As we cruise past in a battered Mondeo, one of the detectives tells me to look
left, where I see a dozen Somali teenagers milling by the entrance to a
public park, brazenly selling drugs just a few yards from a railway station
and a busy London high street.
After a string of shootings and stabbings, frightened residents here demanded
action and the police have responded with a surveillance operation. Once our
car is tucked away in a back street, near where a row of homeless people are
lying on the pavement, the three undercover detectives — dressed in hoodies,
jeans and trainers — explain how a network of enforcers keep the kids
dealing. Their description sounds unnervingly familiar.
In August Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, compared parts of Britain
to The Wire, an American television series about the police’s bleak
battle against drugs gangs in Baltimore, Maryland. At first, it seemed like
an exaggerated headline-grabber during the Conservatives’ “Broken Britain”
week. Detective Superintendent Darren Shenton, of Greater Manchester Police,
was quick to point out that there had been a 93 per cent reduction in
gang-related gun discharges on Moss Side. Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary,
dismissed the comparison as “glib”.
Yet these detectives recognise some truth in the remarks. The Wire is
renowned as a favourite night-in box-set for the middle class but, the
undercover woman detective next to me sighs, it is also popular with
aspiring gangsters. “Drug dealers all watch The Wire,” she
says, wincing as static from her covert earpiece cuts through to her
eardrum. “They learn a lot of tactics from it.”
In 2005 a drugs ring in Queens, New York, mimicked the practice of characters
in The Wire of using disposable cellphones to make it more difficult
for the police to eavesdrop on them. The dealers dumped their cellphones so
that every time they bought a new phone, the police had to go back to court
to seek approval for a new wiretap. The NYPD sergeant on the case said that
several gang members were big fans of The Wire.
Teenagers in London have also learnt to follow strict rules to thwart any
police investigation, selling just a few drug wraps at a time before
crossing the road to a café to pick up more. Their operation is based on a
knowledge of Crown Prosecution Service guidelines — being caught with 20
rocks of crack cocaine is enough to secure a conviction for possession with
intent to supply (known as PWIT), which carries a sentence of up to two
-and- a- half years.
If the street-corner scenes are reminiscent of the television series, so, too,
are the activities of the police behind closed doors. A midday briefing to
outline the tactics for the surveillance operation takes place in a scruffy,
nondescript room in West London where six undercover detectives slump,
looking haggard and jaded. Across from them sit ten uniformed officers,
fresh-faced by comparison, with notepads ready. The detective sergeant
leading this crackdown is Shaid, who is chubby, shavenheaded, late forties
and wears a grey fleece, a padded jacket and white trainers.
After waiting patiently for a policewoman to finish sending an e-mail, he
outlines the three phases of the current operation to the room. There is, he
says, excellent CCTV coverage “on the plot”. First, one policeman, referred
to as OP (for observation point), will watch the dealers’ every move on the
cameras. He will then describe the customers in detail over the radio, alert
his fellow officers to the direction in which they are heading. Undercover
cops, waiting in pairs with hidden radios, will pick up the tail on foot and
follow the suspect for a few blocks. Then uniformed police will swoop. “No
one is to mention that these arrests are part of an operation,” he says.
“It’s just a routine stop-and-search.” If the criminals become aware that an
operation is on, the dealers will go to ground.
The gathering breaks up. Some chatter nervously in groups, clarifying roles.
“It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel,” Shaid calls out confidently.
Of course, it is a figure of speech. No shooting is planned. The biggest
discrepancy between the real life of the operations room and the drama of a
US cop show is that there are no firearms in view — and Shaid, a veteran of
gruelling campaigns against organised crime, is uncomfortable when we talk
about them later. “Yes, we do use guns on operations. You have to assess the
level of threat and pre-plan. If you go on the streets and encounter a
vehicle where someone is carrying, you have to make a tactical decision.
It’s quick-time intelligence.”
