How I Trafficked $5 Million Worth Of Cocaine | Posh Pete's Uncut Story | How Crime Works

Anyway, I get on the plane, land at Schiphol Airport, and sure enough, there's a queue of Dutch anti-drug agents waiting. And all passengers have to go through them. And I knew at that very moment that they were arresting me. So sure enough, I get to the front of the line and they stop me and say, "Okay, we need to talk to you." So they put me in a waiting room with about 30 or 40 people, only three or four of whom were Europeans. and the rest South Americans. I thought, "Well, I'm done." You know what I mean? "There is no coming home." Finally, they call me at the office and say, "What have you been doing?" And I said, "I've been to the Cotopaxi volcano.

I was there for tourism. I always wanted to go to South America." I just gave them the whole spiel about being a tourist, left them all the brochures, told them I'd been here and there. Bla bla bla. And I thought, at any moment, they would leave this tent on the desk in front of me and say, "So what is this?" And it didn't happen. And after about 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes of questioning, they said, "Oh, I'm really sorry I stopped you. You're free to take your connecting flight," which was to Stansted. So I get on the plane and hope to be arrested when I get back to Britain.

And I land at Stansted airport, there's the shop going round and round on the carousel, and I think: "Should I, no, should I, shouldn't I?" And at the end I thought, "Oh, to hell with this." I grabbed it and thought, I hoped that as soon as I touched it, there would just be...dozens of cops would pile on me. And nothing happened. And I was shocked. So, I picked up this tent, put it on a trolley, grabbed the rest of my bags, headed straight out of Stansted Airport and was home free. And actually, going back to the rules, that was another rule that I set for myself.

I thought, well, there's no need for anyone to know when the passenger is coming back into the country, because as long as no one knows, you can't really tell anyone, I mean, you can't tell the police, unless they find go out another way. When looking for passengers, having made this first trip myself, we found people who certainly didn't have a drug conviction, or if it was a drug conviction, just something minor like a little cannabis, but preferably people who had a criminal record. clean, or as I say, no drugs. People who, in our eyes, were trust

worth

y and quite calm, presentable people.

I think the riskiest part was just trying to stay calm and not show too much nerve going through the airport. Because if you start to seem very nervous, then they have trained people who look for people who show signs of nervousness and body language. So it had a lot to do with choosing the right people who had the right behavior and the right kind of body language and mindset to go through this experience. The normal passenger sits in an airport, he is bored, he is reading a newspaper, reading a book, eating or drinking something. They don't look around him, or at the cameras, or security, or things like that.

Then it would be a matter of treating it as if you were on vacation, as if you were on any trip, as you would any other day. We tried not to reveal too many details to the people we were prospecting or interviewing as potential passengers. We explained to him that we had a really good method that was virtually undetectable. We didn't really tell them much about how it was done. We just said it beat the scanner, it beat the X-ray, it beat the dog and it beat pretty much everything Customs and Excise had at the time.

So it was almost foolproof. Generally, that would cheer them up. Obviously the fee we were paying them would help. We also tried to keep them as far away from us as possible so that if they were arrested, there wouldn't be too much circumstantial evidence connecting them to us. That way we wouldn't call them on the phone and things like that. We would try to keep them at a distance. We would give them a back

story

to the extent that we would tell them, well, we would tell them that if the worst happened and they were arrested in South America, we would try to buy them, because we knew how corrupt it was in South America.

Then we would try to pay them, get them a lawyer, and try to bribe them any way we could. If they got caught in Britain, we used to tell them to tell the old

story

that "Oh, someone asked us to carry this bag or this tent." And then when the trial comes around, ask your lawyer to hold a piece of rubber or latex in front of the jury and say, "Would any juror know that this is

cocaine

?" And then everyone is going to say no, because how could you do it? So, at that very moment, that creates an element of doubt for the jury.

This presents an element of doubt. So in British law, as long as there is sufficient reasonable doubt in a case, the accused is normally found not guilty. If there was no phone call connecting us to them, and them to drug trafficking of any kind, and they were working, at court appearances, a normal citizen, working or fairly straight, then they had a good chance. to get off. We tried to find countries that, A, had fairly lax drug laws and fairly porous border forces. We also started a method to buy a passenger a return ticket, obviously. So, let's say they left Heathrow.

