associate: ‘Coke is the only drug that makes you a better operator. I love it!’
Eventually, Wilson ‘transferred’ his hash business to a young south-east London villain who went by the initials ‘RP’ to all who knew him. RP was a classic wild card, a man with a criminal pedigree as long as a blagger’s arm and a reputation as a risk taker.
Not long afterwards, in 1990, ex-train robber Wilson was shot dead by a hitman in the back garden of his luxury hacienda near Marbella following a clash with another British gang in a row about a cocaine shipment. The London underworld presumed that RP would step into Charlie’s shoes and take over his coke business.
But RP surprised many of his gangster associates on the Costa del Crime and in London by side-stepping Charlie’s coke business and sticking to his drug of choice – hash. It was a clever move.
As one Costa Brit explained: ‘All the coke boys were dropping like flies. They were either getting themselves topped like poor old Charlie or being banged up in prison, thanks to co-operation between the DEA and British and Spanish police, who were on a mission to rid the world of cocaine.’
But, I was told, RP was the consummate survivor. He was
the man
to interview when it came to the hash trade on the Costa del Crime.
*
My mission to find ‘RP’ in southern Spain began with a criminal enforcer (debt collector) called Tall Tommy whom I’d known for many years on the Costa del Crime. He knew RP very well. Tall Tommy said many in the underworld admired how this man had managed to not only survive but thrive by sticking to hash smuggling only and ignoring all the heavier drugs and people smuggling, which many of the gangsters in southern Spain now specialise in.
When I eventually made direct contact with RP through Tall Tommy, RP immediately put up a number of conditions before meeting me. The first one was to travel to a small port west of Marbella so RP could – in his words – ‘see where the fuck you’re comin’ from’. I agreed, not really knowing what I was about to let myself in for.
So it was that a few hours later I found myself on RP’s high-powered speedboat close to the Strait of Gibraltar. RP’s £150,000 powerboat was kept in a sleepy little harbour well away from the flashy villains of Marbella and Puerto Banus.RP described it as ‘one of my few luxuries’. RP is proud of his wealth but insists he doesn’t flaunt it openly on the Costa del Crime, where he is one of the few remaining Brits still ‘active’ in the criminal sense of the word.
RP told me he’d agreed to meet me only because of my own contacts in the London underworld, including one particular criminal who’d helped me with numerous book and TV projects during the previous twenty-five years and was ‘owed a favour’ by RP.
‘This is the life I always dreamed of as a kid, and I’m not going to throw it away like most of the old gangsters who pop up round these parts,’ shouts RP above the thudding noise of his twin outboard engines, while we chug gently out of the harbour entrance towards the choppy waters close to the resort of Estepona, a few miles up the coast from Marbella.
‘Hash is like most businesses,’ says RP. ‘It takes a while to get up and runnin’ but once you’ve cracked the right system you can make a fuckin’ fortune. It took me a while to get the right people after Charlie got done but now it all works like clockwork.’
RP’s fortune is earned mainly through vast shipments of Moroccan hash that travel the lucrative route between southern Spain and the UK and the rest of Europe – via the so-called ‘drugs hub’ of Holland.
‘Holland is the key to my business. It’s like a massive filter for all the drugs that come up from southern Europe. But the great thing about hash is that the police and customsjust aren’t that interested in it. Their priority is coke, heroin and ecstasy.’
Yet again, it seemed that hash had
Eventually, Wilson ‘transferred’ his hash business to a young south-east London villain who went by the initials ‘RP’ to all who knew him. RP was a classic wild card, a man with a criminal pedigree as long as a blagger’s arm and a reputation as a risk taker.
Not long afterwards, in 1990, ex-train robber Wilson was shot dead by a hitman in the back garden of his luxury hacienda near Marbella following a clash with another British gang in a row about a cocaine shipment. The London underworld presumed that RP would step into Charlie’s shoes and take over his coke business.
But RP surprised many of his gangster associates on the Costa del Crime and in London by side-stepping Charlie’s coke business and sticking to his drug of choice – hash. It was a clever move.
As one Costa Brit explained: ‘All the coke boys were dropping like flies. They were either getting themselves topped like poor old Charlie or being banged up in prison, thanks to co-operation between the DEA and British and Spanish police, who were on a mission to rid the world of cocaine.’
But, I was told, RP was the consummate survivor. He was
the man
to interview when it came to the hash trade on the Costa del Crime.
*
My mission to find ‘RP’ in southern Spain began with a criminal enforcer (debt collector) called Tall Tommy whom I’d known for many years on the Costa del Crime. He knew RP very well. Tall Tommy said many in the underworld admired how this man had managed to not only survive but thrive by sticking to hash smuggling only and ignoring all the heavier drugs and people smuggling, which many of the gangsters in southern Spain now specialise in.
When I eventually made direct contact with RP through Tall Tommy, RP immediately put up a number of conditions before meeting me. The first one was to travel to a small port west of Marbella so RP could – in his words – ‘see where the fuck you’re comin’ from’. I agreed, not really knowing what I was about to let myself in for.
So it was that a few hours later I found myself on RP’s high-powered speedboat close to the Strait of Gibraltar. RP’s £150,000 powerboat was kept in a sleepy little harbour well away from the flashy villains of Marbella and Puerto Banus.RP described it as ‘one of my few luxuries’. RP is proud of his wealth but insists he doesn’t flaunt it openly on the Costa del Crime, where he is one of the few remaining Brits still ‘active’ in the criminal sense of the word.
RP told me he’d agreed to meet me only because of my own contacts in the London underworld, including one particular criminal who’d helped me with numerous book and TV projects during the previous twenty-five years and was ‘owed a favour’ by RP.
‘This is the life I always dreamed of as a kid, and I’m not going to throw it away like most of the old gangsters who pop up round these parts,’ shouts RP above the thudding noise of his twin outboard engines, while we chug gently out of the harbour entrance towards the choppy waters close to the resort of Estepona, a few miles up the coast from Marbella.
‘Hash is like most businesses,’ says RP. ‘It takes a while to get up and runnin’ but once you’ve cracked the right system you can make a fuckin’ fortune. It took me a while to get the right people after Charlie got done but now it all works like clockwork.’
RP’s fortune is earned mainly through vast shipments of Moroccan hash that travel the lucrative route between southern Spain and the UK and the rest of Europe – via the so-called ‘drugs hub’ of Holland.
‘Holland is the key to my business. It’s like a massive filter for all the drugs that come up from southern Europe. But the great thing about hash is that the police and customsjust aren’t that interested in it. Their priority is coke, heroin and ecstasy.’
Yet again, it seemed that hash had
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