THE LONDON DRUG WARS (8 page)

It was Brookes’ turn to look
thoughtful. “So he has quite an empire. It would be interesting to know if any
of the legitimate businesses import direct from abroad.”

Brigid added, “The brothels as well
sir; I’ll bet most of the toms are from Eastern Europe.”

Hornsby smiled. “No trouble, I’m not
sure about the prostitutes but I can have the information on the other
businesses for you by this evening.”

“Good. Let’s move on. The next thing
I want to look at is where he’s cutting the drugs. The heroin and cocaine will
be smuggled pure; they are less bulky in that form. He must have a place
somewhere to mix the additives and break the stuff up into small packets to
sell to his street dealers.”

Brigid said, “After what we’ve just
heard, maybe he does that at one of his legitimate business sites sir?”

Brookes looked cynical but Hornsby
said, “If he’s as clever and as arrogant as we think, that’s a possibility.
Don’t forget John, these people are very hands-on.”

Brookes wasn’t convinced. “OK let’s
leave that for the moment. The next stage of his operation is selling the stuff
to the street dealers. Although Arthur Bolton has already been looking into
that, with a dedicated team we should be able to make an impression there. That
leaves the money laundering; where’s he stashing his loot?”

“Probably in an off-shore bank. All
he needs do is put it in a suitcase and take a boat to the continent or even
the Channel Islands. Once there he can pay it in to a bank that doesn’t have
our strict rules on reporting large deposits. Then he can transfer it anywhere
in the world.”

“So you don’t think he’s laundering
it in this country?”

“I don’t think he’s that stupid. In
fact I think he’s far from stupid John, not many drug lords get to the top
without ever being charged with some offences on the way up but he managed it.”

“No, you’re probably right. So one
line of attack appears to be to look into Bronchi’s smuggling operation both in
and out of the country.”

“I’d say so, yes. I’ll find out what
I can about his companies’ imports and get back to you.’ He paused then added
in a serious tone, ‘Be careful John. It’s difficult for people living in a
civilised society like ours to realise the evil that exists elsewhere in the
world. Now, with the break-up of the old USSR and the globalisation that’s
moving people about, that evil is spreading. It’s no surprise that some of it
has reached our shores.

“Bronchi is a classic example. The
only thing that might give him pause for thought is the possibility of him
being brought to justice. That’s when he’ll be at his most dangerous. But his
arrogance is his weakness. If anyone can catch him John, it’s you. Get out
there and screw the bastard to the floor. Just do it according to the book. I
don’t want to see some pompous ass of a judge throw your case out on a stupid
technicality. If there’s anything else I can do to help, let me know.”

Brookes smiled at his colleague.
“Magic Jeremy, you’ve given me a focus. If you weren’t so ugly I’d give you a
big kiss.”

Both
men laughed out loud at this, one of Brookes’ favourite quips. Brigid simply
rolled her eyes.

Once in the car and on the way back
to their new office Brookes said, “Well Brigid, what do you think?”

She took a moment to answer. Then she
said, “He’s so well established sir, I can’t see how we can get near him.”

“We’ll find a way, I promise you. As
Jeremy said, he does have weaknesses, not least of which is his arrogance.
There are several areas to attack. The drug smuggling route is one; then
there’s the brothels. And the money laundering, that particularly interests me.
Drugs and prostitution are both cash businesses. Moving cash in huge sums
covertly can’t be that easy. Now we’ve got the resources we’ll find where to
attack him. But let’s continue to gather information first. I’ll be interested
to see what Dick Mann comes up with, apparently he’s got good connections with
the Excise and Revenue people.”

“What’s this sir, the Capone
approach, get him for not paying his income tax?”

Brookes smiled. “No that wasn’t what
I had in mind but it’s a thought if all else fails. Let’s not jump the gun
though.”

The two lapsed into silence and a few
minutes later they arrived at Cundell House. Brookes was pleased to see that a
security guard checked their identity even though he recognised them before
allowing them to enter the underground car park. In the lift up to the
operations room Brigid said, “What’s next today, sir?”

He glanced sideways at her. “That
depends what the other teams have found. Don’t be so impatient Brigid.”

She rolled her eyes at him and said
no more.

Bill Moore, the office manager, and
Sally Herd, their computer nerd, were at their desks, the rest of the room was
empty.
That’s a good sign
, Brookes thought. To Moore he said, “Where is
everyone Bill?”

“Where you told them to go boss;
they’re all out researching. DI Mann left you this paper, and DCI Bolton this
one on heroin production.” He handed Brookes two thin files.

To Brigid, Brookes said, “Good, if
you run off some copies of the paper Special Branch gave us we can distribute
those later. But I want them marked ‘For your eyes only. Not to leave the
office.’ in bold type.”

She grinned. “I like that sir, the
secret squirrel stuff.”

Brookes went to the coffee machine
and took a cup of the thick, black liquid to his office with the papers he’d
been given. First he looked at the one headed ‘Money laundering’. It read:

“
The terms ‘money
laundering’ and ‘dirty money’ came into being in the 1930s in America in a
totally unrelated way. According to the net, US coins in circulation quickly
became grubby
,
passing from hand to hand. The US Treasury had the brilliant idea of removing
them from circulation occasionally and cleaning them. This was to prevent the
coins soiling ladies
’
white gloves when handling them. The scheme didn’t last long
but the name stuck.’ Brookes laughed out loud on reading this
,
then became serious as
he continued to scan the paper.

“
Today the term has an
altogether different meaning. Successful criminals accumulate a great deal of
dirty money; too much to keep under the mattress. They have to use banks just
like the rest of the population. But in most countries, banks are required to
inform their governments of large sums paid into customer accounts to ensure
the recipients have paid the appropriate tax on it.

“
When asked where the
money came from, the criminals could hardly say it was from the sale of cocaine
or heroin. So they must ‘saniti
s
e’ the money in order to avoid arrest. In some cases the
money is put through legitimate companies and, where necessary, taxes are paid
to keep the authorities happy. But when the sums are very large this is not
possible as it appears the profits from the legitimate business are out of
proportion and raise suspicion in the minds of the tax collectors. Sometimes
the only method is to smuggle the actual cash abroad to so-called tax havens
where the banks ask no questions as to its origins.

“
Once ‘saniti
s
ed’ much of the money is
then kept offshore to minimi
s
e the taxes paid on interest. But wherever it is then kept it
no longer has the taint of being ‘dirty money’ and can be spent freely. All of
the world’s major financial institutions frown on the money laundering practice
but are often helpless to do anything about it. Only in recent years have the
more enlightened governments tried to find better ways of combating the criminal
practice.
”

Mann had attached a brief note on the UK
law on the confiscation of the proceeds of crime. He’d noted that there were
several acts of parliament concerning the practice but the one he zeroed in on
was
t
he
Proceeds of Crime Act, 2002. The lawyers glorify in terms such as ‘obtaining a
pecuniary advantage’. But in layman’s terms the act says that money or goods
obtained as a result of crime are liable to confiscation on the conviction of a
criminal for a crime of gain.

The money accumulated from the sale of
hard drugs was clearly liable to confiscation. But only after his conviction;
the court’s hands were tied unless he was found guilty.

There was another note on the financial
service industry Mann had written:
“
If we take
t
he Cayman Islands as an
example of a tax haven we see that, despite having a population of fewer than
55,000, there were 279 banks registered there. Between them, they held a
staggering one point five trillion US dollars of customers’ money. Almost all
of this was from overseas. It was no surprise that banking generated 55% of the
Cayman’s tax income and the local government was wary of any action that might
diminish this. The Cayman Islands is just one of many around the world and
there is little or no control of their activities.
”

Putting the report down
,
Brookes turned to the
other paper on heroin. He read:

 “The opium poppies are grown by dozens of
small farmers in the hills of Helmand and Kandahar provinces in Afghanistan.
Once the plants have flowered and the petals have dropped, a tulip
-
shaped seed
pod remains at the top of
the stem. The farmers then score the skins of each pod with a sharp blade. Over
the next few days gum oozes from the cuts and solidifies. The farmer then
harvests his crop by scraping the gum into a sack. A one acre field gave him up
to a kilogram of gum for which he was paid US$250. This was twice what he could
get for a cereal crop grown in the rocky soil and ensured he could feed his
family through the following winter. It was little wonder that so many Afghan
farmers, existing on or below the poverty line, chose to grow the opium
poppies.

“Once the gum
was collected it was taken to a site nearby where, together with the crops of
other local farmers, it was first processed. All that was required for this
process was a few empty oil drums, a ready supply of water, some basic
chemicals and a fuel supply to heat the water.

“First the gum was boiled in water
mixed with lime. The sediment dropped to the bottom and the opium formed a scum
on the top. This scum was then collected and boiled again; this time in water
mixed with ammonia. The result was a substance called opium base. In this
process the bulk was reduced tenfold making it easier to smuggle across the
border to Pakistan or Iran. Once across the border a chemist would carry out
the more sophisticated process that would extract the pure heroin from the
opium base. This came in the form of a white powder that was packed in blocks
for ease of transportation

“These blocks were then smuggled into
Western Europe by one of several routes. One led north to the former USSR
satellite states of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan into Russia; then west across
Central Europe: this route was under the control of Russian gangs. Another
route was by ship to the Mediterranean ports of Italy and France, and onward
from there. A third was via Iran to Turkey and onwards from there to Western
Europe; these last two were the routes favoured by the Turks.