They would be returning to Heathrow. As soon as we loaded them with the tent in South America, we would buy them a new return ticket to another destination. Therefore, we would not send them back on the original return leg of the trip. We would try to get them back on; basically, we would put them on the plane the same day they received the tent or the next day, as quickly as possible. And that really worked because the police, the British police, when they finally arrested me, they told me that they were actually waiting at the airports for the passengers to come back, and they didn't show up, and they didn't know it. what's going on.

Because they obviously didn't know that we were buying a different ticket to a different one-way destination. So you have to know the law to break it, really. For us, the United States was a totally forbidden place. I mean, there was one time, actually, when I passed through Miami. I didn't have anything with me, and it served as a test bed for us, really, because I think I was on my way to Venezuela, and I bought a ticket transiting through Miami, and it was with American Airlines. And I called American Airlines and said, "Look." I think he had just gotten out of prison, or this was the story I told them.

And I said, "I recently got out of prison, I have a criminal record for drug trafficking in Britain. If I'm transiting through Miami, will that be a problem?" And they said, "No, it won't be a problem. Go ahead and buy the ticket. You'll be fine." And they were completely wrong. It was a big problem. What happened was that I missed my flight at Heathrow to Miami. They then put me on the next flight, I think it was a British Airways flight, but by that time I had already missed my connecting flight to Caracas in Venezuela. Then they said, "We'll put you up at the airport hotel." So, I get to the front of the line in Miami, present my passport, and I think there's no way they'll let me in.

And the guy stamps the passport and says, "Welcome to America," and I was like, "You've got to be kidding me. You let me in." I could not believe it. So I go to Miami, I go to the airport hotel, I check in, blah, blah, blah. And I just spent three days walking around Miami. I went back to the airport to take the plane to Venezuela and security went crazy. They said, "Where have you been? What have you been doing?" They put me in a room, strip-searched me, searched all my luggage. Obviously American Airlines made a mistake.

So after that experience, we knew that it was very hot in the United States anyway, so we avoided any kind of transit through the United States. Any flight. Anything that has to do with the United States. And we also knew that if we started trafficking drugs into the United States, they would basically come for you wherever you were. It didn't matter if you went down to Antarctica and hid at the North Pole or the South Pole or wherever, they would eventually come and find you, as they do. So yes, for us the United States was a big no-go zone.

Yes. As for the airlines, I think the Spanish ones were definitely a little more lax. Air Iberia tended to be quite relaxed. Whereas yeah, American Airlines, on that trip to Venezuela, you had to fill out that whole visa form, and it was all a lot of security. As far as getting on the plane with these tents, I mean, it beat the scanners, it beat the X-rays, it beat the dog. So how else are they going to find it, unless someone tells them it's there? I think even with the particle wand and the swabs and stuff, I think that could have been a problem, but I think it was just starting to be used at the time we were doing this, and that would have just shown traces of

cocaine

, anyway, and they still wouldn't have done it: having found traces of cocaine with a wand, all they would have done is put it through a scanner or x-ray, and it would have turned up with nothing anyway. .

Then they would have thought, "Oh, someone's been doing cocaine and dropped some in their bag," or whatever. So it doesn't really prove much. I think today, if you were to try to get through an airport with, let's say, a kilo of cocaine or, let's say, kilos of cocaine, tied to your body or your legs with duct tape or in the lining of a jacket in powder form. or in block form, it will be detected, because body scanners are very good. Or even if you swallow capsules. That is, or pellets, as they were called in the past.

Before they gave you 10 or 12 ground pellets, compressed cocaine or heroin pellets. But then, because they advanced the technology with the scanner, you have the external scanner, which looks for anything that shouldn't be on you, but then they have the internal scanner which looks for things like pellets. of drugs. So they came up with liquid granules. So, the medications were again in solution and in some type of material that did not break down in the stomach acid, but was not detectable by X-ray. So, it looked like it was liquid in the stomach or in the food. The cartels won't do it: they like to minimize their risks.

That's why they like to minimize their losses. Therefore, they usually try to find people on both ends that they can bribe. And they have means and ways to bribe the border force, Customs and Excise. You know, or maybe a baggage handler who can get the bag onto the plane or onto the food carts that the food goes on. There are several points on a plane, if you are coming by plane, where drugs can be placed. If it comes in a container then they can be placed in the external air conditioning unit, if it is a freezer container then they obviously have those big air conditioning units.

One of them holds between 30 and 50 kilos and can be accessed from the outside of the container. So, if there are people in the ports, they can enter the containers or the outside of the container, they can hide drugs in the fabric of the container itself, in the floor, in the ceiling, in the walls. There are other methods, like the group I worked with when I was very young, when I was in college, they rented a yacht and sailed to the Caribbean. They would load a ton and a half of cocaine onto a private yacht, take it back, and then do what is called cooperating.

They would then transfer the cocaine to the sea. They would have a fishing boat leave a local fishing port and transfer the cocaine from one boat to another. It seems that the fishing boat has not gone far, but the yacht has evidently returned from South America. But you think about the size of a boat, or even a boat. A boat is even better. They can place it, they can fix it to the hull of the boat underwater in waterproof containers. They can weld it to the hull of the boat. Put it in liquid. Again, same type of technique, and then you just extract it.

Many of these have recently become quite important in Europe. There are super labs popping up where they use the same methods that we used all those years ago, but on a much larger scale, and then they extract it in these labs using chemicals and chemicals. And in Europe we end up with pure cocaine again. And it's much safer, and means you don't have to pay Customs and Excise Duty. An average shipment per container, if it is large, would be about 5 tons. The average shipment, I would say, is probably one to two tons. They are between 1,000 and 2,000 kilos at a time.

Especially if it's hidden in walls or on the floor, because there's only a certain amount of space you can put it in. I mean, on days when you put it in the boxes or among the fruit, the scanner goes to pick that up, probably. But then again, keep in mind that these container ports are also so busy that the police usually don't waste their time unless they know something is present. Unless they get a warning or the dock detects something. Generally, the drugs will have been seized because someone has spoken up or because someone has been caught further down the chain and abandoned the operation.

And therefore the police know thatcan. You had to use your cell phones. So, I think you had to pay them a dollar a minute to call abroad or 30 cents locally. They had, again, a pyramidal organization where there were three brothers at the top called Los Cubanos. And below that, in each wing, they had a boss in each wing, who collected a tax from each inmate once a week on Sundays of between 5 and 10 dollars, which was returned to the main bosses, or part of it. And then they paid bribes to the guards, to the prison director, to let them continue doing what they were doing.

All foreigners who entered there were extorted for everything they could get from you. They would put a gun to your head, take you to a cell or a room, and just tell you, "Call your family and send some money to this person or that person through Western Union or MoneyGram." Many families were going through hell. Many foreigners too. In this mixOf these two gangs at war with each other emerges a third gang called Los Choneros, who are now one of the largest gangs in Ecuador. And they end up in the wing I'm in, between 10 and 15 of them, including José Luis Zambrano, who was the head of the Choneros at the time.

And in fact I got along quite well with this group, the Choneros, because they had better education. They were kinder people, even if they were hitmen. They were generally nicer people. It's just easier to move on. At one point, they put me in charge of selling them their cocaine on the wing. Now I'm the cocaine boss in that wing. In addition to having a boss in each wing, they had a boss for each drug in each wing. So there was a cocaine boss, a marijuana or weed boss, and a crack or powder boss, which is what they smoked.

You could wander from wing to wing, but they would lock you in your wing. You had to return to your wing at 5 p.m. Then, they would lock you in your wing at 5 p.m. Now, with the entry of this third gang, the Choneros, into the prison, it destabilized the entire dynamics of the prison and the power structure. So this gang, the Cubans, didn't really like the fact that this kind of new-kids-on-the-block thing existed. And they started to become very powerful very quickly, the Choneros, because they were already a promising and very powerful gang anyway. This gang, the Choneros, was used by politicians and individuals to clean up other gangs and shoot political members of the opposition.