This week, Scotland Yard abandoned its plan for patrols of men with
sub-machineguns and armed marksmen on motorbikes as a gang war raged in
North London and shootings surged south of the river. Shaid says that
although it is sometimes necessary to call in armed support at short notice
“because the level of gun crime is escalating on the streets of London”, he
would rather avoid it. “I never want to carry a gun,” he says. “I never
joined the force to carry a gun. Does it escalate the level of violence if
you carry a gun? Official reports say yes.”
Hidden in the back streets, we sit in silence, waiting for the first deal.
Tim, a young detective, is restless. “The wheels are going to come off this
so fast,” he mutters, shaking his head. I ask what he means. “To be honest,
this has been cobbled together just to placate the community. It’s a simple
buy-and-bust,” he says, bringing to mind a common theme in The Wire:
officials targeting the mules at the bottom of the chain for the sake of
publicity, rather than focusing on those at the top of the drug hierarchy.
The detective predicts that the dealers will quickly be tipped, probably by
a user released from custody. He suggests that undercover police could make
“test purchases”, where they buy drugs and film the purchase. This happened
recently in Brent, West London, where undercover police were planted and
lived for six months in a drug-ridden tower block. It is a dangerous
approach, though.
Tim is good-looking in a hollow-eyed, pasty way, with dark, spiky hair, and
his cockiness reminds me of McNulty, the stubborn detective in the
television series. A detective for five years, he feels that he knows which
tactics work, and I learn later that he has turned down two chances to be
promoted to sergeant so that he can keep working the cases. His main
frustration is that street dealers will be replaced quickly. The real prize
is the drug overlord, the equivalent of Avon Barksdale in The Wire.
Tim claims to know who he is but says that he remains frustratingly out of
reach, isolated from the drugs, handling only money and investing in
property. Tim describes angrily how the overlord lives in a three-bedroom
terraced house worth £500,000. I ask the inevitable question: what about a
wiretap?
“We would like to have one but we can’t,” Tim says. “It’s expensive. Involves
lots of red tape. It’s only used for terrorism or murder. It needs a green
light from the surveillance authority or an assistant commissioner.”
We are interrupted as the OP’s voice comes on the radio. “Tall IC3 male
leaving a known dealer.” IC3 is code for the suspect’s ethnicity
(Afro-Caribbean). “Wearing an orange hoodie. It looks like he’s hiding it in
his ear. Walking southbound.”
It’s the first deal of the day. Tim is already tracking his finger along a
page of the London A-Z. He tugs on a baseball cap and bursts out of
the car. Sarah, one of the woman detectives, is not far behind him. They
operate in pairs — if the suspect recognises one of them, the other can take
over. They both wear hidden harnesses under their clothes. A flesh-coloured
lead runs up the inside of the arm, with a button to press when they speak.
Microphones are buried inside the lapels and tiny wireless earpieces nestle
in their ears.
“Suspect is walking past the betting shop, with a bit of purpose in his walk,”
the OP continues. “In front of him are two single guys in white T-shirts.
They are going to cross the road.”
“Which one am I following ?” Tim’s voice snaps over the radio.
In the car, Becca, the remaining detective, explodes with frustration. “Shut
up, OP!” She buries her head in her hand. “He’s talking too much. He’s
supposed to leave the channel free in case they run into trouble.” Sarah
takes over the tail, while OP continues giving commentary as if he were on Test
Match Special. We hear muffled beeps as Sarah tries to get on the
airways. Five minutes later she yanks open the car door. “Why didn’t he shut
up?” she snaps, and flings down her radio. But the deals are happening thick
and fast now. “... Walking away from a known dealer. He’s put it in his
shoe,” OP says.
This time Becca heads out with Tim. Fifteen minutes later they are back. Becca
was spotted by the suspect. The area is almost entirely South Asian and
Somali, and she and Tim stand out as the only white people. She waited at
the bus stop, ignored four buses, then went to window- shop. As the suspect
walked past, he laughed at her. She was staring at a window display of
brightly coloured saris.
