Drug War: The Secret History

Drug War is a landmark modern history: the first ever full account of the United Kingdom’s fight against the illegal importation of drugs. Packed with remarkable revelations and thrilling anecdotes, it tells for the first time the story of the high-level traffickers who drugged Britain, and the secretive organisation that tried to stop them: the Investigation Division of HM Customs and Excise. The ID’s elite officers waged a fifty-year battle to stem the tide of cannabis, cocaine and heroin arriving by land, air and sea, and to track, arrest and prosecute the smuggling gangs, both organised and chaotic, who turned an amateur pastime into a multi-billion-pound trade. 

The result of more than 100 unique interviews, many with insiders who have never spoken publicly, it is a ground-breaking account of one of the most vital subjects of our times. It begins with the UN Single Convention of 1961, intended to enshrine a worldwide ban on narcotics. Yet within five years the UK was on the cusp of a narco-boom, driven by immigrants from its former colonies and by the eruption of the youth counterculture. The insidious effect was to corrupt key areas of British life, including airport baggage and freight handlers at Heathrow Airport, dockers at the major ports and even the Drug Squad at New Scotland Yard. 

Drug War chronicles: the first major ‘barons’, including the brilliant laser scientist Dr Gurdev Singh Sangha; the rise of hippie traffickers such as the legendary Howard Marks, and the violent gangland syndicates that ultimately brushed them aside; the ongoing rivalry between police and Customs and how this often blighted the law enforcement response; the emergence of London’s first heroin godfather, Gigi Bekir, and how the Turkish state was complicit in flooding the country with smack; the heavyweight ‘untouchables’ who eventually streamlined the drug business, and the extraordinary covert methods employed against them; and how secret liaison with British and American spy agencies led to the biggest cocaine seizures ever, the motherships of the Colombian cartels.

Concluding with the series of mishaps and scandals that ushered in the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Drug War is a ground-breaking account packed with unique revelations, personal testimony and fresh analysis.