Gang Wars on the Costa - The True Story of the Bloody Conflict Raging in Paradise. Wensley Clarkson
to give her the wrong impression, which was admirable in its own way.
‘There is no way out of the gang, except by dying,’ explained Sly in a very matter-of-fact voice. ‘I cannot survive without them.’ Sly said it was his idea to bring the gang over to Spain. ‘I recognised that it was a safer place for us, rather than, say, London.’
‘Safer?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the Spanish don’t really care what we do as long as it does not involve their citizens.’The one secret Sly refused to reveal was the name of his gang. ‘That’s between us only. That way if we have any impostors we find out very quickly and dispose of them.’
OBVIOUSLY NOT ALL the gangs on the Costa del Sol are run on such rigid rules. Down the coast from seedy Fuengirola lies Puerto Banus, a ‘blingy’ offshoot to Marbella and home to more gold-encrusted villains than probably anywhere else on earth. It has a marina with dozens of ten-million-pound-plus yachts tied up, and more Ferraris than anywhere outside Italy.
Overlooking the water’s edge are dozens of bars and restaurants, including a select few where most of Britain’s old-style gangsters still hang out to this day. Bernie is one of the most familiar old ‘faces’ on the Costa del Sol and he told me that today’s up-and-coming young hoods are in danger of turning this infamous strip of coastline into an underworld no-go area.
‘It’s all got completely fuckin’ out of hand in recent years,’ explained Bernie, sucking on a king-size cigar and a vodka and tonic. ‘The youngsters who are coming through the ranks now are complete and utter psychos. It’s bedlam out there and a lot of innocent people are being knocked off for no good reason.’
Bernie, now in his late sixties, is still looked on by the younger British criminals as one of the few ‘real’ British villains in southern Spain. ‘I get a lot of respect out here because I’ve got form,’ explained Bernie. And by ‘form’ he means he’s been in prison for killing a criminal rival and also took part in one of London’s most notorious bank robberies more than a quarter of a century ago.
Bernie admits that he still ‘works’ from time to time and boasts that he’s free to move around the coast without fear of retribution from rival gangsters. ‘In fact some of the so-called new boys come to me for advice,’ said Bernie between puffs on his fat cigar.
‘I’ve been here for more than 20 years and when I saw some of these foreign crims turning up here a few years back, I told my mates in the ‘business’ to watch out because some of these characters are fuckin’ nutters.’ Bernie claims he’s even carefully nurtured some of the biggest new names on the Costa del Sol.
‘I went in to see them all and told them what I liked to do out here and how I didn’t expect any of them to interfere with my operations. It’s funny because all the other Brits out here said I was barking mad but I reckon it’s paid off handsomely. I really do.’
When I met Bernie at his favourite watering hole overlooking the yachts and sports cars in the marina at Puerto Banus, he claimed he’d just come from a meeting with a man who represented one of the richest oligarchs in Russia. ‘He’s on the make like all the rest of them,’ explained Bernie, who was wearing the obligatory white trousers and white shoes that were all the rage back in the opulent eighties. Bernie had met the Russian billionaire at the swish Marbella Club, just up the road from Puerto Banus and a renowned location for passing rock stars and royalty.
Besides the thick-set gold necklace around his neck, Bernie also had a Bobby Charlton-style sweep of the remainder of his suspiciously chestnut-tinted hair across his bald pate. In some ways he looked like an extra from the hit TV show Life On Mars. The bar we were talking in was decked out in garish swirled wallpaper and looked as if it hadn’t had a lick of paint since Bernie had bought himself those flashy white winkle-pickers during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.
As we were talking, a beautiful brunette Latino woman in tight jeans glanced across at Bernie and smiled. He winked back and then continued with his overview of the gang wars raging on the Costa del Sol. ‘It’s changing out here all the time. A lot of the older Brits have moved to Thailand and Costa Rica and places like that because it’s too fuckin’ crowded here these days.’
But how come, if that was the case, Bernie hung on here? ‘I’m above all these shoot-ups and shit like that. I’ve been bedded down here for so long I wouldn’t know how to survive anywhere else.’ And survival is the key word here. For Bernie seemed to have an ability to duck and dive his way out of trouble.
He recalled: ‘About a year ago this bunch of Poles turned up in the port (Puerto Banus) and started giving it large in all directions. They bought themselves a flash yacht, a couple of Mercedes and a load of hookers and gave the impression they were made men. Well, if there’s one thing the Russians don’t like it’s a Pole. When they heard about this gang they made it their business to run them out of town. It was a right bloody massacre in the end. The Russians employ these fruitcake Latvian ex-paratroopers as bodyguards and for general security and they abseiled on to the yacht one night, sprayed it with bullets and then left a couple of firebombs behind for good measure. The Poles got the message and were never seen again.’
Bernie makes light of it all but there is a serious point to what he is saying. ‘I take the attitude that I can sit back and let them all wipe each other out. Then once the dust has settled I’ll stroll back into the limelight.’ Bernie says his main priority is to make sure his face doesn’t end up looking like he’s been through a car crash.
Saturday night in Puerto Banus still brings out all the remaining British gangsters. Many of them watch the footie on the telly in a couple of select bars. Then, as evening draws in, they pull out their sachets of cocaine and start getting hyped up. As darkness falls and the chemicals kick in, many of the gang bosses flex their muscles a bit and look around to see who’s watching them. The atmosphere is akin to a scene from Goodfellas, with coked-up little characters who look a bit like Joe Pesci marching up and down to the gents to replenish their hits of white powder.
Sergi is a Ukrainian ‘businessman’ who has lived on the Costa del Sol for three years. I was introduced to him by one of the British old-timers one Saturday night in a badly lit bar in Puerto Banus. ‘The trouble with you British is that you drink too much and you take too much cocaine,’ said Sergi. His British mate sitting next to him laughed so loudly it sounded completely false. ‘Where I come from we can hold our drink and we don’t take drugs because then we are not in control.’
I soon found out why Sergi was the only non-British man in the bar that night. It turned out that he employed more than 20 Brits for his ‘businesses.’ I was intrigued as to why he did that. ‘Oh I like the British way of life. The loyalty. The humour. I don’t trust my countrymen, especially when they are out here. They would kill you as soon as look at you if you had something they wanted.’
Sergi then went on to provide a fascinating insight into the criminal hierarchy on the Costa del Sol and why the gang wars could eventually implode this whole area. ‘It’s just too easy here to run businesses like mine.’ I stopped him there and asked what his ‘businesses’ were? Sergi smiled and looked me straight in the eye. ‘They are very profitable. That is all you need to know.’
He continued: ‘Sometimes I have to make an example of my enemies. I don’t like doing it but in the long term it helps stop a lot of what I will call “unfortunate incidents”.’ Sergi refused to be drawn on exactly what action he had taken but suffice to say it must have resulted in someone being physically harmed.
Surely, I asked, the police are a problem? ‘It’s like my country in that respect,’ said Sergi. ‘The police can be bought. They are badly paid and grateful for anything I can offer them.’ Sergi claims that one policeman even asked if he could work for him part-time while continuing to serve in Marbella’s Policía Nacional. ‘I wasn’t surprised. He’d just got divorced and needed to earn more money in order to pay off his ex-wife. We