As it grows dark, the operation ends. There have been four arrests and the
prisoners are bussed to a police station. Shaid drives me across town to the
cells. He is cheerful, used to a long game. “A team of six of us were on one
case for two years,” he sighs. “Two of them, their wives left them.” Becca
nods. “Police have a high divorce rate,” she says. “I’m one example. Just
waiting for him to sign the papers now.” This does not dent their enthusiasm
— obsession, even — to bring down the ruthless enforcers who make the money.
Shaid, as a parent, is troubled by how the younger boys are forced to deal.
Thirteen-year-olds are stripped and whipped in the park. “Then they are
given a cup of tea and sent home to their mum,” he says. Others are made to
deal for long shifts in the stairwells of tower blocks, in their school
uniforms. One who refused was forced naked into a lift with a pitbull and
sent to the 15th floor.
Waiting for us in the cells is Reuben, another detective. “Reuben spends half
an hour chatting to the prisoners,” Shaid says wryly. “Playing the social
worker. My threshold to do that has long gone. It’s exhausting.”
At 45, Reuben is the oldest detective constable in the group. He looks gaunt,
exhausted. He is aloof from the others, quietly vigilant, more of a thinker.
He had worked previously as a photographer and for a software company. Then,
at 38, he pushed himself through gruelling police training at Hendon with
far younger men in their twenties. He rides a motorbike, which could suggest
a midlife crisis, although he claims that it was all to help to provide for
his family.
“Talking to the prisoners allows me to exploit their weakness, to make the
process go faster,” Reuben says. He is softly spoken and congested. “If they
scream and shout it all takes a lot longer.”
The prisoner is ushered in. He is a Pakistani man in his early thirties. He is
articulate and handsome, with the beginnings of a thick beard. He went to
grammar school and university, specialises in IT. He is affronted to be in a
police cell. “This is so not what I am about,” he says indignantly. His head
sways and lolls heavily. His lips are dry, his teeth dirty. “I started using
when I got divorced,” he admits. “Heroin is like a companion. It helps you
to sleep.”
It takes Shaid several weeks to secure warrants to raid ten premises where
they suspect that the drugs are hidden. We meet at dawn and head off in
convoys. The raid will be spearheaded by the Borough Support Unit (BSU), a
specialised group of extremely fit police who deal in breaking down doors
and gaining rapid entry. They wear helmets, riot gear and flameproof
overalls. Two medics are on standby.
“This guy considers himself untouchable on the estate,” Shaid says
disdainfully, as we draw up. “There’s a samurai sword on the wall as you go
in. And a pitbull.” It is still dark and cold as the BSU surround the door.
It all happens very fast. One uses a jemmy to open it a fraction. A
high-power hydraulic clamp is slid in and forces out the lock. Then a heavy
metal ramming block, called an “enforcer”, smashes the door in. They sprint
up the stairs, yelling “POLICE!” A vicious dog is carefully lassoed with a
long metal pole by an officer wearing a protective arm-covering. After all
the drama it is another disappointment. The suspect is staying with his
girlfriend.
On the wall of the flat is a poster of a US gangsta rapper, another
glorification of the American criminal lifestyle. DS Shenton, who leads
XCalibre, the anti-gang unit on Moss Side, tells me that gang members in
Manchester have been calling themselves “Bloods” and “Crips” and tagging
themselves in colours like Los Angeles gangs for five years. They call the
police “feds” and “Five-O”.
Late one night in July, on the Alexandra Park Estate on Moss Side, I found
myself talking to a 22-year-old gang member who was stoned on skunk. Other
members of his gang had been involved in a recent fatal shooting. I asked
him why he did it and he replied: “It’s all in the game. You got to play or
be played.”
The words were lifted straight from the script of The Wire and the
mouth of Omar Little, a lone-wolf stick-up artist whose modus operandi is
robbing other drug dealers. Such behaviour, Shaid tells me, is common — but
not because young criminals are emulating David Simon’s antihero. “It’s easy
money,” he says wryly. “And it never gets reported.”
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