Dodgiest person you ever knew?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Mrs Swotty's ex-husband was a friend of a certain East End gangster family. He's a lovely guy ... won't hear a wrong word said about him.

Mrs Swotty was related by marriage to the now departed Babs Windsor ... also related to the aforementioned family.

That was fine until we moved over here and my new best friend, from south of the river, disclosed that he used to be a runner for the Richardsons.

I daren't tell Mrs Swotty ... just in case! :eek:

(She doesn't read this forum ... hopefully)
 
In the late seventies I lived in East London and knew some really dodgy blokes - the kind that would happily break someone's legs for not very much money. For some reason they took a shine to me and one day suggested I find a monkey or a grand for a "long term investment" So wish I'd tried harder to find the money - appears they were buying up land around where Canary Wharf now sits!! I believe the development company ended up paying stupid amounts for the few remaining plots.......
 
A 10 year old kid in Istanbul. I look after your car boss? Only $5.
What would you do?
 
In the late seventies I lived in East London and knew some really dodgy blokes - the kind that would happily break someone's legs for not very much money. For some reason they took a shine to me and one day suggested I find a monkey or a grand for a "long term investment" So wish I'd tried harder to find the money - appears they were buying up land around where Canary Wharf now sits!! I believe the development company ended up paying stupid amounts for the few remaining plots.......
I think you posted this before havenā€™t you??

We havenā€™t done any work over at Canary Wharf but weā€™ve got a fair bit at Stratford near the Westfield and the Olympic Stadium. I was there this morning right by the Velodrome. I donā€™t know the area at all well but apparently the Olympics made a hell of a lot of people very rich.
 

Attachments

  • 96417536-9D2F-4FB6-B13B-5154AE4A4CA7.jpeg
    96417536-9D2F-4FB6-B13B-5154AE4A4CA7.jpeg
    1.4 MB · Views: 13
Mrs Swotty's ex-husband was a friend of a certain East End gangster family. He's a lovely guy ... won't hear a wrong word said about him.

Mrs Swotty was related by marriage to the now departed Babs Windsor ... also related to the aforementioned family.

That was fine until we moved over here and my new best friend, from south of the river, disclosed that he used to be a runner for the Richardsons.

I daren't tell Mrs Swotty ... just in case! :eek:

(She doesn't read this forum ... hopefully)
Thereā€™s an English lady out in Skiathos called Mary Richardson. Sheā€™s in her early 70ā€™s, as tough as they come, very charming with a few quid behind her. Sheā€™s from south London. šŸ˜ŽšŸ˜Ž
 
It seems that Peter103 is in a strop.
Can't think why.
Offered his chum a scone with his tea.
I can only think that P103 has taken offence at not being offered a home made scone.

No snub intended, but, now he has a strop on, he can go without.
 
Probably my uncle's friend Paul. I knew he'd worked in the South African security and intelligence circles through the 70s, 80s and 90s, fingers in the entire stock of the pie shop and undoubtedly party to some fairly hefty shenanigans in his time. However, I got a graphic demonstration of this when I was visiting the relatives about 15 years ago.

They had a break in over the Christmas period, the crims had clearly done their research as they knew the evening patterns of the family, and chose a stormy night so the dog would not be outside roaming. Unfortunately they hadn't counted on the insomniac nephew on holiday being wide awake watching TV in the living room and knowing where the shotgun was when the alarm went off.

Whilst the police seemed relatively confident that it was "self defence", the fact that I'd swiss cheesed the wall, the crim's car and possibly one of them still needed to be investigated. Passport surrendered, sir must accompany us downtown etc...all getting distinctly inconvenient and I'm seeing cancelled flights and phone calls to work in the imminent future.

Paul arrives and requests the senior officer to be contacted, which took the police slightly by surprise. The mere mention of his name over the radio and suddenly its like nothing happened. "No problem sir, you have a good night now", and I'm sat there wondering what the hell just went on.
 
Last edited:
During my ammo selling days I arrived at the old Don Muang Airport in Bangkok. My agent in country had told me he'd meet me off the airplane. I thought he meant he was simply collecting me at the airport.

