THE LONDON DRUG WARS (22 page)

Back in London DCI Bolton sat in his
office reading the latest copy of the surveillance logs for the watch on the
Anderson brothers’ flat. It had been a week now and he was no closer to finding
the connection between them and the Russian drug gang. He was now almost
pulling his hair out in frustration. The two brothers had been closely followed
every time one went out but neither had ventured further than ‘The Fountain’,
the pub four hundred yards up the road. And there had been no deliveries made
to the flat. In fact the only person carrying anything into the damned flat had
been the mother and her bags of shopping. Then it hit him. “Shit! It’s her,
she’s doing the buying.”

Picking up the phone, he called on of
the detectives on the observation. “Tell me,” he said, “how often does the
Anderson woman go shopping?”

The detective, Sally Broad said, “Oh,
she loves shopping sir, a mini-cab comes for her twice a week. And she shops at
Sainsbury’s, you can tell by the bags.”

“Look at the logs and tell me how
long she’s away from the flat.”

It took her a few minutes to find the
log entries. When she had she said, “Monday she was just over an hour. But
Wednesday she was out for four hours.”

Bolton held on to his temper. “I
trust you at least got the registration number of the cab each time.”

“Yes sir, it was the same one each
time. We even checked on it. The firm’s called Easy Cabs, its office is in Well
Street.”

“Well when you finish your shift
you’d better get down there and find out where he took her both times.” He then
slammed down the receiver.

Bolton knew he’d blown it. He could
hardly blame his team when it had taken him all this time to cotton on. He had
nothing to show for all the effort put in to the observation, but he could
salvage something from the mess. He immediately started his preparations to
raid the flat. He’d already applied for the search warrant that was valid for
fourteen days. He also had a full unit of the Force’s Special Patrol Group
(SPG) on standby. The unit consisted of one inspector, two sergeants and twenty
constables, all highly trained and fit. This unit were equipped to deal with
anything from an unruly football crowd to a full-blown riot. Whilst the Met’s,
policy was still built around the friendly, unarmed Bobby on his beat, recent
events had required them to be backed up by more robust units.

The SPG would keep the peace whilst
Bolton’s team of detectives conducted their search. Bolton also had one or two
other surprises in his armoury in the form of the special equipment necessary
to gain entry to the flat. Even after they had identified the woman he kept the
observation team in position to inform him if anything changed on the estate in
the lead up to the raid.

Nothing did, and he briefed all of
his troops at 5am the next morning. As well as the one, two and twenty SPG
officers, there were eight of his detectives, two crime scene investigators,
and two photographers. One of these would take pictures of what was found in
the flat; the other would find a vantage point at the rear watching the flat’s
windows, as it was not unusual for drug dealers to dispose of their illegal
substances out the back as the police arrived at the front. Whilst he was not
present at the briefing an employee of the local sewage company was ready to
accompany them and put a filter over the waste pipe from Brownwood House as the
police moved in, as it was not unusual for the drug dealers to flush the drugs
down the toilet when the police arrived. As the Americans would have it, Bolton
had covered all his bases.

Then, after a check with the watchers
Bolton told his troops to ‘mount up’. There were eight vehicles in the convoy
that left Hackney Police Station that night, they included two police vans used
for the conveyance of prisoners, as well as the SPG transits and detectives’
cars. The route they chose took them via back streets to a turning off Wick
Road just out of the line of sight of the residents of Brownwood House.

Then they sat and waited whilst
Bolton did a last and final check with his watchers. They reported that all was
quiet on the estate. Everyone then de-bussed quietly and followed Bolton to
Wick Road.

Had any local resident seen them he
might easily have thought war had been declared and an invasion was taking
place. Bolton and his team of detectives wore bulletproof jackets and baseball
caps with chequered bands around them over their civilian clothes, three of
them carried heavy pieces of equipment shaped rather like rocket launchers, and
another four carried handguns. The one, two and twenty SPG officers almost
resembled Ro
man
soldiers. They were clad
in uniforms, helmets with clear plastic visors and carried long batons and
shields. But it was just approaching 6am and no-one was about.