They were kind of hitmen, assassins. And at that time, Rafael Correa had just been elected, so things were getting so dangerous in the prisons anyway, that he had a whole new prison built. One night there was a mass shooting in which I was almost killed. Two-hour shootout between the Choneros and the Cubans in the wing where I was. At that time, the Sinaloa cartel was beginning to make inroads into Ecuador. They were already trafficking with some of the gangs, particularly the Choneros. Zambrano gets all the gangs to work together, work with the Sinaloa cartel, and everything goes pretty well.

Then they release him, he is away for six months and a Colombian hitman kills him. Shot to death in a coffee shop. Fito took charge, started leading the gang in the prison. The Choneros. Now, meanwhile, in addition to the Sinaloa cartel, the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel is beginning to make inroads. So now there is a power struggle between the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel over who controls the trafficking routes out of Ecuador, particularly that port city, Guayaquil. There are many large mega-laboratories producing tons and tons of cocaine along the borders of Colombia and Ecuador, and Peru and Ecuador, and in the Amazon.

And it's just big business, but it's also led to enormous instability in Ecuador and mass killings. Late last year, there were some really serious prison massacres and infighting between these gangs. I mean, the most horrible and barbaric medieval war you can believe. Absolutely horrible, horrible things. The Cubans were annihilated. I'm glad I wasn't there when it happened, because I'd probably be dead by now. So, all that happened. And the authorities managed to regain control of the situation. But in the meantime, there has been a new president-elect named Daniel Noboa. Listening to his accent, he was educated in America, because he sounds a little Americanized.

He has declared war on the gangs in Ecuador and basically said that they are in a state of internal war. And if you remember what happened in the Philippines when Duterte basically declared war on the drug gangs there, or also on the drug users, and killed about 20,000 people, I think that's how it was. So I think that's the path Ecuador is about to take, and that will lead to many, many more deaths. Cocaine trafficking has existed for a long time. I mean, the Dutch were some of the first to make it really popular. It was sold legally, right?

But that was the middle of the 19th century or something like that. I was getting into drinks like Coca-Cola. Hence the name, Coca-Cola. And, obviously, it is used for a multitude of anesthetics, such as lidocaine, novocaine and benzocaine. Anything that ends in "-caine" comes from cocaine, basically. Quite. I think it was semi-legal at the time, right? You could buy cocaine at the pharmacist. Obviously, then it is prohibited. The cartels really came to power when cocaine became super popular. I think in the United States it really was the beginning. In the early '70s, I mean, the Italian mafia started bringing cocaine into the United States.

I think about the 70s, mainly, when the Medellín and Cali cartels were the two main ones, starting, going to Miami, boatloads entering. I mean, everyone has seen "Scarface." I mean, it's not that far from the truth. I think cocaine was certainly seen as a glamorous drug, particularly in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. You know, pop stars, models, and people who had a lot of money did cocaine, because back then it was quite expensive in many places. As the market has become increasingly saturated with increasing volumes of cocaine produced, the price has fallen.

It goes up and down like the stock market, depending on how much is available and what is happening. There's the Internet, which is obviously a pretty big base that can be used to sell drugs. Postal services are much faster than courier services. All the mechanisms involved with cocaine trafficking are getting faster and bigger. So it's actually constantly expanding. In my opinion, cocaine trafficking is greater than ever. From the days of dealing cocaine, cocaine, the way it was made, using ether and certain chemicals that are now widely banned, was definitely of higher quality back then and much stronger.

I think that today they are cutting it at the source. I think overall the quality of cocaine has decreased. Cocaine volumes have increased. So I think it has reduced; True, it has partly to do with the fact that the chemicals necessary to make it are more difficult to obtain. The volumes of chemicals you need are enormous. Many of the chemicals that were previously used in South America to produce cocaine and that were ideal for producing cocaine became highly controlled. More controlled, perhaps less produced. But, I mean, they solved it by finding similar chemicals of similar nature, just using something that was as close as possible.

But of course, the final product is not the same. It's slightly different, with each different chemical you change. So I would say that overall the quality of cocaine has decreased over the years. He is definitely not as strong as he was. When you talk about making tons of cocaine, you're talking about if you're using ether for 1 kilo, I think it's between 5 and 7 liters of ether, just to make 1 kilo of cocaine. Not to mention the sulfuric acid, the hydrochloric acid that you need. Potassium permanganate. All the other chemicals involved are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Acetone. In countries where cocaine is produced, even getting caught with some of those chemicals will land you in prison because they know what they are for or what they are likely to be for if you are caught with them.

So, yes, at the street level, I would say that as cocaine becomes more available, there are certainly more people using it. It's easier to get. Albanians have had a huge influence on the cocaine market in Britain. They now control much of the trade. They have become very efficient in the way they deliver it. I mean, you can pick up the phone and it's like getting... in fact, you can get cocaine faster than getting a pizza. I think it's still a pretty big cash deal, for sure. Definitely. And I think it always will be, if it's illegal, but bitcoin definitely exists, cryptocurrencies have definitely gotten involved, to some extent.

Bank to bank transfers. Even things like using large multinational companies. Let's say you have someone inside to make a transfer from one country to another. I mean, I think it's still quite a lot of the old ways of money laundering, just setting up a business and cleaning it up through a business, through property, through high value assets, basically. Watches, cars. High value products that can be purchased, either, I don't know, or through corrupt bank officials who accept cash. I mean, there are several ways to clean money. If it goes on the baseboards, behind the baseboards, under false floors.

Some of that, we were putting in: we had means to clean it up. We were able to purchase entire properties with cash through corrupt real estate dealers. We could buy a house with cash and they would give us all the paperwork. I found that stocks and shares were good. Slowly put money into a bank account and then buy a bunch of stocks, and then we could use the stock certificates as collateral. Works of art, antiques. Buy them. Sell ​​them again immediately. Things like that. Just to clear the money. When it comes to the war on drugs, I would say it is unwinnable.

And really, the only way to control things, control them, is to legalize them, manufacture them under license, tax them heavily, distribute them from controlled distribution points, offset the harmful effects on healthcare through taxes. I'm not sure the government can do much to stop cocaine trafficking. I think it will always be that way... I mean, the question of legalization is complicated because, I mean, we have seen certain drugs legalized in the United States, in certain states, in Canada, and in some respects, it has worked; In others, this is not the case. The problem is that there will always be people who abuse drugs, who not only consume them.

The same as people abuse or consume alcohol, or any drug. You could even say chocolate. There will always be a problematic element with drugs. It's just about having the best possible control over it and trying to compensate for it and control its harmful effects as much as possible. In a previous interview, I mentioned that, to some extent, it's almost better for governments if drugs are illegal, because it keeps, if you think about the amount of money that goes to the judiciary, meaning the police, to catch to drug traffickers. , prosecuting them. You have the prison service and all the ancillary services that serve prisoners, like food, utilities, everything.

I mean, it's a big business. Prison Officer Jobs. I mean, when you start looking at how much it costs to keep people in prison per year per prisoner, it's a lot of money. It's big business, being illegal. It would be interesting to do the math and see how it would work if it were legal and taxed, which would be more or less profitable. And I bet you it would be less profitable if it were legal. I'll bet you some money. I was 4 years old and my mother accidentally gave me a piece of hash cake, without her knowing.

They were at a party. My dad used to smoke hashish. He was a builder, so there was always hashish in the house. Obviously being a kid, I didn't realize what was happening. I didn't appreciate what was happening. But he smoked it daily. And we were at this particular party, and my mom gave me a piece of what I thought was chocolate cake, and it was actually mixed with a lot of hashish, and I got really high. But then the real involvement came after my parents divorced when I was about 10. My mother met with one of my father's friends, who had two older children, the oldest of whom was a well-known local DJ.

And at that time they were organized in many illegal raves. It's the early '90s. Obviously I want to start moving forward. Start accompanying them. Look, it's very easy to sell drugs at these parties, because the police don't get involved at all. So they feel pretty safe and pretty easy to do. Most of the people I sell to, I know anyway. So it was an easy way to make money. So, that was all about the party, and then the cocaine came a little later, when I was at theuniversity. I met local dealers in Cardiff. Then they started asking for much larger quantities.

