Stonebridge and the Trade

The two brothers from Stonebridge were the entry point. Through them and through Pat I was pulled deeper into the trade that was already moving around us. In the early nineties the heroin and crack market in London was still largely controlled by Indian and Pakistani networks. Half-grams at forty pounds, ounces at thirteen hundred. Liverpool was already cheaper — ounces around five hundred and fifty. Control shifted. Prices dropped. Half-grams to twenty pounds. Black crews on the estates took the work because it was the only real money available. I did not just work with people. I adopted a new family. Offers of a hundred thousand pounds for information that would lead to seizures came and went. I never sold my own people out. Not once. My name still rings in certain parts of London like Big Ben. I have surprisingly few enemies. I brought people together more than I divided them. That fact is more important to me than most of the money that passed through my hands.

We are all past the age of keeping every secret. You will not get the locations of any bodies from me. There has been too much death. I have saved more lives than I am ever given credit for. I am only writing this so the men who lived it can finally read the full version and decide what, if anything, needs to change. Education over conflict or chaos. After living inside huge amounts of cash I came to despise it. It creates capitalistic monsters and the people around you become fake. But my greatest asset remains the ability and passion for making the product itself. Sometimes it is more fun playing monopoly with it than keeping it. The game has its own logic. The money is only one of the scores.

During the start of Covid I was approached by people who held the keys to customs. They wanted a job done inside the quiet world of international drug control. They believed I was one of the few who would be respected across factions and could stay diplomatic and peaceful. The American opiate problem was a major factor, including the American desire for less control to certain groups. They talked about boats coming in that could carry more than narcotics. I will tell more later when the time is right. In the years that followed I had to meet in person or through representatives from all over the world involved in the international transportation of our greed and compulsion for narcotics. At the same time I had to deal with the heads of governing and police bodies. Hand in hand. Not the corruption story people like to tell. Special security that does not get noticed. And the only thanks I have had is the odd pound coin when I have been reduced to begging. I have never lived like a kingpin character. The gap between the rooms I sat in and the care-home bed I sleep in now is the real story. That gap is the measure of how the system treats people who know too much and have no official protection.