As they neared the estate, one of the
photographers peeled off, climbed over the low fence and made his way to his
vantage point behind Brownwood House. The remainder of the group followed
Bolton onto the estate. Then, half of the SPG group peeled off and went to
pre-selected points where they could deal with any crowd that gathered once the
raid started. The remainder followed Bolton to the bottom of staircase leading
to the upper floors of Brownwood House. Here they stopped whilst the detectives
quietly climbed the stairs to the second floor. To Bolton’s relief no-one
stirred in any of the flats and not a single light showed in any of the
windows. Reaching the second floor landing he looked along the balcony that led
to no. 34. All was quiet. Satisfied, he nodded and made his way almost on
tip-toe along the balcony.

 Arriving at his destination, he was
confronted by the upright row of steel bars of a gate fixed in front of the
door to the flat. He put a finger to his lips and an ear as close to the door
as he could and paused to listen. Silence. Not even the tick of a clock.
Satisfied, he moved to one side and signalled to the detective with what had
become affectionately known as the backward vice to step forward. There was no
official name for the thing made by one of the police boffins. It had two
parallel strips of thin reinforced steel and a lever such as you would find on
a vice. But when you turned the lever it forced the two metal strips apart, not
together.

The detective placed the steel strips
between the edge of the gate over the door and the wall. He chose the side of
the gate with the hinges as he’d practiced with mock-ups. It fitted snugly.
Then he began turning the lever which had the effect of forcing the steel
strips apart and the gate-frame from the bolts holding it to the wall. At first
it was easy but got slowly more difficult until finally he was straining with
both hands to turn the lever. At last there was the screech of tortured metal
and two loud cracks as the bolts holding the hinges to the frame fractured. The
detective with his ‘vice’ stepped back as the gate sagged towards him. A
colleague grabbed it and leant it against the wall beside the door.

But the noise meant they had now lost
the element of surprise. Two other detectives quickly stepped forward and
placed the ends of two long cylindrical objects on the door beside the hinges.
They then put their weight on the other ends of the cylinders and nodded to
Bolton. He said slowly, “One – two – three.” On three the two pressed buttons
and two sprung rams were released, and hammered into the pine wood of the door.
The woodwork disintegrated and the remains of the door swung inwards before
falling off the bolt on the other side. The glass in the window on the top half
of the door shattered, showering glass everywhere. But the two detectives had
practiced this move and had on goggles and leather gloves, and the other
detectives had kept out of the way whilst they worked. The whole exercise of
getting through the gate and the door had taken less than a minute.

Then, after a brief moment of
silence, detectives led by Bolton streamed into the flats shouting, “Armed
police! Armed police!” Spreading out, they entered every room, shining the
powerful beams of their torches before them. If they had anticipated any
resistance from the two brothers they need not have worried. Both were in bed,
one with a girl, the other alone. Both had been caught napping, literally. But
in the main bedroom things were different. Sheila Anderson, the mother of the
two boys screamed like a banshee. In between the screams she cursed the
detectives and their mothers. The only way to subdue her was to lay her face
down and cuff her hands behind her back. Even then she refused to quieten down.

They were the only people in the
flat. But in the kitchen the detectives found what they were looking for. One
cupboard was stacked with illegal drugs of all descriptions. At current street
prices there were several thousand pounds worth of drugs here. In addition, a
cash box was found on the kitchen table stuffed full with bank notes. Evidence
of dealing was in abundance as fingerprints would be found on both the cashbox
and the large plastic bag containing the envelopes of drugs. Most street
dealers had the sense not to leave their prints on the actual envelopes they
handed to the addicts but when handling the bulk of the main supply they were
less careful. The photographer recorded all the finds. All three members of the
family would face serious charges that would ensure they got prison sentences.

