 You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications button so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live. We were flying over to Morocco and bringing stuff back for the £200 a kilo we were paying for it and that stuff was great stuff as well, you know, straight from the Atlas Mountains. I bought a nightclub and then I'm not involved in any crime at all at that time, right? And then cocaine came on the scene and things took a turn for the worst after that, to be honest. I was virtually a million-hour at 28 and then by the time I was 32, like 88, 89, I was virtually skinned again. We went into debt collecting and it weren't long before we were under arrest, three of us were all under arrest for extortion. But to test it out, I flew into France, was given two kilos and I landed at the place in Kent and the bloke turned up, collected the two kilos and went, yeah, it's perfect. So that was the first one I've done was just two kilos, which normally is not worth starting the plane up for. And the bloke who got caught with me had two kilos and seven firearms, seven checkers of back-in semi-automatics. And that was it, you know, we were caught. When a judge is on another trial, right, across the other side of the country, he stops that trial just to drive back to St. Andrew, you know you're in trouble. And I was thinking to myself, well, I'll probably end up with about 12 or 13 years, you know. And then of course he gives me 25, but he had to knock a third off. Boom, we're on. And today's guest, we've got Sidney Wright. Yeah, great stuff, great. You gave us your book, Phenomenal Read, which we'll plug straight away. Yeah. Like the last London gangster you were getting 25 years, you were cocaine pilot, basically you were flying your own drugs and guns from Essex and bringing it over. Obviously you get caught. But my story, like you don't really hear people from the UK doing that sort of stuff. No, no, it was unusual. Basically I was recruited in England. I knew I was a pilot, one of the gang over in Amsterdam. And they approached me and I don't know, my life was a bit boring at that time. But you know, I'll have a go at this. And we started working together, you know. Yeah, before we get into all the mad stuff, I always like to go back to the start with my guests. Yeah, sure. Where you grew up and how it all began. Yeah. Yeah, I was born in Hackney, East London, in the mid 50s. And I grew up in London. It was still very much a post-war city in those days. You know, even when we used to play, we wouldn't say we'd meet you at the playground. It would meet you at the bomb site. You know, it was part of our language. And at that time, they were doing a lot of clearance of old houses and building flats. So me and my friends, when we were in a school, we were in and out of houses. We used to wane old rags, get the lead out of the pipe, the lead piping out. You know, even when we were about nine years old, we used to make a few bub that way, you know. How about your school? Yeah, I was quite a good student at school, actually. I did quite well at school. I qualified for grammar school when I was 11. And I was due to go to a school called Parmitus in Bethnal Green. It's quite a famous school. However, my dad, my mum, mainly, wanted to move out of London at the time. The traffic was getting bad and it was... London wasn't really improving. So we moved to Essex when I was 11. Who was that for you? Initially, it was a major wrench. Why? Well, because I came from sort of inner city, inner city lifestyle. I say we could, I mean, I could strip the lead off a pub roof when they emptied the streets out in those days to build flats. Most streets had a pub at the end of them. And we used to have all the lead off the roofs and all that. And I went from that to sort of semi-suburbia in the space of, you know, a week or so. So there's not much ways to make money back then? No, I mean, money was really tight in the 60s, the early 60s. I mean, when we was a kid, I used to get about six pence a week, six old pence, which is two and a half pence in today's money, spending money a week, you know. And if we went and got a load of old rags from the houses like curtains, old clothes that were left, lead piping, we used to take to what we called the rag shop and usually get something like about five bob for them. Well, five bob, which is 25p, was a lot of money then, you know. And we used to take that money and go to the calf and have egg and chips or egg bacon and chips or something, you know. How was your mum and dad with you as a kid? Oh, they were fantastic, honestly. My dad works at Folds, had a good job at Folds because there was seven of us, seven children. You know, we never really had much money. All these money went basically on bringing the family up, you know. So a loving family. A lot of people aren't of you who end up in prison. A life of crime usually come from the broken home. The dad not there. You had the loving family in your kingdom. Yeah, it wasn't the case with me. We had a fantastic family, very, very tight knit. My dad was a sort of pillar of the community, run a football team. Chinkford Clarins. And, you know, we had a great family house. You walked inside our house when I was a kid and it was warmth and love, you know. No two ways about it. So I've got no excuses there. I couldn't turn around and say the life I had involved in crime was down to my family upbringing, not at all. When did you end up getting involved in the serious stuff? What age? The serious stuff really was probably about 23, 24 onwards. What did you do before that? Did you ever have a job or anything? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I left school when I was 16 and I worked. No, no, sorry, I went to college for a year. What did you do? Economics and economic history. Why did you choose that? Well, one, it involved money and learning about business and economics and economic history. It was because of history. I was pretty particularly gifted out here at school, you know. That was my favourite subject and I was just naturally good at it. So you had a go at that? Yeah. Why did you move away from it? Well, I got a job in London as an apprentice underwriter. I was taking what they call ACII, which is like associated chartered institute of insurance, exams and everything. But I was earning £16 a week in those days. This is 1973, we're going back to now. And £16 a week. My train fare was £16 a month, coincidentally. And I just, all my mates were buying nice cars like Lotus, Cortina and some things. I just never had any money, you know. So I stood that for about a year and then I packed the job in, you know. Do you regret that decision now? Not really because what it was, it was stability and would have led to me eventually being an underwriter. But if I'm brutally honest with myself, I would have been bored with it. Getting the train every day to work, commuting, the same old stuff every day. By the time I was an underwriter, I'd have been earning a lot of money. It would have been very boring. So you still had a good career on that because we'll touch on later in the interview. You're a very crafty writer, you're an amazing writer. But when you leave that, then, was it the attraction of the fancy cars, the fancy suits back in the 70s? I think it was, yeah. In the mid-70s, I mean, the 70s were a very hard decade, you know, in comparison to today. And when I left my job in the inner city, it weren't long before I got my first sentence in jail. I basically got in a fight, a friend of mine got in a fight at a club, a rugby club, like a disco. And I said, if anyone joined in, I'd back him up. And he had a fight with his bloke and basically two rugby players went in and I knocked them both out. And unfortunately, I got nicked for it. I got a cut eye. So it constituted actual bodily harm. And I ended up getting six months detention centre. And trust me, the detention centre in those days was tough. It was the hardest, I mean, I prayed to get a ball stall. Although the ball stall was a longer sentence, the detention centres were that hard. You know, it really was tough. Was that a wee cup call for you? I'll tell you what, it did, the detention centres in those days turned you into, did you ever see the film Scum? Yeah. Right, but what happened to him in there was Ray Winston, who was a distant relative of mine, right? Actually happened to me in real life. I was in the detention centre for 10 days and it was full of, it was on the Hollisey Bay Detention Centre. And within 10 days, I had a fight with the top, what they called the top boy in there. A bloke called Tony Scott, if you watch it. He was a hard case. And I was lucky enough that I beat him. And after I beat him, I became the top boy in there. And then it made it a lot easier for me. You know, no one picked fights with me. I wasn't bullied at all. I got first choice at all the cigarettes and I could smoke him with bandana. You couldn't smoke in detention centres. But we used to get some black market tobacco and I had access to all that, so it made life a bit easier. So you could scrap back then if you're knocking out rugby players and becoming top boy? Yeah, well, I took up boxing when I was 16 at South End Club. I'll be honest here, I wasn't the greatest boxer in the world but I could knock people out with either a left hook or a right hand. No problem at all, you know. What sort of respect then do you have as a kid with your top boy in the detention centre? Did that become an attraction again? Yeah, 100% without a doubt. I mean, like I say, detention centres were that time. I mean, I remember one kid coming in there that couldn't hack it and the place was that bad. He went back to his room and took a razor and cut all his face wide open just to get in hospital to get out of there. That's what it was like. There was tremendous bullying going on in there and you were up at six o'clock every morning, you had to cold shower, then breakfast, then work parade, then you went to work all morning then you went to the gym in the afternoon for an hour, after lunch, and then in the evening, especially if you've been a bad boy like I had, I've been rubbing floors till nine o'clock at night, you know. So it was a real bad, it was real hard bird. See, if you're weak in those environments, the tough men sniff that out or bullies sniff that out who the weakest is straight away? Honestly, there's like an animal existence in there. The bullies sniffed out the weak ones within literally 10 seconds. It was that quick. What's it like for your mum and dad to come and visit you as a kid who's got potential to be something to then end up in detention centre? Yeah, they were bitterly disappointed with me, but then again, you see, if I'd have been in detention centre, say for burglary or some nasty sort of crime, you know, distasteful crime, I was in there for an honour crime, right? My friend got in a fire and I said, if anyone joined in, I'd back him up. Two big rugby players went in. They turned on me, but luckily for them, although it was only about 10 stone, I could punch like a middleweight or a light every weight. And I landed a couple of punches on them and put them away, you know? That to me was an honour crime. Even if I could turn the clock back now, I would still have done the same, right? I wouldn't let my mate go into that fight with two big rugby players on his back, you know? So, you know, I've got no... I wasn't disgraced at all and my dad knew that. You know, my dad always told me, you stand by your friends, you know? Self-defence. It was self-defence because the two rugby players, when I steeped in and said, I'd leave him alone, they turned on me. The two of them turned on me. And unfortunately, one of them, I put away quite clean with a right hand. The second one, I caught him in the eye and it cut his eye and that was the ABH. What did you do after the detention centre? Well, I came out of the detention centre in, I'll tell you what it was, November 1974. And my best friend came round me flat the next day to grab my house the next day because I was back at home with mum and dad. I said, listen, Sid, I've got your job, I'll carry it. What's that? In those days, it was probably the hardest job you could ever have. You were carrying bricks and cement up sometimes 30-foot ladders to bricklayers. But you know what, I loved it. And it got me so fit. I mean, I stood by my mum's, I think still got the press cuttings at home. When I came out and did the odd carrying, I had three boxing matches in 10 days and I knocked all three out within two rounds because I was so fit coming out of the detention centre and then doing the odd carrying, you know, it made me even better. Why did you never stuck in the boxing? I wasn't good enough to make the top, honestly. When all the money, all the money in boxing in those days, and it's probably still the same now, is at the very top of the game. You know, in those days, you first say 10 pro fights, you're getting about 250 quid a fight in those days. When I was earning under a pound a week, odd carrying, you know. And again, I would never have made the top. Even now, I think the top 1% of boxing was on the ones who make money. I had Joe Kozagi on last year. He was 22 and 0, world champion in he-odd money. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and you've got to remember, the time I used to box at welterweight, at the time I was around and say, if I did have Asper, I mean, I went one time in 1977. I scored 14 consecutive knockouts. Right? Not the highest standard of the amateur game, but a reasonable standard of fighter. Now, you know, it doesn't sound much, 14 on the chart, but you try and do it. Right? 14 on the chart. And people were talking about me being a potential champion and that. But you know, the champs were earning the money at that time. Was Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler. Now, there's no way on this earth that I was going to beat those guys. Right? Not a child in the world was I going to beat those guys. So I stayed out of it, you know. Is that another, do you regret that now? No, I don't regret it at all. I think it's the most sensible decision I ever made because I'd have ended up with, probably earning a lot of money because I could punch hard, right? But 14 and 0 is good though. That's a class start. Well, I stopped 14, I knocked out 14 on the chart. That was in the amateur game, right? And obviously I had a few offers to turn professional, mainly because I was a very good puncher. I wasn't a great boxer, right? But I could knock anyone out with a left hook or a right hand, no problem. Just tough. And I could take a shot, yeah. I could take a shot. What did you do after your job then, 100 quid a week? Was that not enough for you? Well, I was on carrying, believe it or not. I don't know if you've ever had a thing called a 7-1-4 when it was a tax exemption certificate, right? And what you did was you worked in those days, say you was a bricklayer or a odd carrier. Say you weren't 100 quid that week, right? You wrote out the 7-1-4 and the employer put that in for tax relief. It was your way of paying tax. Then you got a bill at the end of the year from the tax people defending how many 7-1-4s you put in. Well, I was offered what they used to call a bent book and ticket and I was signing away bricklayer's work and earning an extra 50 on top, you know. It wasn't just me doing it, a lot of people were doing it. In fact, I signed away nearly all the brickwork on Rayleigh police station. And years later I was actually locked up in Rayleigh police station and looked at the brickwork and knew that I'd signed it away, you know. Was that never enough for you, thinking about a dog, keeping fit? What was the extra attraction that you wanted to get involved in serious crime? Yes, good question. I don't think at that time I really had a desire to be involved in serious crime. I was just on the fringes of it. Like I say, I used to do bent book and tickets for the tax. And around about 1977 I used to drive up to London and buy cannabis in the block. In those days it wasn't in kilos, it was what they called weight, which was a pound. And I still remember the price I used to buy. I used to pay 320 quid for it. I used to drive it back to South End, give it out to a couple of dealers and then we carved the money up at the end of the week. So I was nicking about 200 pound a week out which doesn't sound much now, but 200 pound a week in 1977 was a lot of money. And I was happy just to be in that, you know, a small fish as such. But then the greed kicks in always? You always want more, don't you, I suppose. So why wasn't it kilos? Why was it only half kilos then? Was it a pound? Well, it was the old, it was before everything went metric. It was, you know, I used to go up to London and I still remember the price. I used to buy grade A Moroccan for 320 pound of weight. And the weight was one pound in weight, you know. And I used to buy two of those, give them to two dealers and then at the end of the week we'd carve the money up, you know, I just split the profit with them. What was the hash-leap back then, soft black? It was fantastic. Honestly, the Moroccan that I used to get in those days, they used to call it double zero, I think they called it. You know, I'm thinking back, it was nearly 50 years ago. It was double zero and that stuff, you know, you'd have one joint of that and you weren't going out. You know, your feet, you had your slippers on with the telly on, you know. Well, Granda, he was in his 80s and he was still smoking hash-leap, but it was called soft black and it was fucking strong. Oh, that was the stuff like putty, wasn't it? Yeah. And it was strong because my wee nephew used to... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My wee nephew used to steal bits, but we used to have a couple of joints, but it was a fucking head-off. Well, I mean, you know, later on in the story, I'll tell you, when I lived in the Canary Islands from 1989 to 1992, we were flying over to Morocco and bringing stuff back for the £200 a kilo we were paying for it. And that stuff was great stuff as well, you know, straight from the Atlas Mountains. You only don't shift in a pound, making a couple hundred quid, which is good money back in the 70s. Yeah, it was, it was. Did you then start to get the business head-on and thinking you can make more? Yeah, I think... No, that time, honestly, what I honestly looked at crime as was to earn money so I could put it into legitimate business. I was a very good mechanic and I wanted to eventually have my own garage with an MOT station and all that stuff. And I had a friend of mine at the time, Eric, who was a great welder. And we intended to go into straight business together. So the money I earned from my illicit affairs is such, right? I wanted to put into legitimate business. Where did you get those business strategies to then try to become a businessman to try and go legit? You just learned as you went along, you know, I mean, I used to repair people's cars and I'd see people take their cars to normal garages and they might once say 100 quid for work, but the garage would quote them 200, you know. And I knew there was an opening where we could earn good money by being fair, basically, you know. When did you start upping your shipments from a pound to then working in the hire loads? No, not that time, I didn't. I packed in, we all got nicked in 1979. What for? Cannabis and receiving stolen goods. And also I had another, I'd agree with bodily harm as well. What was Cannabis in? Was it a Class C? No, it was Class B. In the 70s? It had always been Class B. I thought it went up again, then it came back down. No, no, I tell you what, it went down around about 10, 15 years ago, didn't it? To Class C. Yeah. And then they re-upped it to Class B again. Oh, I always thought it was seen, then they put it to B. No, it was Class B in those days. I don't think the hard blood drugs was out then, was it? If you got caught, I mean, we got jailed, I tell you what, I got jailed December 79. I got jailed. I got nine months then, I got two years concurrent. Straight Arthur was for the Cannabis and stolen office equipment. So I ended up with two years. And the standard issue at that time for Cannabis dealing was about between nine and 18 months. So I ended up with two years. And it was about between nine and 18 months. Was that the first time you were in adult prison? Yeah, I was in one with scrubs then, yeah. What's that? Detentions and Bostles, they know they're tough, but adults is a different ball game as well. Yeah, I mean, nowhere near as tough as the detention centre. One with scrubs in 1979 was boring. You were 23 hours a day in a cell, free of you in one cell, 10 foot by six. And it was just boring, you know. There wasn't the bullying that you got in detention centre. There wasn't the fights that you got in detention centre. But it was just a bore, you know. Slopping out as well? Slopping out every morning, you know, the door would open, you slopped out first thing, had your bucket full of piss or whatever. No one's shitting themselves in those days. You wouldn't have it, right? If anyone had diarrhea or whatever, you'd done it in a shirt and it went out the window. Right? That was everybody did that. No one slept in the cells, you know, if there's three of you in there and one of them's had a shit in the bucket, he's gonna get his head punts in, you know, it ain't gonna happen. So basically, you either held it till the morning or you did it in a shirt and it went out the window. That's the truth. And the same with washing, you know, we used to wash down in a bowl every night, because you only got a shower once a week in those days. And we washed down in a bowl and then the bowl of dirty water went out the window, you know. Walled down the walls of the prison, you know. What was the screws like then in the 70s? Rifflus? I'll tell you what, they were mainly in those days, a hell of a lot of them were ex-army in the 70s. They'd done their national service or they'd actually been in regiments in the army. And a great deal of them were decent blokes. They just let you get on with it, you know. You had one or two bastards in there. I mean, I remember the screws that run the block in wormwood scrubs, I mean, they were infamous. Later, they all got yelled at, they all got 15 years each, I think. And they would beat you up. In trouble, you got in a fight in there. Especially if you hit a screw, you went to the block and you got pasted. Trust me on that. So after your two then, are you thinking to go and try and start your business again or are you just thinking about doing the dodgy stuff? No, at that time, honestly, I really wanted to go straight because my wife we had an adult while I was in there. She used to buy me and visited me all the time and everything. And, you know, really when I came out, I just went straight to work with my partner. He got a workshop down in South End, the South End United's football ground and I went to work there as a mechanic. He did the welding and I did all the mechanical work on cars, you know. How hard is that when you're in prison and your daughter's born? Yeah, you just feel detached, you know. It's my first child. So the same as any man, you know, you're really pleased. But at the same time, you're really irritated that you can't really, you know, I didn't want my wife to bring the baby to the prison. So my wife used to come and leave the baby at home, you know, I wouldn't have it. And the baby was born in May of 1980 and I was released in December, so I went six, six months, seven months without seeing her. You know, which was hard. So you came out, head on, you're trying to go straight. Yeah, definitely. How did you get sucked back in again? Well, I tell you what, in the car trade, you know, I mean, in those days I used to put an advert in the paper that I bought MOT, Faddis and any motors. So I was buying a lot of cars and never anything stolen. It was all straight. But in the car trade, you meet people, you know, I mean, I can remember I think it must have been about the middle of 1981 when I would have been 20 pound notes, you know, all of a sudden someone in the car trade went and we listened and said, you know, we can get this. I went, yeah, I'll have a look at them and I was buying 20 pound notes for a fiver, you know, cashing some myself, which I did, right, but the same token I was selling a load of them for tenors, you know, so I was again not really involved on the fringes of crime again, really, you know, as part of the parcel of just being and also as well, we were getting dodgy MOTs for cars, you know. We were it's part of the business in those days not so much now because they've got it now down now, but back in the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s, you know, dodgy MOTs, I used to be able to get insurance certificates, you know, that type of thing was quite commonplace. My family were all the same, like everything was dodgy, we always had one meter rigged free electricity, everything. Used to use the X-ray, when an X-ray used to come, used to show from like a blue sheet of paper, if you cut that and put it round. Used to go through the crack of the meter. Yeah, and it used to stop it and stop your meter. You could use a photo out of a camera as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it used to stop everything. That's why even now when my door goes, I don't answer it because back in the day when my mum and dad's door went, it was fucking get down, it's either the gas man, it was out looking for them. So they had to pull out plugs and pins. Well, years later when I was in the bed and breakfast business, you know, I had a lot of houses with people living in bed seats and bed and breakfast, we were at it all the time with the electric. You had to be because the electric bills were some, I mean, some of my houses that I owned, I had like 10 different rooms in them all used in electric. Imagine the electric bills that put you out of business. So we used to either do the film that you said, put the camera film down the side. Or if you've got a length of wire, it's the same as the goes in the bottom of the meter and connect the two end terminals, it bypassed it. So instead of going through and spinning the wheel quick, it bypassed it and made it go slow, you know. So you're kind of just trying to keep your head above water, looking for easy turns, quick