gangs around Brixton, Peckham, Lambeth, and Streatham, in south London. Most are in their late teens or early 20s and belong to the Stockwell Crew, the South Man Syndicate and Poverty Driven Children (PDC). At least 20 hardcore members are in jail. The Peckham Boys are primarily active in Peckham, Walworth and Camberwell, and in cross-border disputes. Members are predominately black males involved in robbery, house burglary, drugs and disorder. Older members often move into more serious crimes. Their offshoot, the Young Peckham Boys, were blamed for the death of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor The Lock City Crew tend to be foreign born, either African or Jamaican, while their rival Much Love Crew are local to north London. White gangs include the tough Canning Town and Stratford firms in the East End, and the notorious A Team from north London. Rival Sri Lankan gangs have recently waged a vicious war in the Wembley area, while the Southall Sikhs (formerly the Holy Smokes and Tooti Nung) are active in the heroin trade.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">LUTON</span></div>
<p><br /> The gradual demise of the Asian Bury Park Youth Posse left the territory clear for their long-time rivals the Men In Gear (MIGs), one of the first multi-racial football hooligan crews, who number about 100 strong.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">MANCHESTER</span></div>
<p><br /> For two decades the dominant force in the city’s underworld, the Salford Lads are several different firms linked by long-standing friendships. Up to 100-strong, they specialise in cannabis and club drugs, protection rackets and armed robbery. The 60-strong Cheetham Hillbillies, many of African descent, specialised in armed robbery, taxing and drugs. Some became multi-millionaire drug barons. The Gooch, from Moss Side, are now the strongest of the black or mixed-race gangs. Their alleged ‘godmother’, a woman of 46, was recently subject to an ASBO. Their Doddington rivals have been decimated by murders, an internal split, and successful police operations, including one that rounded up over a dozen of their street drug dealers.<br /> <br /> The Longsight Crew survive despite the recent jailing of their leader, Julian Bell, while the Pitt Bull Crew, who split off from the Doddington, were all but wiped out by the jailing of their entire leadership, including boss Tommy Pitt, sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. New groups such as the Young Longsight Soldiers, but it is the emerging Asian gangs that may dominate the city’s underworld in the future.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">LIVERPOOL</span></div>
<p><br /> Originally run by a small number of powerful families, the city’s organised crime culture is entrepreneurial rather than territorial. The most famous Merseyside Mr Big, Curtis Warren, the Toxteth scally who became Britain’s biggest drugs baron, is currently in jail in Holland, serving a 12-year sentence for masterminding a £125m shipment. He forged links with major narcotics suppliers such as the Colombians, as did John Haase, whose Big Brother Security was a front for his drug and weapons deals with Turkish godfathers. The city now has innumerable drug dealing cells with links across the globe, while the heavies behind the city’s door security industry are in a constant state of tension that occasionally breaks out in violence. At street level, police now say there are now at least three young gangs on Warren’s former Toxteth turf, while two young white gangs have been locked in a deadly conflict in the Kirkdale area of the city.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">LEEDS</span></div>
<p><br /> The 6ft 5in Clifton Junior Bryan had strong links with the drug warlords of Manchester and Liverpool, in 2000. When he and the equally powerful Frank “Gatt” Birley died in unrelated incidents, it unleashed a spate of shootings has hit the city after his death, attributable to the so-called Yout’ (Youth) clashing with Yardies for control of the drugs trade. Left six dead andmore than twenty injured and led to the deportation of over 200 illegal entrants, mainly from the West Indies, in a police crackdown called Operation Stirrup. Leeds is also home of one of Britain’s few female crime gangs, the Chapeltown Purse Dippers.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;">NOTTINGHAM</div>
<p><br /> Three predominantly black gangs, the Meadows Posse, the St Ann’s Crew and the Radford Road Posse, but they are challenged by white guys from the Bestwood area Their numbers vary depending on how many are in jail or on the run at any one time. Robberies and drug dealing are their stock in trade. They have links with black gangs in Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">NEWCASTLE AND THE NORTH-EAST</span></div>
<p><br /> Traditionally the preserve of musclemen and bodybuilders, the macho culture of the north-east has been personified by tough families such as the Sayers and the Conroys (Newcastle), the late Lee Duffy (Middlesbrough), the Warden Law Gang (Sunderland) and BOSS – the Boys of South Shields – and their offshoot the Youth of South Shields. The north-east does not have the large ethnic minority gangs of many other urban areas, nor has it yet fully adopted the gun culture. Violent gangs like the Stockton Wrecking Crew and the Gremlins are little more than brawlers compared to the more organised gangs of other cities.</p>
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