The local dealer I had been introduced to in my hometown didn't want to get involved, so he introduced me to the next guy on the ladder, who was the key link to Wright, who was bringing in the coke. I went in and started a painting and decorating business because my dad was a builder and he said, “Look, you can have all the painting and decorating contracts on the back of the construction work that I do, as long as the client agrees. " It was just hard work that I wasn't used to. I was used to making 10 to 20 grand in an hour selling a few kilos of coke and trying to adjust to making, what? 600 or 700 pounds a week?

It was quite difficult. He began dabbling in cocaine again on weekends. I think that's what it was, in part. A lot of friends kept calling me and saying, "Oh, do you want to be in this? Can you get that for us?" They kept pushing him to get involved again and in the end he just gave up. Yeah, I mean, I'm not blowing my own trumpet, but I mean, I'm reasonably intelligent. I really like politics and news, that's why I follow trends. I follow the news. I've always followed the stock market a bit. Particularly pharmaceutical products. I've always been interested in that kind of side of life.

I guess growing up surrounded by all that, I was always interested in that whole side of mysticism, and I love history and archaeology. So, people have been taking mind-altering drugs since we were created. Particularly in the Ecuador thing, I always tried to stay in control and not take too many drugs that we sold, or that I sold, because, I mean, if you start to get out of control, things start to go wrong, and you don't know what you're in. doing, you are taking too many risks. So, yeah, I tended to keep things pretty clear. Ish. I was finally released in 2015 in Britain, outside Wands

worth

.

After being captured in Ecuador I was there nine years and three months, I think. I served 10 years and 10 days total for that sentence. I had already done about three, well, about 2 ½ of the previous one. So, that's a big part of life. If I could go back in time I probably wouldn't do it again. You know, if there had been more money when I was a kid I wouldn't have been inclined to get involved with drugs. If I hadn't been raised with parents who used drugs, I probably would have been less inclined to get involved with drugs.

If the whole illegal rave scene hadn't happened. There were so many things in my life that led me to this point. I mean, I wouldn't say I was very influential. I mean, 3 to 5 kilos of coke, to me, is not that influential. I mean, I know deep down, when the police explained how many people were involved, how many people were taking those drugs that we were bringing in, that made me sit back a little bit and think, "God, yeah. We were having a lot of influence." a lot of people's lives." I mean, in my opinion, I never considered myself a gangster or a kingpin.

I see them as people who are involved in bringing in tons at a time. The big picture? I was a minnow in a big ocean Yes. I don't know. Any kid who is thinking about getting involved, don't do it because it may seem attractive at the time and it may seem like a good idea and an easy way to make money, but trust me, it's not a way. easy to make money. It's really difficult and really dangerous, and eventually it will have life changing consequences. You will end up dead, in prison or just plain screwed. Sorry for using my French, but yes I think my time as a dealer was extremely hard work. , stressful and caused a lot of problems.

Not only for me, but for many people around me and my family. So, obviously I learned to paint and decorate when I was in prison in Gloucester, which was useful because it gave me a trade, and I think they should do it a lot more in prisons nowadays. I know they've cut out a lot of those types of training courses, but I think a lot of people in prison in Britain today could do with more of that, and that's what I do now. I'm painting and decorating. I hand paint extremely expensive handmade kitchens. So if someone needs one repainted, he can always find me.

But yes, I also paint houses. Paint anything, basically. I'm still trying to write the prequel to the first book, "The Inferno", which is published by Ebury Penguin, but I'm between a third and a half of it, but I'm finding the time to do it. Basically, the prequel will take place from when I was arrested the moment I went into Gloucester Prison until I was arrested in Ecuador, because there are some crazy stories I can tell you during that period, living in Bristol and just getting up to all kinds of things. Car chases, shootouts. Some pretty fun stuff.

Something like "Lock, stock and two smoking barrels", if you can imagine that in Bristol. Banksy had just come out when I lived there. He was just getting started. I remember seeing some of his artwork painted on abandoned buildings. And people were like, "Oh, there's a new graffiti artist out there." I wish I kept some of his work. Now it would be worth

million

s. We could have avoided selling drugs and just sold Banksys.