turns, not that much money, but you're making enough to then provide for your family. Yeah, exactly, just about. Well, at that time, really, I'll tell you what happened at that time. We started doing well, man, with my partner. I went from literally owning about 50 quid a week in probably 1981. So by the end of 82, I was owning about 500 pound a week by selling cars and doing repairs. At that time, I had two people working for me, mechanics. And I started buying houses. We got into the housing business. My landlord down at our workshop was a bloke called Burke Ballard. He was the richest bloke in Southend. He had houses everywhere. And what he did have trouble with though was problem tenants, right? So he used to take me with him and said, if you don't move out, you're going to have to deal with Sid. They all knew me by that time, through me boxing and everything. And I used to get his tenants out for him and that, you know, that were problem tenants. And he introduced me to the property business where I basically started buying houses and renting the rooms out, bed and breakfast and bed seats, you know, so I'd buy a house. In those days, Southley Broadway was cost, I mean, my first one cost me 26 grand. My mortgage repayments were about 300 a month. And I was getting 300 pound a week renting the rooms out. So it didn't need to be a genius to work out. It was quite profitable. And of course, we were filling the electric and that as well, you know, thrown into the bargain. But we had to. And I ended up, how many houses did I? I ended up with about 85 tenants and about 12 houses, you know. So I was doing quite well. So you're doing well though. You're filling your house. Yeah. Why is it unmeans that we have to go down? Well, I don't know. What happened was, you know, I started converting my houses into flats and making serious money, you know, then it went from I had certain houses that I'd say paid 30 grand for. I'll give you one example, seven per 10-year-old. I paid 33,000 for it. Bed and Breakfast did it out for a couple of years. Converted it to four flats and got 50,000 for each flat. Now, that's a lot of money and going back 40 years ago and I had about six or seven houses like that, you know. I bought a nightclub and then I'm not involved in any crime at all at that time, right. And then cocaine came on the scene and things took a turn for the worst after that to be honest. What nightclub did you have? I was on a vacation ride called the Swag Club. It was called. It's a fucking good name, innit? Yeah, it's a good name, yeah. And sold about a guarantee. But yeah, it was a fantastic time of being alive. This was the mid-80s, about 1986, 1987. Fantastic time of being alive, but the depression was coming on its way, you know. Was there much trouble in these nightclubs in the 80s? My club was famous for never having a fight. Because you really want to? Well, partly because of that, partly because people really liked me, partly because they knew that if they did start a fight in there in trouble, they're going to come second, you know. I had a couple of really good dormant on the door at a time as well. And people actually said to me, when the club eventually got shut down by the police, people actually came up to me and said, you know what, open another club because we felt safe. People that were non-violent, completely. Lovely people said to me, we felt safe in your club, you know. No one was going to come up and punch us in the face because we were enjoying ourselves, all that sort of thing, you know. Yeah, did you feel in the 80s then, when the coke started coming in, did you see the changes? And people in nightclubs actually came? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I mean, I sadly I was on the coke myself, you know. I think nearly everybody got on it. And the reputation of cocaine at that time was it was a safe drug. You know, it was a type of drug. You could have a few lines, enjoy yourself, and there was no come down. There was no dependency on it, you know. It looked like the perfect drug. Yeah, it was Scarface and that's out of the team as well. People are loving those films. Scarface, yeah, made it fashionable as well. What was it like taking your first line? First line of coke was, wow, you know. This is the drug to be on, you know. It was, I can still remember it, you know. Where were you? It was in my nightclub. Yeah. And it was, you talked all night, you had a big smile on your face, you know. The only trouble with coke was you had to keep it up. You know, before cocaine come along there was sulfate, whiz. And you could have a couple of dabs of that and you'd be flying all night. With cocaine, after about 10, 15 minutes, you had to top it up with another line, you know. What was it for a grand back then, 50? It was 50 quid. Isn't it mad that it never changed for 25 years? Yeah, but you got to remember the 50 quid back in the mid 80s was a person's weeks wages. So 50 quid in the say 1985 is like 400 quid today. So it's the equivalent of 400 quid a gram. But then back in the day, when I started taking coke, a 50 quid back would last you six hours, seven hours. Nowadays people are just back on a gram out one line, two lines. Like back then I'd imagine people are chipping in three, four of them to get a gram and join and they up the road at six. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I had a gram genuinely, if I had a gram of coke, I would probably get probably about 15 lines out of that, you know. And I'd make it spread over the course of an evening, you know. Where the trouble with coke came was when you went back, say you shut the club up or whatever, you went back to someone's house and everyone just flocked to the kitchen and then it was just non-stop chopping all night long, you know. And that used to go on. Nothing's changed? No, nothing. I'd dare say it's still the same today. Nothing's fucking changed. Did it start getting a grip of you then? Start getting a grip of your businesses, who you were as an individual? Yeah, I'll tell you what. I started making mistakes, you know, that I'd never done before in business and that I just weren't bothered anymore. All I could think about really was getting out the weekends and getting on it. And I never used to be like that, you know, before about before cocaine come along. When did you see it that was kind of damaging your reputation and your businesses? Around about 1988 that was and I realised and then the slump came as well, the business slump came then. I mean, flats that were 50 grand, I was getting 50 grand for suddenly you couldn't get 15 grand for them. You couldn't sell anything. I think the base rate went to about 18% in 1988, 1989 and it all, you know, and then the more sort of financial things got harder, the more coke you took to relieve it, you know what I mean? So it was a vicious circle really. Yeah, so you started to see a massive dent in your own money and the recession? Yeah, you know, like I said, I made a few mistakes. I bought a few places with the banks money that I shouldn't have done. I hung onto places longer when I should have sold them because flats and I made some terrible mistakes. I mean I was virtually a millionaire at 28 and then by the time I was 32, like 88, 89, I was virtually skinned again, you know? Is that how you ended up back getting involved in cream? Yeah, well then what I did was luckily for me, I bought a lovely place in Tenerife, a villa in Tenerife. So I realised that, you know, the shit had hit the fan in England. So me, my wife and my daughter and my wife was pregnant again as well. We went over to Tenerife and we lived over there for two years. Did you try to start a clean life, a new life or was it trying to get back involved in cream? No, Tenerife was slightly away. Tenerife in those days, Las Americas and Los Cristianos was crime capital full stop. It was, believe me. It was so bad that the Spanish had to send the nationals, the police there. The Guardia Civil and the Policia Local couldn't handle it. So they sent the nationals in there. How do you think you always get sucked back in? I think a lot of it is, you know, you're susceptible to it. You consider it to be a little bit glamorous and also by association. It's not who you keep. It's the people you know and they're in the know. They know someone that's got this or they can do that, you know. Even when I was over in Tenerife straight away I was in with not exclusively a criminal fraternity but people living on the edge. Let's phrase it that way, you know. So you get back involved again in Tenerife? Yeah, I did, yeah. What are you doing this time? I was flying in Cannabis from the Atlas Mountains. You were flying it in or someone else? No, me, I flew it in. Where did you get the pilot's license? I passed that in England in 1985. Was that always your agenda? No, no, no. I told you I was earning a lot of money in the big 80s and a friend of mine took me flying one day because he'd qualified as a pilot. And I sort of said to him look, you know, what do you have to do to qualify? And he told me. So I went and did it, you know. How long did it take you? I passed through in 38 hours. What? 38 hours. Did that take years a day or months? No, I did it in 38 hours. Is that like a flash course? No, no, I did it. I was probably flying probably two hours a week. So I did it in the space for about 18 weeks. And what it is we're flying on those days. I don't know about the test these days because I mean, I passed mine back in 85, 86. If you were naturally quite good, you passed in about 35, 36 hours. If you were good, you passed in under 40, which I did. So I was just considered not exceptionally good, just good. And if you were a bit madonky, it could take you 50 hours plus, you know. It just depended on how good you were. What's it like flying a plane for the first time? Yourself? I'd say what's the most frightening thing in the world is where you go for your lessons, right? And you've obviously with an instructor, right? So you're up there 1500 feet up, you're with an instructor and he lands the plane and you start to land it, but you've always got him sitting next to you. In one day without any warning he gets out the plane and says to you, right, he did this to me after 9 hours of flying, right up you go on your own. And then suddenly you're up in the air 1500 feet up and you know if you don't bring that plane down right, you're going to die. That is frightening. Trust me, that is really scary. Never means if you've got a pass on you well now. So you're in Tenerife. What was it like getting your first shipment when you're flying? What was the plan? Well, with the cannabis. Well, basically it was just to get down on the ground in a place called Agadir. They had a car waiting over there where they brought the cannabis down from and then load the plane up and go. No one took any notice of you then in there at all. But what I used to do was instead of being at the airfield in Agadir where you could potentially get next, I used to land about 5 miles between there and the Atlas mountains and then you know, then you knew you were safe then. What was your first shipment you brought over? First one was 25 kilos, I think it was. How much are you paying for a kilo then? 200 quid, I used to pay. What are you shifting it for, 800? We used to do most of it where people would come over for an orderly from a lot of our customers from Liverpool and apart from some of the stuff that we sold in Tenerife, which was quite minimal most of our custom went to people coming on orderly from Liverpool because they were going back to Liverpool airport in those days, there was no customs. They just used to land there and walk straight through. We would send it for 1500 a kilo. Back then? They used to get back in Liverpool and they would send it out in nine bars and I think they were getting about 600 quid for nine ounces so four lots, 600 they were earning about a grand on every kilo. So they were just filling because I know people in Glasgow they used to take kids over on the school bus to Spain, fucking load the bus with hash in with their bags and drive home with the school kids. That's exactly yeah. I don't think the people from Liverpool were involving children but I remember talking to my mate and I said, but what's the customs like at Liverpool, you know, this is about 1991 he said, what customs you know. They weren't as if they were coming in from South America or somewhere really suspicious they were just coming in from Tenerife you know. They just used to wave them through. In Glasgow they wrote a book they used to bring it in doors they used to fill the door panels up and take it through in truck loads back in the 80s and 90s Well I think in those days you could probably buy it on the Spanish mainland for about six, seven hundred a kilo wouldn't it, I believe. But as I say on the islands in Tenerife we used to get 1500 for it and they were happy to buy it You doing it yourself? Well cannabis, I'd have a little joint at the end of a day just to relax if I watched the film, you know what I mean I wasn't the type of bloke that would smoke it in the daytime I would have been. So you've got their pilot's license you're deciding to fly, pick up kilos making