Whilst all this was going on in the
flat, there had been some activity in the courtyard outside. The noise had
awakened most of the residents of Brownwood House and the block across the
courtyard. First, faces had begun to appear at windows and doors, then people
began to emerge from their homes. Skinheads began to converge in the courtyard
and shout insults at the police. Then more and more appeared until there were
over a dozen; some had acquired baseball bats and other improvised clubs. They
continued shouting until they’d worked up the courage to attack the police,
then they charged the group of officers at the bottom of the stairs. But the
police were ready and their training took over. Written somewhere in the annals
of military training is the piece of wisdom that suggests that a well organised
group of trained men will be a match for a crowd of untrained rabble twice its
size. Here the two forces were evenly matched; in numbers anyway. Within a few
minutes four of the skinheads lay injured on the ground, the remainder had
tried to slink off to lick their wounds. But they were herded together and
arrested; they would face charges of causing an affray. None of the police bore
even a scratch.

The police vans were brought into the
courtyard and the prisoners and evidence taken away.

When
Brookes got the news in France later that morning he was disappointed that
Bolton hadn’t had the patience to wait to prove the connection to the Russians.
But he said nothing to spoil Bolton’s obvious pleasure. It was just a small
victory, but now at least they were taking regular bites out of Bronchi’s
empire and it wouldn’t be long before it began to crumble. But still, he chided
himself, they had nothing incriminating on the man himself.

“
Will you walk into my parlour said the spider to
the fly.

‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did
spy.
”

–
Mary
Howitt

In Septèmes-les-Vallons it was early
the next morning when Com Dec’s delivery van left the yard and set off north,
driven by one of the Russians. The narcotics squad’s mobile surveillance team
was ready and followed at a distance. The van was driven directly to Paris. It
left the autoroute and followed the ring road to the eastern suburbs. The
driver was obviously familiar with the route as he wove his way without
hesitation through a series of industrial estates directly to an
anonymous-looking warehouse. The van was driven inside the building and the
roller shutter pulled down after it. Fifteen minutes later the vehicle emerged
and was driven back to Lyon.

The French Narcotics Squad was
pleased; Brookes and his sergeant were not. They knew that the French could not
be expected to wait very long before raiding the Paris premises and risked
alerting Bronchi in London. Had the situation been reversed, they too would
have had to move before the drugs hit the streets.

Chesnaye called Brookes to his
office. “My friend, I have spoken to my Paris colleagues pleading on your
behalf for patience. He was most reluctant but agreed to wait until tomorrow
morning before acting; it will certainly take the Russians at least that long
to cut the drugs. That of course is if the process takes place there. He says
that if there is any movement of goods from the factory in the meantime, he
will have no choice but to go in. He has promised that if it is possible when
he carries out the raid he will keep the story from the media for as long as
possible, although there is always the risk of a leak once such action takes
place. More than that he cannot do.”

“Henri, I am very grateful. Please
tell your colleague that I understand. Were I in his shoes, I would have the
same concerns.”

That night the two London detectives
sat late over their supper. The French were continuing their surveillance of
Com Dec where again there was activity late into the night. No-one got much
sleep that night.

It was the next day that things took
a turn for the better and Brookes’ respect for his French counterparts
increased another notch. At 8am the Com Dec van left the warehouse in Lyon and
headed southeast followed at a discrete distance by French narcotics
detectives. Ten minutes later a lorry arrived and the driver reversed it into
the yard. A container was loaded onto it and it was driven away north. Units of
the French narcotics squad followed, keeping the vehicle in sight; obviously
there was no tracking device on this one.

The van meanwhile, headed for the
Italian border, crossing at the small town of Madane. The border police made
only a cursory examination of the driver’s papers and the van was driven off
towards Turin. The French police continued to follow, report their position and
direction of travel to their headquarters.

On the continent of Europe, police
forces from member countries of the EEC co-operate fully with each other
through Europol. As, technically there were no customs controls between member
countries, criminals passed freely across international borders. The police
forces of these countries had quickly learned the need for flexibility and
co-operation to combat the criminals’ activities.

Phone calls were made from the French
Gendarmerie to the Italian Europol office, agreements were reached and covert
Italian police vehicles joined in the mobile surveillance. They were in direct
radio contact with the French, who were still receiving signals from the van’s
tracking device. The van bypassed Turin and drove on to Milan. It finally
stopped at a vehicle repair shop on the outskirts of the city.

Italians are not renowned for their patience
and so it was that, as the delivery van was unloading cartons at the repair
shop, the Italian police went straight in after it. A fierce gun battle ensued;
one Italian policeman was shot dead and another seriously injured. Four
criminals were killed including the van driver.

Several kilograms of heroin and
cocaine were discovered in the cartons delivered by the van. The drugs were
found in the bases of protective Styrofoam packaging supporting the computers
in their cardboard cartons; each carton contained a kilo of drugs and there
were four cartons. Even before the drugs were cut, the value of the consignment
was something around US$600,000. The narcotics would not have been discovered
by casual inspection. Knowing what they were looking for meant that the police
inspection was far from casual.

In the meantime, the lorry carrying
the container was on an autoroute heading north towards the Channel ports. The
overzealous action of the Italians had posed a problem for both the French and
British police. The Russians were not fools and would soon find out that at
least one link in the smuggling chain had been discovered; Chesnaye decided
that he could wait no longer. The Narcotics Squad, reinforced by uniformed
officers of the Police Nationale in Nimes swooped and arrested the Ukrainian
and his Russian workers at Com Dec. They would be held incommunicado for
twenty-four hours in the hope that word would not get to London before a
delivery was made there. This operation went without incident; the gang, having
despatched the drugs, had relaxed their guard and were caught completely by
surprise.

The Paris police swooped on the
warehouse in their city. A squad had been keeping observation on the warehouse
since the delivery and noted that there had been no unusual comings and goings
throughout the previous day. The workforce had left for the night and the
premises locked. However, two cars had remained in the business’s car park. It
seemed that the Russians had not all left the site. No lights could be seen on
the premises but it could be safely assumed that the chemist was working
through the night and he, no doubt, had a guard who had remained to look after
him. The French police commander had kept his word and had waited as long as he
safely could before acting.

A little before 8am four men were
seen arriving at the warehouse. Five minutes after their arrival, the narcotics
squad struck. A plain-clothes officer went to the small door in the roller
shutter and knocked. When the door was opened, he stepped back and armed
uniformed officers poured into the building. Their action was so swift that the
Russians had no time to offer resistance and six men were arrested and
handcuffed without much of a struggle. One of these men was indeed the chemist.

In the rear of the premises, hidden
from casual observation by piles of crates and cartons, was a large cubicle.
Several kilos of heroin and cocaine were found inside the cubicle, some of
which had already been cut in preparation for sale on the streets of Paris. This
operation would make a serious dent in the Red Mafioso’s drug trade in France’s
capital. For a while anyway. It would take them time to organise a new
smuggling route and replenish supplies.

The Paris police were later to find
that they had similar problems to their London counterparts; whilst they had
managed to arrest many of his soldiers, the Russian gang leader had too many
cut-outs between him and the gang members to be implicated. However his
identity was known and his supplies temporarily cut off. As it transpired, his
drug empire was never to recover. The French Narcotics Squad was ruthless in
their pursuit of the man and their attention ensured that he never got his
operation running again. On hearing this news, Brookes was envious of the
greater latitude the French courts allowed their law enforcement officers; with
similar support he knew he could do the same with Bronchi and his gang.

At the same time as the Paris raid
was taking place, narcotic squad gendarmes and uniformed police raided a warehouse
and two private homes in Marseilles. In all, nine arrests were made, all were
East Europeans and at only one of the locations was there any resistance. It
had proved impossible to approach the dockside warehouse used by the Russians
without detection and gunfire was exchanged. The gendarmes used stun grenades,
smoke and tear gas, and four men staggered out coughing and spluttering and
with eyes streaming from the tear gas. They were all arrested by gendarmes
wearing gas masks as they emerged.

