Shared Responsibility

Millionaire drug dealer jailed but Britain's cocaine explosion goes on

Written by The Times / Lucy Bannerman and Sean O'Neill Saturday, 06 March 2010 00:00

More Britons are snorting coke than ever before

The Porsche-driving ringleader behind one of Britain’s biggest drug gangs was jailed for a minimum of eight years yesterday.

Craig Rodel, 46, a gangster who splashed out millions on Rolex watches, diamonds and collector cars, ran a £1 million-a-week drugs and gun-running operation from an industrial-scale cocaine-cutting factory in Bristol.

He led a cartel of 23 gang members, including James Waithe, a former primary school teacher and judo Olympian, who shipped in Class A drugs to satisfy Britons’ increasing demand for “recreational” stimulants.

The court heard “top conspirator” Rodel earned a profit of £2,000 on every kilo of cocaine he sold.

The used-car salesman, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, possession of firearms with intent to endanger life and possession of firearms and explosives, is the last of the gang to be sentenced.

A total of 22 other members have already been jailed for a total of more than 135 years, after Avon and Somerset police officers found a massive cocaine-cutting factory at Waithe’s home in Highridge, Bristol.

Next week a £42 million confiscation order will be made against the other ringleader, Robert Brook, “Manchester Bob”, who has also been jailed for his part in the operation.

It is a rare victory in the war on drugs, which comes in the same week that the Home Affairs Select Committee said it was shocked that the authorities managed to intercept only a fraction — 12 to 14 per cent — of the estimated 25 to 30 tonnes of cocaine smuggled into Britain.

Indeed, more Britons, from a wider cross-section of society, are snorting coke than ever before. Nearly one million adults admitted taking the drug in the past year, according to the latest British Crime Survey, but it is the 16 to 24-year-olds who really appear to be fuelling new demand, with the number of these users rocketing fivefold over the past 13 years.

The consequence is a rising toll of sudden deaths related to cocaine use: 235 in 2008, up from 54 in 2004. Similarly, the number of adults admitted to hospital for cocaine poisoning also quadrupled, from 262 in 2000-01 to 807 in 2006-07.

The spread of cocaine use has been driven by falling street prices and the emergence of a multi-tier market, in which dealers are selling a cheaper, less pure product to young consumers who were previously unable to afford it.

Of course, there remains no shortage of horror stories. The erosion of brain function, and links to heart disease. The teenage drug mules smuggling vaginal pellets the size of pint glasses. The four square metres of rainforest destroyed for every few lines snorted.

But the enduring myth that cocaine is a “safe” party drug has created a culture of complacency in the UK, which now has the second biggest number of cocaine users in Europe, after Spain.

Freya is a chef in Glasgow. She enjoys cocaine on big nights, small nights and at weddings. “I cannot remember going to a wedding where there wasn’t coke,” she said.

At one memorable reception at a West End hotel, she recalls how staff turned a blind eye as guests turned the happy couple’s penthouse suite into a refuelling zone. “The bridegroom came up to find that every flat surface was covered in lines,” so he had a “couple of lines” before taking his vows.

Freya’s social circle includes teachers, builders, surveyors. Cocaine, which was once upon a time the drug of bankers, gangsters and music moguls, is now part of their ordinary night out.

“Every pub, every club, it is always there. Someone will always ask if you fancy a quick line,” explained Freya, 29, who has just ordered two grams for the weekend.

Her “cokeman”, she said, is a bit like the “boozeman” — “you can call him 24/7 and he drives round, beeps the horn and you pick up the delivery”.

More often, though, she acquires it through friends. Cocaine is rife in the restaurant industry in which she works, and also in the “bog-standard” pubs, where toilet facilities will often be considered as a factor before choosing where to go for a pint. “We take it in turns to go to the toilets. One person will chop it up and leave it on the U-bend for the next,” she said, then laughed at how unglamorous that sounds. (Some landlords have got wise to these tricks, spraying lubricating cleaning fluid to “cocaine-proof” surfaces.) Freya added: “I’m a social user, as I am a social drinker.” The only thing she is addicted to is nicotine. “It’s normal. I don’t think it’s a problem.”

Consider another example.

Gregor, 21, is a landscape gardener who lives in a small village in Gloucestershire. His social life revolves around country pubs, with beers on tap, and brass and leather on the walls. Two or three times a week Gregor and his friends — farmers, labourers and factory workers — will happily hoover up as much cocaine as they can afford.

“I’ve tried a lot of things, but Charlie is the only one I feel safe with. I’ve still got control, and I feel safer using it, than any other drugs,” he said. “Weed makes you comatose and useless. Pills, I find a bit dangerous. No one I know would touch heroin”.

Gregor is currently abstaining from cocaine, having been “freaked out” by severe chest pain and a rocketing heart rate after a recent night out in Liverpool. “That’s when I thought, OK, I’m killing myself here.”

Yet, despite the scare, cocaine remains his stimulant of choice: “I still believe it to be the safest drug.”

Sources at the Serious Organised Crime Agency said the level of purity of cocaine being sold in the nightclub scene was extremely low — typically about 5 per cent, while some seizures contained no cocaine at all.

Common cutting agents include lignocaine, an anaesthetic, phenacetin, a carcinogen, and benzocaine, a painkiller that numbs the nostrils.

There is anecdotal evidence that the high use of cutting agents is putting off some older users. As one 21-year-old dealer puts it: “You get three groups of people: friends, customers and idiots. For your mates, you keep the pure stuff. Customers gets it cut to 0.8 [%]. And idiots get at least one third glucose or paracetamol.” Cocaine, he says, is “without a doubt” the most popular drug he sells from his base in the Cotswolds. He claims to have been turning over £3,000 a week, at a £1,600 profit, for the last few years. Drinkers in Bristol city centre last week provided further evidence of just how easy cocaine is to find. “I’ll have some every few months or so, on a big night. It’s easy to find — you have to know someone who knows someone,” said Gemma, 22, a student. “Or go there”, added her friend, pointing to another bar.

At another pub, Richard, a bouncer, nursed a pint of cider and black, and surveyed the crowd. A rendition of Happy Birthday broke out, from a table populated by student-types sporting beards and woolly hats.

Richard, who is pretty well versed in consumption of Class As, having lived with a coke dealer¸ has no doubt that cocaine will flow freely. He knows two people in their mid-twenties who abused Bristol’s other favourite drug, ketamine, so much that they had to have their bladders removed and remain on catheters for the rest of their lives. Compared to that, he understands why cocaine is appealing, and why there will always be other criminals prepared to satisfy that demand. “Coke makes you feel good, and there is no particular comedown,” he says. “There is no free lunch, but on coke you are really only having an appetizer.”

* Some names have been changed