a massive profit with your mindset then you always wanted more did your shipment start getting bigger or did you decide to just keep it? No, we kept it at that because I tell you why, because I should land in a port called Los Rodios in the north of the island and we had the bloke on the ground there, we had him on the panel we used to look after him with a few quid and to carry more out of there I lost put this way to carry more out of there we would have attracted attention the fact we kept it down to like 25 kilos split into two bags because there'd be two of us on the plane it never showed up we'd have quid and say 100 kilos at a time and there was no need for it because we'd only shift we'd only shift 25 kilos within a certain specific amount of time and if we got 100 kilos we'd just be sitting on it so it wasn't worth it How long were you doing that for? You've got to remember 25 kilos we were earning about 35 grand out of that that was a lot of money 1991 How long were you doing that for? I did that for about 18 months and then what happened after that? I told you just now they moved the nationals the police came in they started doing surveillance because at that time as well we were moving quite a bit of sulphate with we were moving a fair bit of that around and I realised the net was going to close in on me eventually a few people knew what I was up to a few people I didn't trust also knew and if they got caught for something they were going to trade me off that's the way I thought and I was probably right so I called it a day Did you feel the heat coming from the corpus? Yeah definitely I wasn't under any surveillance to my knowledge but someone very close to me a guy called Mark he got lifted and got 5 years and I was the next one up the chain so it was only a matter of time you know what I mean and there was other people that were definitely under surveillance and that that knew about my activities that could have traded me off and probably would have traded me off Do you think a lot of snitches and informants back then? Oh mate there are ways that has been it don't matter if you go back to the 60s the 50s the 70s, the 80s there's always been informants the police are nothing without informants they couldn't catch a cold it's always informants and in 1992 when I was earning a lot of money and I put money away as well so I haven't squandered it I knew that probably within a year if I had carried on I would have got nicked definitely So what did you do after the 18 months? Well I came back to England where I was wanted actually I was wanted in England for land frauds we committed some frauds back in the 80s with council grants there was a massive trial in Essex the biggest trial in the history of Essex police was the south end council grants frauds I was caught up in that so I couldn't land at Gatwick because I knew they had a block on me at Gatwick I had to come in at Manchester I landed at Manchester airport and I felt I'd be way back into south end you know How long were you on the run for? The two years I was in the Clarys I was wanted for those whole two years Did you hand yourself in when you got back to the UK? No, they surround I was in the bungalow in Rowley with armed police why they armed I don't know because I was for fraud but they surrounded it with a bungalow with armed police and obviously came in we let them in I didn't even put up any resistance as if I could What happened with that kiss? I was put on remand straight away obviously because I jumped out and I was on the same wing fine enough as Pat Tate and Nipper Nipper was my brother-in-law and we all know who Pat Tate is and within one day they moved Pat Tate to Swellside on the Arna Shepi and the reason was they wouldn't have the two of us on the same wing again for me at Pat he was quite a character Pat but anyway I spent six weeks on remand for that and they produced me at Chelmsford Crown Colt in front of a judge there Judge Watlin who was the toughest judge at that time in Chelmsford however he made it clear to my barrister Nigel Liffman who was a personal friend of mine as well as being my barrister and he's now the top judge of the Old Bailey Nigel Liffman made it clear to Nigel Liffman that if I pleaded guilty it'd be extremely lenient because if I went not guilty it was going to cost the Crown millions to get the paperwork into Colt it was the amount of paperwork in this council Grant's Falls was phenomenal absolutely phenomenal they were delivering it to the Colt on fault lift trucks so he made it clear that it'd be lenient so I pleaded guilty and he gave me eight weeks so all I had to do was go back for two more weeks and the police stormed out the Colt they were absolutely furious what was part T at Leake? Pat was an exuberant character you know larger than life people got the wrong idea they thought he was big Pat was never really a fighter he wasn't a fighting man as such but he's just walking around he's scared you're just by being in there you know what I mean he had a big personality when he was in Chelmsford he was on the steroids a lot of them were in those days they'd go into prison and they'd do bodybuilding in prison and to be a good bodybuilder in those days you had to take steroids but he was quite a character a lot of people were feared of him I don't know if that's the reputation from the books and films and all that do you think it was maybe blown out of proportion a bit? I'll tell you what Pat was the type of bloke you could probably beat him in a fight a fistfight but he'd come back to shoot you he was that type of bloke especially years later he got involved in drugs he was doing a lot of drugs in that the last time I see him alive I drove up a road called the Ridgeway where I live in Chalkwell and he was coming the other way in a 928 Porsche with the number plate on at that angle I mean any police car I don't know where this 928 had come from and he flashed his lights to me to say hello and I waved to say hello and just looked and the rear number plate was on at that angle and I thought what is he doing? I don't know if the car was a ringer or whatever but he'd obviously put the plates on while he was off his nut so you've got out for that 8 weeks you've no wants, what's the plans then? I don't know I ended up buying a share in the pub you know the Elms pub in Leigh I bought a third share of the Elms pub I went into the big business and we filled it up we had it taking a lot of money in that place how do you end up getting our busy pub how do you turn that into a success? well when we took it over it was closed down I think two managers in there one had been stabbed and one had had a glass in his face or something and the brewery that owned it had shaked down we went in there and took it over and all the people that were likely to do those type of things and there was three of us involved like me and two mates and suddenly in the pub we just got it really busy again we were taking about how much we were taking roughly in the Elms around about 12 grand a week now this is 1993 by this time that was a lot of money in those days every week I was walking out of there with about 1200lbs clear every week you always seem to make money but you never ever seem to get right ahead where you are comfortable I just always lived where I bought nice cars always had boats around me speed boats and that I buy the occasional aeroplane which is true you know and then obviously we used to party a lot my wife used to take a fair few bob off of me as well the money just goes right I never even in those days I saved money when I was doing the runs in Tenerife and that I did save but back in England even in those days sort of pulling in 1200lbs a week I saved anything just living a fast life the money would just go by the time you paid we were renting a bungalow my wife we had the kids to feed your own clothes then you buy a nice car you had to run it then you'd be out partying the money just went so you've got the pub you're making about a door again and then obviously you've went to the dark side again when you started to make a cross what kind of drugs were you doing then no I never I wasn't doing any drugs at that time I wasn't smuggling anything at that time what did you do after the pub well what happened was the police basically said that the pub was being filled with East London gangsters and we were gangsters and they stopped like the brewery basically took the pub off us there was some truth in what they say but only some truth we used to have a lot of people come down a lot of people from Canning Town that sort of area and quite a few of the local what you'd call villains used to drinking our pub and that you know but there was never any trouble never any police called out or anything but they just objected to it yeah like you see it's hard to get away from that life if you've got all the top villains coming round the pub having a drink talking about the next turn the next robbery the next bit of gear that is that where you found it hard to distance yourself from these people yeah definitely it wasn't just me though I mean it was at the time there was me my associates at the time Johnny Moody, Colin Bourne loads and loads of people in that field you know I wasn't involved in any crime at that time you know I just had the money from the pub coming in and that but there was always you know people coming and suddenly splashing money around and rumor had it they had done an armed robbery or something you know they used to go on you know what did you do after the pub uh seeing that we were around about 93 yeah when they shut the pub down and out we went into debt collecting just being a muscle uh yeah me Colin Bourne and John Moody who are they too yeah they were two very handy fellas John Moody was a boxer have you ever heard of John um yeah a boxer with a British light heavyweight style and that was a good puncher John Colin was tough and we went into debt collecting and it weren't long before we were under arrest three of us were under arrest for uh what sort of debt were you collecting how much uh most of the debts were around between 10 and 30,000 much were you getting off at 20% half of it well we varied it I mean one debt I remember we went after was 30 grand and uh we were taking 10 out of it 10,000 out of it and returning 20 to the you know the person that was owed um and if the average debt of 10,000 we'd probably take nearly half of that you know we went half of that to get it back because the people that the way people looked at it was we might as well give them half and get half because we ain't going to get anything otherwise you know um but we all got arrested for extortion and um placed on remand and that really broke it all up you know we were all on remand for about six months what sort of strategies would you use to get your money back well I'd go in and talk to them and say let me explain the situation while John and Colin used to stand there sort of growl at them a bit and um you know they could tell just by the atmosphere the vibes that we were giving off that we you know we weren't going to take no for an answer and um we didn't really have to threaten anyone you know but on one of the occasions one of the one of the boys got carried away and pulled the bloke out of his seat and took his ribs with a couple of punches and uh he went to the police this guy and we ended up on remand for uh six months when he was on remand did you get sent and stuff like that no no no all charges were dropped you know that's what happens isn't it yeah it was uh all they had was this guy's words you know we made no comment interview all the way through and they dropped the charges when you came out of prison then uh 94 94 I started to go back into the property business again I thought the top property game was going to make a turn actually I sold my place in Tenerife um and came out of it with just enough money to get back in buying property again see the houses that you had in the 80s did you sell them off as well when the property went from 50 grand to 15 I got caught with about three of them but the other ones I'd sold and made good money on yeah cause proceeds are coming up wasn't out then until the 2000s yeah there was no proceeds of crime in those days but all the all the money I made in the 80s on my properties and that there was no really no crime involved you know um I was later charged with a few council grants frauds but even they were questionable you know I put like I told you I pleaded guilty at court over the judge said it had saved the crown a lot of money um and I pleaded guilty but basically you know it was very they were very tenuous charges you know what I mean so you tried again to property market again how did that go yeah it was okay suddenly after I think it was Tony Blair got in 97 wasn't it suddenly the market started picking up again and um you know I started buying a few houses doing them up and making a few bucks how could you not like all the story it's either doing well money, prison, legit back being dodgy, legit losing it, gaining it back it was always a rollercoaster you lived that very fast paced life definitely a rollercoaster yeah no matter what I did what I seemed to earn right I always seemed