Brookes had been kept aware of these
events as they unfolded. There was only one piece of good news from his
viewpoint; the haulage firm whose lorry was transporting the Com Dec container
appeared to be a legitimate company with no criminal connections. It seemed that
the Russians simply used them to transport their sealed containers without its
driver having any knowledge that illicit drugs that had been added to the
contents. This made sense as the fact that Britain was an island made policing
the ports of entry easier and evading the authorities more dangerous; why take
the risk if you didn’t have to?

But it did mean that once the goods
were in the hands of the innocent courier it became difficult to divert him,
and it was most likely that the lorry driver would complete the delivery. What
happened then was uncertain as Brookes had no way of knowing where and when the
drugs were passed on to Bronchi. He knew that there was little honour among
thieves and the smugglers would want payment before handing over the goods.
From what he’d seen so far he had to assume that PC Inc. were part of the
smuggling gang and it was from them Bronchi must buy the drugs.

Late that night, the container lorry
arrived at Calais. It was driven into the huge container park at the docks. The
driver was observed to leave the cab and urinate against the wheel of the
vehicle. He then locked the vehicle and went to a cafe on the edge of the park.
There, he ate a meal before returning to his vehicle. He climbed back into the
cab and appeared to settle down for the night.

Once the driver’s intentions were
clear, Brookes and his sergeant had given their thanks to Commissar Chesnaye in
Nimes and said their farewells. Early the next morning they caught the flight
back to Heathrow.

At 6am that same morning the
observation team saw the lorry start up and join the queue for the
cross-channel ferry. One of the nondescript French police cars joined the queue
of light vehicles waiting for the same ferry. They would accompany the lorry
across the channel and hand over to the British police once it was in the UK.

The ferry crossing went smoothly and
the lorry started its journey to London, now followed by officers of the
Brookes squad. To Brookes’ relief it was driven straight to the premises of PC
Inc.; whilst he had been convinced that would be the destination he could not
have been sure until it got there. The company was housed in a small warehouse
in Battersea; there the container was unloaded and the lorry departed to
deliver another container elsewhere. The police observers had been carefully
briefed and understood that it was more important that they were not spotted
than observing closely what went on in the premises, as the search by DI Mann
had established this was only a staging point in their journey.

It soon became evident that their
caution was justified. Two men left PC Inc. on foot, followed by a small Fiat
saloon car. The pedestrians were seen walking up and down, peering into parked
cars and alleyways, obviously looking for watchers. The Fiat was seen
patrolling the surrounding streets. All this activity was watched by the police
surveillance team who were comfortably hidden in the first floor bedroom of a
house just fifty yards from the PC Inc. premises on the opposite side of the
road.

DAC Groves had
been brought into the discussions on how long they could risk waiting. He had
made the decision to let things run for as long as they possibly could; they
needed to establish they were indeed destined for Bronchi’s gang and, if
possible, find the lab where the drugs were cut. In the meantime, he assembled
squads of detectives and armed police to standby for immediate action.

In Battersea two detectives watched
the warehouse from their vantage point. The observation post had been set up
three days earlier. The house from which they watched was owned by a police
widow in her sixties. Fred Middlemiss had known her husband and she’d happily
agreed for two detectives to watch from her bedroom window. She was enjoying
the excitement and the company, and kept the detectives supplied with tea and
sandwiches. From their comfortable ‘hide’, the detectives could see over the
six-foot wall surrounding the yard of the warehouse in which were parked two
delivery vans and several cars, together with the newly delivered container.

They had watched the delivery of the
container and the activity that followed. They saw the two men on foot and the
two in the Fiat car leave the yard. They watched four other men unload cartons
from the container. As each was taken out, a fifth man examined it and directed
the men where to put it. Most were stacked there in the yard, six were taken
quickly into the warehouse As soon as they were finished two men got into one
of the delivery vans and one into a BMW.

The man who had
directed their activities went into the warehouse; he emerged into the street
and stood looking around him. After a few minutes, he walked to the yard gate
and unlocked it. After opening the gate, he stood looking up and down the
street. Apparently satisfied, he signalled to the driver of the empty van who
drove out quickly, followed some seconds later by the BMW. The gate was closed
behind the two vehicles. The van disappeared up the road, followed at a
distance by the BMW.