So the aircraft arrives at the air bridge and nobody is allowed off. A Sikh gentleman followed by a police officer come to my seat, confirm my name and ask me to follow them. My fellow travellers are clearly all thinking I am going to be a guest at the Bangkok Hilton very shortly. What actually happens is within 10 minutes we have walked through a private immigration office, I have been introduced to the police officer who is the chief of airport police who has my passport stamped and we walk through baggage claim. At this point I am expecting a delay as we wait for my luggage...oh no. "We have your luggage Mr Matthew" We walk straight outside, the ubiquitous black mercedes pulls up and i don't believe they have my luggage. Boot opens and there are my 2 pieces of luggage. Presumably everyone else's luggage is strewn over the airfield tarmac as they hunted for mine.

The whole point of the process was to prove how much influence they had (and still have). At the end of my visit one of his "uncles" takes me back to the airport. I was booked with BA but we drove further up the terminal to Royal Thai and walk up to the first class check in. The uncle gets an id out that unfolds like Chevy Chases in Fletch and he says "put this man in first class to London". I am issued with a ticket and enjoy a lovely flight home.

Over the intervening years I have seen this repeated numerous times and he gets treated like royalty everywhere. He is not dodgy in the sense of criminal activity but he is clearly given a lot of slack by officials everywhere because he is friendly with the police, army, airforce officers at a very senior level. Crossing him would not be a wise decision for a local. As a Farang I am just his mate who he gets drunk with at the pub.
 
Nigel Clark. Not seen him in years though. Despite everything I guess he was a Good Enough kinda guy.
 
During my ammo selling days I arrived at the old Don Muang Airport in Bangkok. My agent in country had told me he'd meet me off the airplane. I thought he meant he was simply collecting me at the airport.

So the aircraft arrives at the air bridge and nobody is allowed off. A Sikh gentleman followed by a police officer come to my seat, confirm my name and ask me to follow them. My fellow travellers are clearly all thinking I am going to be a guest at the Bangkok Hilton very shortly. What actually happens is within 10 minutes we have walked through a private immigration office, I have been introduced to the police officer who is the chief of airport police who has my passport stamped and we walk through baggage claim. At this point I am expecting a delay as we wait for my luggage...oh no. "We have your luggage Mr Matthew" We walk straight outside, the ubiquitous black mercedes pulls up and i don't believe they have my luggage. Boot opens and there are my 2 pieces of luggage. Presumably everyone else's luggage is strewn over the airfield tarmac as they hunted for mine.

The whole point of the process was to prove how much influence they had (and still have). At the end of my visit one of his "uncles" takes me back to the airport. I was booked with BA but we drove further up the terminal to Royal Thai and walk up to the first class check in. The uncle gets an id out that unfolds like Chevy Chases in Fletch and he says "put this man in first class to London". I am issued with a ticket and enjoy a lovely flight home.

Over the intervening years I have seen this repeated numerous times and he gets treated like royalty everywhere. He is not dodgy in the sense of criminal activity but he is clearly given a lot of slack by officials everywhere because he is friendly with the police, army, airforce officers at a very senior level. Crossing him would not be a wise decision for a local. As a Farang I am just his mate who he gets drunk with at the pub.

Was hoping you'd reply - bet you have more stories than that given what your job was back then!
 
Reading some of the posts reminded me of something that happened to me back in the 80s. I'd had a business deal go wrong and was seriously crooked by the owner. I was on site (I worked in project management all my life) and was talking to our welding foreman who I knew well and was quite friendly with & mentioned what had happened. He offered to sort it out for me. I kid you not, he asked what I wanted which was anything from a good beating, to hospitalisation to even killing the guy. Turned out he was involved with the Portugese mafia in Johannesburg. Happily for my conscience I declined the offer.
 
In the early 1980's, people I knew owned and ran a pub in "south Chelsea" (Battersea to you and me ;) )

There was a bloke who drank in there who was obviously known to the regulars, was always immaculately dressed, but kept himself to himself and used to drink alone, sat on a stool at the bar.

I had my car broken into and the hi-fi ripped out of it and was telling my mate, Dave, who was the bar-cellarman about it while stood within earshot of the afore-mentioned bloke who very politely interrupted: "I'm sorry to hear that. If you get any inkling of who was responsible, do let me know", before finishing his pint and leaving.

Later that evening I learnt that he was one of the Brinks-Mat armed robbers, and had a personal vendetta against those he described as "petty thieves" :eek:
 
During my ammo selling days I arrived at the old Don Muang Airport in Bangkok. My agent in country had told me he'd meet me off the airplane. I thought he meant he was simply collecting me at the airport.

