DRUGS CATCH
The modest Englishman who took on cartels His Colombia network seized £3bn of cocaine But unlike US DEA, he refused to boast about it
to intercept 300 tonnes of drugs. No investigator in history is thought to have been behind more seizures.
Corruption was rife. Workers were being offered – as Escobar (played by Wagner Moura) says in the hit Netflix drama series Narcos, “plata o plomo” – meaning, silver or lead.
Most took the money rather than the bullet, so Tom had to offer cash.
He added: “The Cali and North Valley cartels were the biggest organised crime groups in history.
“Their intelligence services were so far ahead of anything that any other country had in that region, let alone crime organisation. The capabilities of the bad guys was terrifying.”
Tom, who has revealed his story in his new book Narco Wars, arranged customs training courses as a cover for meeting port staff, and urged them to work for the British government.
After spending months grooming a customs inspector in the port of Cartagena, Tom asked the man for information and got a chilling reply.
The man said: “If you repeat what you have said to me to anyone else around here, it will get you killed.
“You are a nice guy. So I’m going to forget what you said and pretend that I never heard it... I think you are going to get yourself killed.”
While Tom survived, others did not. A key informant was shot dead by hitmen after a friend betrayed him. Tom said: “He had a wife and kids, and he didn’t deserve to die. To some extent I was to blame.”
Drug lords vowed to hunt down “the Brit” as he became known, but Tom rejected calls to return to the UK. He said: “London said come home for six months... but I had invested so much work building up the sources. If I went home I might lose them. I had to plead with London to let me carry on.” It all ended in the early 2000s, when new laws made handling informants impossible abroad. Stopping the flow of drugs into the UK is now down to the National Crime Agency. Recent figures show drug seizures are down to the lowest level in 14 years. And while alleged Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is on trial in the US, Tom believes the war on drugs has failed.
He added: “A lot of [my] friends have died. Was it worth it? No, because we are no better off... The war will not be won with bullets. It can only be won through education and mass media and social media campaigns. These are our most powerful weapons.”
■ Narco Wars is published by Milo Books, priced £8.99.