“Once cut, a kilo of heroin would
fetch upwards of £100,000 on the streets of London. The distributor would ‘cut’
the heroin by adding inert substances such as baking powder and sell it to the
street dealers. The ‘cutting’ increased the bulk by more than eighty percent
and the profits accordingly. After cutting, the price on the streets for one
tiny ‘fix’ was anything from £10 to £40 depending on the availability at the
time.”

Putting the report down, Brookes
drank the last of his coffee that was by now cold. He’d known about most of the
contents of the two reports but seeing the detail brought the scale of the task
home to him. The huge profits bought a lot of security for the man at the top
of the chain, and what he couldn’t buy he dealt with ruthlessly by murder or
the threat thereof. Brookes was deep in thought as he walked back to the
general office.

Dick Mann was sitting beside Bill
Moore drinking the inevitable coffee. Approaching him, Brookes said, “Any luck
Dick?”

“Quite a bit to think about, sir.
Bronchi has a good accountant as you would expect. According to the Russian’s
tax records he earns a good living from his legitimate businesses; that’s his
grocery chain, the property he owns and his computer company. Not enough to
keep three race horses in training as well as finance his expensive lifestyle
you would think. But there’s no trace of any income directly from the sale of
drugs. Or from the three nightclubs or the chain of brothels. Nor indeed, is
there any evidence of him having any financial interests in those enterprises;
in fact, on paper, each is owned by separate people. The one co-incidence of
course is...”

Brookes interrupted, “Don’t tell me;
each of them have Russian names.”

“You guessed it, sir. But his bank
accounts show transfers of large sums of money from accounts abroad. The
problem here is that they are easily passed off as legitimate profits from
investments in other countries which are allegedly taxed at source. What makes
it very difficult for Customs and Revenue to do anything to disprove this, is
that the banks transferring the cash cannot be forced to give any details of
the accounts from which the cash is coming from.”

“What about the VAT returns for the
legitimate businesses, any discrepancies there?”

Mann shook his head. “No, nothing
that sticks out; everything looks to be above board.”

Brookes nodded. “What about the
profits from the nightclubs and brothels?”

“We’re still looking into those sir,
My DC, Anne Drake, is looking at property titles now. But remember it’s an
offence to live off the immoral earnings of prostitutes so the best we’re likely
to find is a landlord somewhere collecting rent.”

“Yes, I appreciate that Dick but I
bet when she finds it, the name will be Russian. OK thanks for the paper on
money laundering. I’m compiling a briefing note on all our findings so let me
have your report on the taxes and VAT. Oh, and let me know when you have the
other stuff.”

An hour later Betty Chard and Fred
Middlemiss appeared in the doorway of Brookes’ office. He invited them in and
to sit; Brigid was already there. “What have you got for us Betty?”

The DI grimaced. “As you’ve no doubt
gathered boss, DCI Bolton is not best pleased at us ‘taking over’ as he sees
it.”

Brookes nodded. “In his position nor
would I be. There’s an implied criticism isn’t there? But we’ll have to live
with that. What have you learned?”

“It’s pretty clear that the drug
business is run from the nightclub, the Moscow Nights. But there are never any
drugs actually on the premises.” Chard paused and smiled. “Did you ever see the
series, ‘The Wire’, boss?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Well, all the secret communication
with those moving the drugs in that programme was by mobile phone and they used
some kind of code. Arthur Bolton is certain Bronchi uses something similar,
although the language used is Russian. He managed to intercept a few of
Bronchi’s calls but our interpreter said it was in some code he didn’t
understand. Can you believe it boss? They couldn’t find anyone who did
understand the code.”

Brookes frowned. “So we need a
codebreaker. Now where on Earth will we find one of those?” He held up his
hands. “No, don’t tell me, it was a rhetorical question. But I can’t ask the
DAC to get someone from GCHQ to join our team.”

Brigid said, “Why not, sir? If the
Home Secretary is on board why can’t we get them to help?”

Then to Chard, Brookes said, “Betty,
see if you can get the tapes of these coded conversations. I’ll get my contact
in Special Branch to put me in touch with the secret squirrels and see if they
can make something of them; you never know your luck. Now, what else have you got?”

“The street dealers, sir. I’ll leave
that to Fred to fill you in, he was chatting up his mate on the drug squad.”