So the aircraft arrives at the air bridge and nobody is allowed off. A Sikh gentleman followed by a police officer come to my seat, confirm my name and ask me to follow them. My fellow travellers are clearly all thinking I am going to be a guest at the Bangkok Hilton very shortly. What actually happens is within 10 minutes we have walked through a private immigration office, I have been introduced to the police officer who is the chief of airport police who has my passport stamped and we walk through baggage claim. At this point I am expecting a delay as we wait for my luggage...oh no. "We have your luggage Mr Matthew" We walk straight outside, the ubiquitous black mercedes pulls up and i don't believe they have my luggage. Boot opens and there are my 2 pieces of luggage. Presumably everyone else's luggage is strewn over the airfield tarmac as they hunted for mine.

The whole point of the process was to prove how much influence they had (and still have). At the end of my visit one of his "uncles" takes me back to the airport. I was booked with BA but we drove further up the terminal to Royal Thai and walk up to the first class check in. The uncle gets an id out that unfolds like Chevy Chases in Fletch and he says "put this man in first class to London". I am issued with a ticket and enjoy a lovely flight home.

Over the intervening years I have seen this repeated numerous times and he gets treated like royalty everywhere. He is not dodgy in the sense of criminal activity but he is clearly given a lot of slack by officials everywhere because he is friendly with the police, army, airforce officers at a very senior level. Crossing him would not be a wise decision for a local. As a Farang I am just his mate who he gets drunk with at the pub.

I had a not-too-dissimilar experience when working in West Africa in the nineties. The details differ slightly, but in essence it was the same. On one occasion the chief of airport police also handed my host a folded A4 piece of paper. Later in the car travelling away from the airport, my host, who owned several construction companies, unfolded the piece of paper to unveil a handwritten list of building supplies (aka BOM). My host explained "He's building a house"....
 
@st13phil, that reminds me.

One that sounds far fetched, but I can assure you it is true.
During the mid seventies I spent time at Her Majestyā€™s pleasure for refusing to pay fines for riding a motorcycle without a crash helmet.
On the first occasion I found myself in the holding cell under Coventry magistrates with, amongst others a cocky guy who didnā€™t seem too bothered about it, and told us he had been ā€˜over the wallā€™ at HMP Winson Green. ā€œThey all know me thereā€ he said.
Yeah, yeah I thought but said nothing.
On arrival at the prison one of the guards saw him and said ā€œI know you! Charlie Wilson isnā€™t it?ā€ To which he nodded and gave us a smile as if to say ā€œI told you soā€
Next day, I was chatting to some guys and one of them said ā€œThat guy you came in with yesterday was Charlie Wilson. He got over the wall!ā€ and continued to say how he had received a seriously good kicking from the guards after he had been caught and returned.
I still wonder if it was ā€˜theā€™ Charlie Wilson - I have my doubts as I understand he was a big guy and this one wasnā€™t, and at no time was ā€˜the big jobā€™ ever mentioned by him or anyone else.

Btw - 30 days for a Ā£10 fine.

 
I had a not-too-dissimilar experience when working in West Africa in the nineties. The details differ slightly, but in essence it was the same. On one occasion the chief of airport police also handed my host a folded A4 piece of paper. Later in the car travelling away from the airport, my host, who owned several construction companies, unfolded the piece of paper to unveil a handwritten list of building supplies (aka BOM). My host explained "He's building a house"....
I was in Ivory Coast for 3 years in the late 70s. What a horrible place (and remember I was born and grew up in Africa & quite used to it). White people were still a curiosity where we were at the time. Bribery was a way of life and nothing happened without a bribe. I could write volumes about it. I once was sent to give me the local police chief a "gift". In return, he gave me a confiscated poacher's rifle (very much a DIY thing made on the lines of a flintlock gun) which I had until the early 2000s. It was in my container that went to Qatar and I very nearly got locked away for having it.
 
Bribes! Facilitators fees i think you will find!

I did a small order once, Ā£250K direct to the end user.... which is funny as the goods at our end only cost Ā£100K.
 
As an Indian gentleman once told me "Matthew, many hands have to wash in the same bowl"
 
many years ago between jobs (and actually between deciding which continent to live on) I helped my mate out on a big building site in Farnborough , one of the labourers with us was a squaddy from Aldershot all tattoos and mouth. I cant remember the detail of why he was on a building site and not square bashing on camp at the 'shot, but anyhoo, one day during work time he just vanished.

Next day the MEP and police were at the site . long story short he was part of a group stealing ammo and weapons and selling (or trying to sell) them to the IRA/crims!! :eek: It was all over the news once they were caught.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom