Receive newsletters with the latest news, sport and what's on updates from the Liverpool ECHO by signing up here Read More Related Articles Between 1995 and 1997, Johnson worked at the News of the World. [2] He had a notorious scoop about the Beast of Bodmin Moor at the paper. [3] Johnson later explained that there was of culture of fear at the paper and he fabricated stories under pressure from his bosses. [4]

They flooded Merseyside with heroin from Turkey, cocaine from South America, ecstasy from Holland – and all controlled from a double semi-detatched house in a suburb of Liverpool. He said: "Shaun has a great personal story, although unlike many of the people I wrote about he never sold drugs. My understanding is that Shaun needed a gun for his own protection because he was being threatened by dangerous people. " Mr Johnson was behind two investigative books on how Liverpool criminal John Haase managed to dupe the authorities into releasing him from prison several months into a 20-year-prison sentence for drug offences. Johnson has written for publications including the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror, The Observer, Vice, The Guardian and the Liverpool Echo, and often publishes crime stories under different bylines. a b Siddle, John (2013-07-05). "The Devil struggled against demons, says author". Liverpool Echo . Retrieved 2023-01-21.It started in Liverpool, and it’s still mainly controlled in Liverpool—but it has hooks in Amsterdam, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, South America… all the usual suspect countries. I interviewed the Amsterdam police, and the first thing they told me is that they investigate everyone—Triads, Eastern European gangs, and the Italian and Russian Mafias—but they roll their eyes when you mention the "scousers" because they're the ones they have to deal with constantly. They had a villa in Spain bought with state handouts, while the drugs cash poured in and business was good. A lot of this is the social history of the city, with drug gangs becoming more and more powerful over recent decades. Her 40-year-old son Jason (above, left) was in charge of transport; her other son, Ian (above, right), aged 39, was in charge of logistics. Place of safety

The Fitzgibbon clan dealt in violence, money and drugs for more than a decade, amassed a fortune, yet claimed thousands of pounds in benefits, writes Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Simon Israel.

Johnson has covered stories including drug dealing in Britain, [5] people smuggling in Europe, child slavery in India and Pakistan, and war in the Balkans. Johnson's novels have been published by Mainstream Publishing and Simon & Schuster. [ citation needed] But a listening device was planted inside, and for three years Soca investigators eavesdropped and recorded hundreds of hours of conversations. year-old Christine Fitzgibbon (above, centre) is the matriarchal head of a Merseyside family whose drug connections extended round the globe. They can be very intimidating and are very good at getting at witnesses, which is why the police find it very difficult to build cases, and they’re extremely good drug dealers, so it’s a recipe for success as an underworld crime family”. Ripping off the state To his credit The Debt Collector is one of the most successful true crime documentaries ever made, watched over 50 million times.