to end up virtually skinned again and then I'll get involved in crime again and then sort of sitting down thinking right I've got to sort myself out and starting again you know how many teams did you set with that conversation Muff yourself well probably about four or five times through the course of my life you know well I actually made a lot of money I mean back in the late 90s again I started making good I remember one house I paid 46,000 for it I only spent about five doing it up it was a big five bed house um and I sold it for 126 you know so I was something making good money again you know another flat I bought down by the on south end sea front I paid 65 for it, rented it out for about 18 months and sold it for 160 you know so I was getting good money coming back in yeah you're making more of the money you seem to make more money when you're legit yeah that's true actually yeah probably is true but the trouble is with the business I was in especially with property you could make it legit but somehow or another it was all peaks and troughs in those days right somehow or another things would go wrong and suddenly you'd be back skinned again you know yeah um and why haven't we actually with the money I made in the late 90s I went on the stock market working on the stock market a lot with the dot-com bubble and I got stung in that you know I made um in around about 10 weeks I made about 700 grand and in the space of about three weeks when the bubble burst I lost nearly all of it you know it's the story of my life and that is the truth I mean I'd say one company I bought I remember a company I was given a tip called info bank and I bought 20,000 quids with a pound um sold them at a fiver right so you say great you know you've earned 100 grand they went to 42 quid right if I'd stayed in there half a million I'd have made about 800 grand you know so once it got sold too early but I still made a good money of them um and I bought uh quite a few other shares that I made good money but when the bubble burst everybody got stung you know everyone went down in that but you've got the mindset to make though you've always had you've always earned that it's just keeping that what was the fucking problem it was a big problem yeah definitely and I've always known that instead of getting earning a lot of money and say right I'll sit on that I'll live well on that it was always what can I use that money for and then that money would either make money or again would blow out big time you know so did you get used a lot Sydney when you're making though a good guy like you see the good guy yeah you know I wasn't used no definitely not but a lot of people who's making though you get a lot of leeches in that life where no I don't think you'd call them me I had good friends I used to look after but a lot of my friends like when I was in the bed and breakfast game and they actually worked for me and um as well as I looked after them at the same time and they worked as well you know they were good they were great friends because a lot of criminals in that speak to back to them they've got everything they've got so many people around them but when they end up with fuck all there's nobody around yeah well that's true they're just good time guys aren't they you know um no no most of my friends I mean I've got friends that I had when I was 12 years old that are still friends to this day you know um and when I was making a lot of money in the mid 80s the friends that I had around me usually worked for me in some way or another and um you know they were well looked after but at the same time they looked after me as well you know yeah so both ways yeah definitely it's not a one way street where people are just hanging off no no no no I mean I wouldn't stand for that yeah so you've got the bubble you've you're making dough on the stock market the crash happens again very very fast money even now with kids with bitcoin this and that like everybody thinks they're a genius with the stock market you ain't in control when it when it's old saying a little knowledge can be very dangerous and everybody as far as the stock market is concerned the same as politics you've only got a little knowledge about it and a little knowledge if you convince yourself that you're a genius then you're fucking mad you know it's like people used to say to me they'd know a shit like I just mentioned Infobank just now right oh yeah I bought them at a pound and sold them at 40 never never in a million years because they don't go from a pound straight to 40 right they go up to five quid then they drop back to three quid and anybody like me for instance when they went to five times the value you sell because you don't know they're going to go to 40 pound you know so when anyone says it says to you I bought them a pound I sold them at 40 they got to be joking you know no one does that yeah it's a gamble same as bitcoin I think I'll be up till it's 72 76 grand is that what it went to the last I mean the most I heard it was a 45 thousand it's down to the 20s now is it really yeah that's volatile yeah so people did make a lot of money from it but the bubbles busting that I think yeah I don't know too much about it because I used to be a gambler so for me that's still all gambling there's never a sure thing no well I mean what I learned with the stock market right was volatile stocks like can often be big earners but they can be very big losers you're better off keeping to the solid blue chip stock and just going on small movements you know which is what I do now quite a lot you know I just I'll buy like say 100 grand worth of Lloyd's at 42p and get out at 44 you know I make 5% the 5% is 5 grand yeah that's not bad for a day's work is it I was speaking to someone who does that he invests money into Coca Cola share is always risen he says you'll do the same as you make yeah well Coke on the American market last time I said it was about I think it's about $170 a share or something something like that but I'll tell you what I'm good at giving other people tips not being on myself and those tips actually come into fruition seriously someone asked me is about two years ago what do you reckon on the market at the moment Sid and I went I'll tell you what the best buy on there at the moment is on the American market Goldman Sachs and they were $170 a share at the time $180 a share and I weren't on them you know I had my money wrapped up in England this guy just went and bought a load of them and they went up to $390 he never even give me a drink out of it when I said to him you owe me at least 10 grand out of that because you have covered the losses I went no I said listen in good faith you keep your money so what did you do after then when I got involved in the big stuff like flying cocaine and after flying cocaine in what I got the 25 years for what was your first shipment the first shipment was a trial run with just two kilos I don't know I had see what it was the main obviously it goes without saying the main time you get nicked when you're smuggling use of airplanes is loading it up at one end i.e. on the continent or unloading at this end they're the two vulnerable points but I could get round that because I could I could go to an airfield that we later got point when that was like a private airfield in France right and I could land in England at a place in Kent that was absolutely kosher I can't name you the name in the places because they're still operating and the people that are on there were actually working with me so I can't name you the places but to test it out I flew into France was given two kilos and I landed at the place in Kent and the bloke turned up collected the two kilos and went yeah it's perfect so that was the first one I've done was just two kilos which normally is not worth starting the plane up for because I used to get paid £3,000 a kilo for transport right so on a normal load I would move between 10 and 20 kilos how much were they paying a kilo in Holland at the time I believe it was 20,000 euros a kilo still expensive huh still expensive but in England it was 36 right I think a lot of actually know first of all it was around about 32 right so they make 10,000 but out of that 10,000 they'd have to pay me 3,000 for flying it in so if I flew nice little afternoons work for me would be say 15 kilos 45 grand for two hours work now that's pretty good money isn't it so I would do that and everything was sweet it was easy money how long would the fleet be my records here filled sorted out in northern France my record coming back from there once I did northern France out of there filled by Harwich just near Harwich place called Great Oakley I'd done it once in 26 minutes on the ground in France in the air back on the ground at Harwich in 26 minutes what's the deal I was trying to towel wind that my plane used to do about 170 mile an hour and I had a towel wind of about 30 mile an hour so I was doing about 200 mile an hour so you could be up there and get a shut minute back in half an hour that quick yeah when I got sentenced at Colt they actually found my sat nav which I never used to normally use but I did on this one occasion because the weather was so bad they found that I landed landed the plane was on the ground and back in the air in 26 seconds so I've landed the plane I've loaded, I've got the cocom board and I'm back in the air in 26 seconds so they've just threw it and you're back off again literally I would land right come in to the airfield land like that and as it run down on that I was waiting at the end with the bag I was spinning the plane round like that the hatch had opened the bag had gone in and I turned round and was back in the air in 26 seconds that's fast that's how quick I could do it were you ever sent out to anywhere further? no no no I just stayed in totally in northern France and southern Belgium yeah it was I never had to go any further because it was coming down from Amsterdam see the sat nav is that on the plane? no the sat nav was a separate entity totally and I never ever ever used it for obvious reasons it recalls where you've been and what you've been doing but this one occasion the occasion I got caught the weather was that bad I had to go up above the clouds come back into England and the only way I could know where I was was with the sat nav and that's what they got me on can you fly under the radar is that possible to do? yeah you can go down low by the sea but you attract a bit of attention because there's a lot of container shipping goes up and down there and they get on the radio and they inform the police they don't think they're taking any notes the container ships and that they're on a reward of 500lbs for every drugs run they turn in so what I used to like to do personally was I'd go in amongst the clouds and I'd just drop below the clouds so I knew I had my trajectory right where I was heading and then just stay in the base of the clouds so I couldn't be seen what if there's no clouds there what's that? if there's no clouds if it's summer's day then I'd just take the chance and just go up I should go up quite high about 10,000 feet and I'd take the chance was there radios or anything did anybody have a radio want to ask you who you were? no you meant to have a what they call a transponder which gives you your identity of your plane and your position sends out a signal but obviously I used to turn mine off you know and I used to see it up once actually I came back across from France to Dover and the coast guards plane came right over to me and actually had a look in the plane seriously also the coast guards have got a plane as well silver with a red nose it is I just thought they had boats no they've got a plane they've got a spot a plane up there as well but it works it doesn't go much further north you know broad stairs it goes about level with broad stairs and stays there but what I used to do I used to come down from North Essex and come down the coast roughly to about Maldon and then go into Southern Belgium that way what was the buzz leak when they were looking at you? it was amazing mate I used to some of the storms I went through were unbelievable one particular storm I mean that weren't a nice buzz that was fear you know like you see in these films where people in the plane getting swept about this was worse than anything you could imagine and the bloke I had with me actually when I actually pulled out of the storm after about 10 minutes 15 minutes of being caught it was that bad I couldn't even see the propeller in the plane I was flying solely on instruments when I actually pulled out about 10-12 thousand feet up I turned to the bloke in the plane and he had actually frozen with fear he was actually frozen his nervous system had packed up and it took him about half an hour to get back to normal you know was there many people doing the flying not just yourself but other people who were flying playing getting gear and bringing it back I don't think many were doing it yeah I know people used to do the boats and the vans I think one of two of them from the local clubs used to do tobacco runs they'd bring back some gold, virginia or old albin but actually flying the drugs in in planes was quite rare to my knowledge see when you were dropping the drugs back was there somebody always waiting did you always have the heads up that everything was clear what happened was when I used to land at one time I used to come into a field in Kent like I told you about we had a field sorted out in Kent everything was alright but when I couldn't land there sometimes I'd take the risk of going at self end which was dangerous well because I could land there and I could have customs men on me and it actually happened one night I landed back there and I had some stuff on board and they run at me from all angles I just spun the plane around took off the wrong way up the airport got away they thought I had cocaine in that on board I mean I'm not liby to say what I had on board but it wasn't cocaine but at the same time I just thought they were going to hijack me that's what I said to them when I later landed and they questioned me I said well I saw four blokes running at the plane and they went well you must have known it was customs men I went no I didn't yeah so as long as they can't catch you see if you're on a plane and you've got the guards, the coast guards on another plane could you have dropped stuff out the window if need be if they were on you like that and they were flying next to you you couldn't do that then you'd be in trouble but all you just do is at the time the coast guards flew right up next to me I just sat normal they flew with me for about five minutes then just shut off just assuring that everything was alright but the other way was you'd look for a bank of clouds and fly into the clouds and they can't see you even on the radar they could from radar from the ground but nothing got radar on the plane the blokes in the plane wouldn't know where you were so see when flights are taken off if you've got to register call logs if you're going through the books and flight logs to tell you when you're flying out when you're flying in when you take a plane abroad you have to report to e-fro you love what you call a flight plan and it's basically what time you're taking off where you're taking off from what height you're flying at and you have a transponder on the plane that sends out a signal to let them know where you are and then obviously you tell them where you're going to land when you do go abroad what I just used to ignore all of that how many runs did the corporal see you done? well they only had evidence of one run that was the run I got caught on that was the run I caught you 25 years you know I ain't going to allegedly I did a sort of 20-25 runs but that's just allegedly it only takes one year yeah 25 I mean they were saying roughly 25 runs roughly 30,000 a time I don't know what that works out to about 750g is it that's what I estimate that I had out of it in total I know am I to argue over what period that time that was between 206 and 208 the day before you caught your last run but what's going through your mind did everything feel as normal? no the day before my last run I got caught I mean I always told the people over there that I never work on a Monday Monday is a day that you just don't want to go near nobody, not even bank robbers rob a bank on a Monday your lucky day is to work always Thursday and Friday it's a strange thing but it's true however they phoned me on the Monday morning I said I'd go out and see how the day felt when I always used to go out before I'd do a run I'd actually go out and just see how the day felt to me just drawing the feelings from what's going on around me and that day everything felt wrong and I got back to my flat it was around about 10 o'clock in the morning and I straight away Amsterdam phoned me on the bash hour so I answered the phone and I said look ain't on it, ain't happening they said to me the contact over there said to me look the guy's down in France he's sitting on 12 kilos and he's panicking they had a new courier or something that had taken it down from Amsterdam down to the airfield and in a nutshell I said well look I'll tell you what I'll do I'll go up and take the plane up I'll fly down the English Channel and see how it feels and then I'll let you know which is what I did I left my house about quarter past 10 drove up to the airfield at Harwich got in the plane took the plane down the English Channel and it all felt wrong the weather was bad the clouds were low it was a Monday and I said look I ain't doing it but they begged me on the phone that this bloke down on the ground who's got the 12 kilos is panicking and so I I went and did it where did you get caught? well what I was again because the weather was bad something I never ever did I put the sat nav on I had to because the cloud was so low to find the airfield so I put the sat nav on picked up the parcel and I'm back in the air again and again the cloud was around about 300-400 feet it was a horrible day I went up through the clouds into the blue skies and came back using the sat nav over Harwich and again normally I would do a drop to my man on the edge of a forest there was a forest in Suffolk and I used to do a drop I would drop from about 1200 feet so even if you were below walking your dog you're never going to see it and I'd have the engine down on tick over and I used to glide in with 20 degrees of flap on the plane so you wouldn't hear an engine you'd hear nothing this day the cloud was that low I had to come in below the cloud to see where I was going to do the drop so everything was wrong I had done the drop and was spotted by a woman walking her dog now in years gone by she'd have had to walk 3-4 miles to her phone box by that time these days with mobile phones they're on you straight away she phoned the police the police then caught the bloke on the ground there was two of them down there one drove off with 10 kilos to London they reckoned it was spotted there and the bloke who got caught with me had 2 kilos and 7 firearms 7 checkers of vacuum semi-automatics and that was it all they did then was this woman said it was a blue plane right they phoned round different airfields in the area and found out that I took my plane up and they got me just from that it was only her statement that caught you absolutely how was that enough well because I'll tell you why because I would have actually got away with it because I said well listen there's loads of blue planes can't say that it was just because I'm up in my plane but they got the sat nav ah fuck yeah right the fucking sat nav do you know what I paid £2,000 for this sat nav from a flight shop up in Victoria and I only bought it for emergencies when I was doing a run it was if I was up in my plane I got caught in a storm right couldn't come down low so I could know where I was that's the only reason I bought it but because the weather was that bad this day I used it when the police unraveled it they got like landed where exactly where I landed in France I was on the ground for 26 seconds and they went how could a man land a plane the judge went how could a man land a plane pick up 12 kilos of cocaine and be back in the air in 26 seconds and I went well this man did it and the judge went well he must be this ain't the first time he's done it so when the judge sentenced me although they can only prove that I've done it once with the evidence he knew didn't he he's not stupid is he so it was basically your own mistake that got you 25 years as well but see what it was it was my mistake for going over there because I should have stuck by my guns and said listen I don't care what you say about this man panicking there now I'm not going right but they kept insisting they kept saying to me look please go because he's down here he's panicking and I went so it's not as if you had fingerprints or anything on any gear or guns no nothing I never touched the stuff in the plane alongside when the bloke dropped the bag in I wouldn't even look in it in case a hair or DNA went in there he used to drop the bag in the plane and I'd have a person in the plane with me that would do the drop so you just think you've got the perfect turn basically you can't really get caught if you don't have anything by the book you normally do that because if you're dropping it from a plane if that witness is saying I've seen a blue plane it doesn't really mean fuck oh it can't really stick where are you always dropped from around about 1200 feet you would never see the plane if you look at one of those planes I mean mine was a four seater my plane was probably about I don't know 15 foot long you can't see it at 1200 feet I was always safe it was just one fucking day that everything came together and went wrong the one day I used the sat nav right you know it was it's just the way it was how did you know when to drop it off was there a certain target on it no I'd have the the bloke on the phone from Amsterdam talking to me and the geese were on the ground talking to him so he'd be on one phone talking to him going yeah they're right above me right now and he'd go to me drop it it was that easy so you get a call going from the ground in Suffolk to Amsterdam Amsterdam back to my airplane and then me doing the drop so it's just a case of somebody on the phone telling you to drop it is it a hatch on the plane or is it out the window no we used to have a my plane was a Piper Cherokee it was a door and window in one so you used to just lift it up like that it was a low wing right and just drop the bag straight off the side of the wing so it's not as if you've got the heads up that somebody's getting caught or else you'd have got rid of the sat nav, you'd have made they get rid of the plane like what you're thinking when they come caught well no what happened was I obviously drove home quite safe I mean I landed the plane at the airport at Great Oakley put it in the hangar I then drove home and had a nice breakfast on the way home with the little chef down the A12 right drove home and thought everything was kosher I got a call from Amsterdam don't know I ditched it what happened I ditched the mobile obviously the mobile that I land before I land it actually goes in the sea but it must have been another number he knew to contact me on which was unusual so he phoned me from Amsterdam and gone the geyser on the ground has not arrived I said what's he I said well he's done a run over your stuff because I dropped the gear out to him right there's something gone wrong he hasn't arrived and that's when I knew that something was up um but I thought I don't see how they could get me because like you know I didn't bargain on this woman with the blue plane and all the rest of it so I never I've left the sat nav was in my car and I left it I mean I should have moved it but you know I didn't so you would have got away with it if you had no sat nav if there was no sat nav there they wouldn't they couldn't have charged me yeah because anybody could have been driving that plane out they would have put the crown to CPS would have said to him you haven't got enough evidence you know they wouldn't have allowed him to proceed it was a sat nav that sunk me do you think you would have ever been caught if you never got caught that day I tell you what I mean this right in a way it was a godsend that I got caught because I was going to die at some stage two particular storms I went through in those two years were absolutely horrific I mean one of them was worse than anything you see in a film right and I came out below this I thought I'll come down and see where I am I knew I was near Calais I was north of Calais probably Dunkirk way right and I came down below the clouds and I missed the sea right the waves because the air pressure would change like my altimeter was inaccurate because of the air pressure I came out I missed the waves of the sea by about 10 foot and I mean I'd just got under and been dead and there was another person in the plane with me would have died with me as well it was I was taking chances that were a joke you know anyone going into the weather I was going into would have gone do you know what I'm not doing this turn the plane round I was thinking fuck it let's have a go is that the buzz that's part of the buzz I remember once flying over on a mission I still remember it was on a Saturday afternoon right and as I flew over I had actually gone further south than I should have done the reason I did was because there were so many planes up there at the time I knew I could get lost in them so I went down south probably around you know sandwiching about level with air going over towards France and as we were going over it went turning the planes around anyone going over to France there's high winds and I thought and it was getting warning of high winds and I looked across a bit I saw about 10 different planes all turn around and go start going back I thought fuck it let's go I just went for it right I was going down a place called Le Touquet to land well I'll tell you what I got buffeted this wind that hit me was just unbelievable I don't know where it must have come from Siberia or somewhere it buffeted the plane and threw me around and it's a literally struggle with the controls for about 3 or 4 minutes to regain control it was a real blust I don't know what it was this wind came up but it did so what you were thinking then when the corpors come calling well I mean what happened was I found out from a guy when I was in Chelmsford prison he came up to me and said I walked past your house the night you were arrested they blocked the roads off and had all armed police all the way down because of the 7 fire arms and that so they assumed that I had a firearm in there it was 1 o'clock in the morning on the Tuesday morning by this time and there was a bang bang bang on the door and the door came in so you know didn't you I walked out to the living room and I just went like this hands up and there was about 3 marksmen on me with their guns took me out the flat laid me down in the middle of the road believe it or not and just held the guns on my head and said don't move you know and obviously but not quite on my head it was about a foot above my head and I went don't worry mate I'm not you know and they caught me off you know what you're thinking when you got to court you must be thinking I've got a chance of getting away with this well see the sack never bolt oh that was the reason I didn't know the sacknav when you switched the sacknav off it was meant to wipe out any previous history of what you'd done and I made sure that I turned the sacknav off right but what they did was they sent it over to some boffin right this boffin was obviously really good with sacknavs and that and it worked out that I'd gone to France was on the ground for the 26 seconds so really the sacknav had grassed me up and up until then I didn't realise until they got the police report back saying that they'd worked the sacknav out I thought I was going to get off it yeah even it's mad the technology even I know a lot of friends and a lot of people are in prison with the encrophones and they think they can talk with the way they want to talk if it's technology man there's always a way around it to find the data to find the information and you're talking what early 2000s this was 2008 the technology now it's mad so you're thinking you're getting a chance when did they start releasing the evidence that they had well they took me to to get further remand because obviously I was remanded in custody over a year I was over I was they arrested me in the February and I ended up pleading guilty at court I think it was in the July and then they didn't sentence me because they sentenced me in September I think it was yeah that's pretty fast case thought the turnaround from them yeah because I pleaded guilty and the judge I knew the judge really had it in for me so a week before the trial before I'm going to be sentenced and actually I was ill I did feel really ill I said I can't go to court I was trying to get the judge moved on to get a better judge but he weren't having it he was involved in a fraud trial in Swindon he stopped the trial to come back to Chelmsford to sentence me so when a judge does that you know you're in trouble believe me when a judge is on another trial across the other side of the country he stops that trial just to drive back to sentence you you know you're in trouble and I was thinking to thinking to myself well I'll probably end up with about 12 or 13 years you know and then of course he gives me 25 but he had to knock a third off because I pleaded guilty you know and he actually didn't knock a 30, knocked 30% off and I walked out of the court with 17 years take some balls to plead to a case where you know you're going to get a life or that and you fill it how much did you battle with that not to take it through trial well I'll be honest once they'd unraveled the satnav they had no chance for the trial if they hadn't been for the satnav I'd have gone to trial and probably won the case but let's face it I was guilty the police had done their own work the police had gone to this specialist who somehow I don't know how he'd done it but he managed to because that satnav is meant to wipe out all records when you use it I remember talking to the bloke at the shop he said once you switch it off it's scrubbed but he managed to track it so what you're thinking when you get a 17 well I walked down the stairs I mean it's getting punched in the belly really isn't it but in a funny sort of way I was actually relieved because right up until then I didn't know what I was going to get when you know what you've got and you've got to get on with it and do it you feel a lot better although I wasn't expecting 17 years what did you get chance with well illegal importation smuggling illegal importation of class A drugs and firearms well it's not just a case of drugs I'll be honest it was the firearms that done me if it had just been the cocaine on the guilty plea I'd have got about 8 years that's a standard tariff because you've got to remember they only managed to recover 2 kilos but the guy that was on the trial with me he turned QE he turned a snitch yeah he turned a snitch the guy that got caught with the whole package and he got 7 years I got caught with nothing and I got 17 did he turn against you as well no he never turned against me but he didn't have to because that had me anyway he didn't know me from Adam he'd never met me before but he I'll tell you he did he fingered one of the guys in Amsterdam who he knew because that was the guy that put him on to go and pick it up and the guy in Amsterdam got 5 years in the Dutch prison down to him and he didn't need a deerstalker and a pipe to work out who the one that was grass I got 17 years on the guilty plea so what have I told them nothing nothing at all and the other guy that gets caught with it gets 7 years you seem to be a man of your word as well you seem to fly straight if you're in that circle I've never grasped anyone up in my life I don't want to bend or break but see when you're pleading guilty as well and somebody gets stuck in does that then think fuck I hope they don't think it's me well yeah but the thing is my sentence spoke volumes for me I mean even when I went to when they moved me from Chelmsford where I was there for about 15 months they moved me to a jail up in Nottingham with all major drug importers from Liverpool I remember you interviewed Stevie Me didn't you one of my mates he's a lovely bloke Steve really quiet lovely man they put us all in the same wings together and no one could look at my sentence 17 years on a guilty plea and think that I'm a grass it's impossible if I was for what I'd done when I was doing 6 years then I'm a definite grass but not with 17 doors banged up and you've got a 17 well you gotta remember I was already on remand for about 8 months so I was used to being behind the door funny enough in a funny sort of way it was relief because you finally know it's like when you haven't been sentenced you don't know what hurdles you've got to jump right when you've been sentenced you know it's a 17 year although it's a big sentence you know at least you know what it is so it's a relief on one hand on the other hand you think hang on a minute 17 is that right you know it was a big one you gotta remember I'm on a guilty plea so I had 30% knocked off of that so my actual sentence was 24 years you know but the judge had to knock a third off category must have been category for a good way I was category A when I first went in but after about 3 months they dropped it straight away I was dropped down I think it was the July I was rested in the February and then I was back down to B category I think in July how many different prisons were you in I went to I started off at Chelmsford then I went to Loudon Range at Nottingham then I went to open a new prison at Temside in South London about 15 of us went there to basically show the screws how to run a prison that's the gospel truth you know the company Serco did run a lot of prisons now they wanted us to go down to show the screws what was done at what and that was easy that was easy time I was unlocked all the time Loudon Range was a great prison and not great prison I don't say it for the fact that it was easy because all the time away from your family nothing's easy but what it was it was the type of prison that would help people rather than make them more bitter let me phrase it that way you had education classes you had great access to the gym clean living then after Temside I went to a prison called The Mount in Hertfordshire that was quite a tough jail it weren't easy how come just the conditions it was quite security conscious he was in the cell a lot of the time yeah it wasn't the greatest of nicks but funny enough I got to know the governor because I ended up running the magazine in there writing when I was in there and the governor was a very very decent man what do you think of the prison system for the late 70s slot amount no TV or fuck all to the prison in 2010 I can't compare it I mean in Loudon Range when I was there I was in Loudon Range for nearly four years three and a half years we had flat screen tellies we had sky we used to pay for it out of our phone calls we had sky telly sky sports all the big fights that were on at the weekend we used to watch we were allowed our boxing gear in there I used to take boxing classes on a Sunday morning in the sleuker room and we used to have sparring sessions and yeah it weren't that bad honestly then when we finished the boxing training my mate used to sort it out with the Oplate boys and we'd have a whole sort of bacon so we'd have about half a dozen bacon sandwiches each and that you know how do you get through a sentence like that I'll tell you where you get through you get through it by laughing you know me and my mates I mean I can remember Christmas I'll tell you it was Christmas 2011 sitting in my cell with a bottle of vodka a jug of orange and four of us sitting there was me a cocaine importer from north London one of Pablo a guy who used to work for Pablo Escobar he's a shipping agent years ago Rogers? we called him Dutch I can't remember his real name but he was a Dutchman but he was a shipping expert they used to move stuff from Bolivia and he would move it so it's spending a dockyard in South Africa and from South Africa he'd go to China and then by the time this container got into Europe no one knew where the fuck it had come from you know when it come from Bolivia it was full of cocaine he was a shipping man for Escobar and I remember sitting in my cell just laughing and drinking and laughing you know because it took your mind away from your sentence yeah caged up seeing you're all sitting together with importers and people bring gear from all around the world in your mind you're thinking what when we get out are you just thinking fuck this thing no you're forging friendships all the time honestly I mean it never came to fruition and thank God it hasn't because I'm out of it all now completely but when we used to sit in my cell and we used to talk about what we're gonna do when we get out we could ship stuff to you said can you fly that down if we get this down I mean at one time they wanted me to land in this airstrip in Brazil in the Brazilian jungle right and fly from Venezuela into Brazil where I'll be under the protection of the Brazilian police and so on and so forth you know it was all plans that you just made them at the time they were amusing you know but at that time knowing your personality you probably would have done it I would have fucking done it I mean my people before I got next in Amsterdam I tell they said to me because what it was like these the people that I worked for right they actually had the cocaine they were both I would never meet them they would use a middle man who would meet the man that would meet me and the cocaine used to go out all over Europe like that all the way down the line so the people at the top you never met them but when I escaped from the customs like I told you about earlier where I escaped from the customs when they run at me plane one night when they found out that I had done that they went can you ask this guy if he would go to America and get a jet license so they said to me basically at a meeting in Harlem just north of Amsterdam can you go over and do a jet license and do it easy I said flying a jet is just the same principle as flying a small plane just a bit more technicality so they said well what we do is we'll give you a lear jet we'll buy you a lear jet and it's yours all year you can use it we pay for the fuel we pay for the airports you can take your friends on holiday you can use it when you want however twice a year there are tons of coke from Brazil into North Africa and I went tell them I'll do it I'll do it no problem right so obviously I'm not talking to them they won't meet me I'm just talking to the buffer right in between so he said you won't have a problem mate I said not at all mate so anyway they agreed that I'd go over to Florida I'd do the jet course which was six weeks they'd give me the lear jet then twice a year I'd have to fly Brazil into a place called Mauritania have you heard of it it's a country in North Africa land at Mauritania where I'm under full protection of the police because they're corrupt and the rest of the year they would give me a million dollars per run so I'd do one run over a million dollars three months later I'd do another run over a million dollars that's all I have to do for them all year and I've got the lear jet all year to take my friends my girlfriend out to lunch everything and it was all agreed and then about two weeks later I got next with this where do you think you'd have ever stopped do you know what I mean when I came back home and I thought about it this is what I really want to do you know get the lear jet land it in Brazil they were going to fit extra tanks in it to give it the range the lear jet I think it's got a range of about 1200 miles right but they were going to fit extra tanks in it they'd give it a range of about 2500 miles well out of this patch that they had they owned in the Brazilian jungle to Mauritania was about 2200 miles so it would have been okay and I loved it you know I loved every minute of it but I got caught you know in Brazil or Alifa and possibly shot one in the head as well do you know what I mean the only danger I thought was if there was ever the people in Amsterdam wouldn't turn on me but if anyone was going to rip them off say the people in Mauritania I'm the first that gets shot if they suddenly go well hang on a minute we got two tons of coke at that time was roughly £72 million I could tell you the price of it £72 million people will kill you for that right so I didn't have any fear of my people in Amsterdam they fucking loved me they're not going to protect me but what about the blokes on the ground in Mauritania they were getting paid off by the guys in Amsterdam but suddenly instead of getting like 100 grand they look at £72 million in the plane and I'm driving it yes a definite ball game when was the moment and Prism he decided ok I'm going to stick to my guns and I'm not going to get involved in crime again was it a few years later or was it straight after your sentence I think it was straight after I got out actually because a couple of people did contact me one team from North London said just name the plane you want to buy we'll buy the plane but you obviously you've got to fly stuff in for us and what happened was I was placed on the voice recognition system at Cheltenham you know the HGHCQ GCHQ well they spent 20 I don't know if you know this that building and the equipment it came to £20 billion they can listen to conversations there was an uprising in Nigeria they were getting conversations coming from the middle of the jungle right so what chance have you got in the English Channel so I thought you know sometimes you do have to use a radio you know especially when you're in trouble or whatever and I thought no I can't I can't do it and no no no my voice was on the voice recognition system at GCHQ well I was told that I was worried about it so I turned it down so what do you do when you come out and you've just done a live sentence like probably on your ass again probably back to square one no I weren't back to square one and I'll tell you why I'm back to square one I can say this now because I've done the sentence most of my money that I earn through the runs because what it is someone drops you goes past in a car which happened on one occasion and dropped me £36,000 on my lap what do you do with it you can't fucking bank it you know I mean it's pound notes are a dodgy situation to have in this country so what I did was I used to make and keep my money over in Amsterdam I used to go down to a contact that was part of the group who actually run the show and I would buy diamonds of him for cash I would then drive down to Antwerp sell the diamonds at Antwerp but get a check then the check would go into my Luxembourg account and the police spent a year searching through Luxembourg trying to find my account never got it but under Sydney William Wright if it comes to who bit it was never going to be in my name so they say so they allege now I'm not to say whether that story is true or not it may or may not people make their mind up but I used to change the diamonds up at Antwerp and turn it into checks I'd lose a bit on say 50 grand I'd probably lose about 5 or 6,000 into the value of the stones so I'd buy the stones for 50,000 but I'd go to Antwerp and only get checks for 46 but happy days it was clean so when you came out then you've done a live sentence you've been offered big jobs was the temptation or was there suddenly to go back to your old ways yeah definitely the temptation is always there I'll tell you one of the reasons why not for greed for money because I've got enough now to live the rest of my life really comfortably honestly I really have and I won't make the silly same mistakes by taking chance on you I'm too old for it but the reason that I wouldn't go back into crime now is the age factor and the you know it's a young man's game really to be involved in it to that extent it's not something that I really want to do yeah you can't be messing about your team and Leaf no the time I've got left on this planet I mean pray to God I want to now just enjoy it and relax back perhaps buy a villa out in Tenerife is what I intend to do don't be shitting harshing that back I'm getting involved in it you've said that for the last fucking 50 years everything's involved you I mean now I'm banned from flying take a license but I'm only banned in England I'm still flying spain yeah Brazil and fucking Colombia is perfect for that oh pilot fuck it give me a shout I tell you what the funny one of the funny things I saw a film once with Pablo I don't know if you saw this film but it showed you Pablo Escobar's ranch and above the gate to the ranch you had an aeroplane as a model and it was the first aeroplane that he ever done a running Pablo Escobar right and fuck me it was the same colour and same plane that I had you still put the blame on that it was assessed the 150 it was the first plane that I ever had and it was above his ranch gates somewhere in Colombia the meddling car isn't it mad though from selling a pound a hash to then talking about shipping tons of fucking kilos a coke for Brazil it's a mad how fast it can go your way and the only reason they said well the two obviously money but they trusted me when I was chased by the customs I could have easily said that I ditched the gear ditched everything and kept it and made money out of it there was supposedly reputedly by the police 10 kilos that night so I could have easily kept £360,000 from myself but I didn't I told them exactly where the drop was and they found it two days later they knew I was honest if I'm working with someone and if they aren't honest I'll give you an idea I went over there in must have been about 207 anyway unusually wanted to meet me up in Harlem so I've gone north of Amsterdam to Harlem and we've gone to this restaurant and we've gone to this restaurant I thought this is unusual to do this right and I had some money, I had some diamonds to sort out and I had some money to take down to Luxembourg and that and I thought this is a bit strange and there was a fella there that I didn't recognise anyway it all went down sweetly I got my stuff, I pulled the diamonds went down to Antwerp, got the checks and paints it and everything done it later turned out that the bloke that's sitting at the table was a hired assassin he's a true street check with the police on this now that weekend without me knowing I don't know, I've only just flown over there and be playing he had murdered three geysers that had turned this firm over that I worked for for money I don't know rumour had it there was 100 kilos of coke involved but I don't know because it's only a rumour now I didn't know that he's a bloke's an assassin how would I know but they've got us on camera in the fucking restaurant now I'm arrested in England like we know in 2008 like I told you and I'm on remand guess who turns up in the cell next to me in Chelmsford the fucking assassin now I'm not stupid and he's not stupid but I don't know this time I don't know he's an assassin so he went apparently they found my DNA on a bullet casing in Amsterdam where three people were wiped out I went what and I mean I'd heard about it but I knew a whisper so he said they've got my DNA on a bullet casing he said now he knows that they put him next door to me and they bugged the cells trying to get us to talk right but I genuinely didn't know anything about it and he's too clever to fall for that type of trick he went I don't know what they're talking about mate he said they've got me on this and the Dutch police came over questioned him for about four days then they had to release him but he wiped out three geese over there this bloke and it was over obviously stubborn cocaine so you've gone out of prison your whole life you've lost it, you've made it back you've got a back door top pilot what's your life like then obviously the temptation's always going to be there well now I'll just take it easy I've got just a few months left on my licence to do probation and that my licence runs out in February and I just aim to stay free and in good health how was it reading the book The Last London Gangster, how was that it was fantastic because there's some of the stuff in there is not how it happened you had to change a few things I had to change a few things because they said to me if I wrote the exact story of what happened with my smuggling it would be considered proceeds of crime so I had to change a few names and change a few situations and change a few locations but a great deal that happened including the murders in Amsterdam were all in there and the story behind how the murders happened and that are all in there so it's it's basically it's probably about 70% true and 30% I had to meander around how your book said that it's on Amazon Prime go on the internet, Amazon I've put in my name The Last London Gangster and it comes down to for Kindle it's about 2 quid and for the book itself like that in paperback form it's about 12 quid it's all 5 star I wrote it and I'm actually surprised I saw 5 star reviews all the ways down on it Noob never came forward to tell us any of that No, no one or two people before I come out of prison spoke about it but nothing's come to fruition about a film on it but it's there to be read and anyone that reads it it's not just like some chance who has sat down to write a book I did 3-4 years of political comment and journalism in itself before I wrote it so it's a quality read Fair play for turning your life around getting your book out some people watch this to be blown away I've thoroughly enjoyed your story obviously you've lived that life What's your plans for the future going forward Sydney? The plans for the future now is just to live back in retirement I go down I'm keen on boats I've got a 30 foot cruise I've got a flybridge cruise I've got a nice jet ski I still love motor bikes and motorcycles I've got a Yamaha 1200 and I've got a nice scooter as well just things that you enjoy in life you know without being involved in crime I could go out and have a wonderful day driving around London on a motor scooter and really enjoy it honestly but it's different obviously if you're in a plane full of drugs and guns you're buzzing out your tits you'll never ever get again I'm going to be honest with you no matter if you're on a motorbike would you think looking back at your life in all honesty do you miss that madness? Yeah you do but the I tell you what you don't miss the feeling when you do get nicked when it does come on top honestly and you reach a certain I mean if I was 45 now I'd probably be planning the next move but I'm in mid 60s now and you know what sometimes it's time to slow down you know and just live your life just for the simple things how did you get over the dark days Sydney the days you really struggled in prison when you get out with a sack full of antidepressants nothing I'll tell you one of the ways you get over it is and it may sound a bit corny but going to the gym you know if you go down to the gym sometimes I feel a bit low if I go down to the gym I have a nice workout I mean I still train on a heavy bag punching and that I have a nice swim, sauna and steam room and you come out and feel a million dollars again you know How do you feel talking about your story Sydney do you have a lot of emotion I speak about it quite openly because I've done the time I've paid the price you know if I had done that 17 years in prison I wouldn't be sitting in out talking to you you know but the fact that I've done it I can speak about it it's quite cathartic would you like to finish up on anything brother no no I just hope people will watch it and enjoy our conversation and enjoy the story that I've told yeah that's what we live then if they want to buy my book and read it I do what I recommend to people read the reviews first the people that are on there there's about 75 reviews so I aint a question of just a few friends writing good things about me and they're all 4 and 5 star reviews and the quality of the the writing on it will probably surprise people yeah I can assure you the sales we've got after this podcast great story mad life people are intrigued by this life and I've never heard anybody from the UK flying their own gear back and forth it's a mad story and you're still here to tell retail great read Sydney I wish you all the best for the future brother God bless you thank you very much