Aug: A Memento From Manchester

© Jane Harvey-Berrick writing as Berrick Ford

The first faint streaks of pink seeped into the early dawn as the team of police officers silently assembled out of sight of the target.

Despite the early hour and biting cold of a bitter February morning, sweat trickled down Detective Sergeant Rego’s spine. It had taken five months of painstaking work, data analysis and endless cross-departmental meetings to get to this point. Rego’s family life had taken a back seat as he’d spent ever-longer days and nights on this case.

It wasn’t even just a case anymore – it was personal.

The Hellbanianz were a well-known crime gang from eastern Europe: efficient, organised and brutal. First making their UK base in the vast council estates of east London, they’d migrated to many of the port cities, filtering onto Rego’s patch from Liverpool 14 months ago, spreading like a virus.

Dritan Domi was an Albanian national who had lived in the UK for at least three years. His younger brother had stayed at home in Tirana, receiving and distributing drugs from North Africa, Turkey, and further afield.

Domi was a lieutenant in the Hellbanianz and the brains of the operation – a big, fat spider at the centre of a sinuous web, pulling on the threads, tightening them one by one. Rego knew that Domi was responsible for the flood of Class A drugs pouring into Manchester, along with the associated growth of crack houses, mules, drugs on trains, the increase of knife crime everywhere and associated youth violence due to the insidious spread of county lines operations – schoolchildren recruited to sell to other kids. A growth market.

And that was only some of the crimes that Rego intended to prove.

The criminals’ business model was faultless with loyalty highly rewarded, and disloyalty or ‘grassing’ punished with eyes gouged out, ears severed, tongues cut off: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And if one of the gang members was caught, omertà – silence – was rewarded with your family well taken care of while you did your time in Strangeways prison.

It had been hard to crack the Hellbanianz protective shell. But not impossible. And this morning, the thousands of man-hours and hard work were about to pay off.

It would be Rego’s personal pleasure to read Domi his rights and see the bastard in cuffs.

It was still early, but all the officers involved in the raid had arrived for Rego’s 3am briefing. He’d provided the intelligence needed by the armed team, and their sergeant, the Bronze Commander, had explained the tactics that they would employ.

Twenty minutes ago, they’d all driven to the outer cordon, 200 metres from the target.

In front of them, a grey tower of concrete rose from the rubbish heaped around it, an ugly monolith and final defence against the coming sunrise.

The suspect was on the ninth floor and the lifts were broken. On this occasion, that worked in their favour – just the fire exits to seal off.

Rego was the Senior Investigating Officer, and as SIO, his job was to coordinate all the different teams and departments. It was his show up until he handed command to the firearms team, then all decisions about an explosive entry and armed call-out would be the Bronze commander’s. When the scene was safe, the Bronze would hand it back to Rego.

There had to be clear channels of command so everyone knew who was making decisions at any time in the operation.

And if anything went wrong during the entry, the decision-making process of the Bronze would be scrutinised; and the same when it was handed back to Rego.

It was at the heart of the National Decision Model, meaning that Rego had to be absolutely clear about every decision, logging it all in his policy book.

“Right, let’s take him down,” he said.

He turned off the Bluetooth and Wifi on his phone to ensure that it didn’t accidently connect with the router in Domi’s flat, potentially compromising any data on it. Junior officers had been ordered to turn off their phones and leave them in the locked patrol cars.

The outer cordon ensured that no one could get in or out of the area – not even the milkman was getting through this morning. A dozen unarmed officers surrounded the tower-block, their vans parked at a discreet distance so that the target wouldn’t be able to see them should he look out of the window.

Overnight, three different camera vehicles had been placed so that the police were able to remotely monitor the tower’s entrances and exits and the suspect’s car to ensure that Domi was still inside. It was hard to spot that the battered cars were police vehicles – it was definitely more discreet than having an officer in the car all night.

Rego approached the Force’s drone pilot.

“Okay, let’s get the drone up – I want to know if anything comes flying off that balcony, but keep it out of sight. Five minutes.”

“Yes, boss,” said the young officer, clearly excited to be part of the operation.

Next, Rego spoke to the dog handler who had two different dogs in the van.

“Morning, guv,” said the large burly bloke, recently transferred from the Met in London.

“All ready?”

“Yes, guv. I’ve got Sissy for guns and drugs,” he said, pointing at a scary-looking Alsatian, “and Mylo for cash and SIM cards.”

The Spaniel wagged its stumpy tail wildly, eager to get going.

“Good,” said Rego, tempted to pet the dogs but knowing he mustn’t.

Finally, he spoke to the Bronze Commander of the armed police who would be going in first. They wouldn’t be using the hydraulic ram today: intelligence showed that Domi had a reinforced door to his flat – the Armed Operations Unit would be using explosives to blow off the hinges.

The same thing would be happening simultaneously in raids on twelve more addresses: seven in Manchester, three in the Wirral, and two in north Wales; altogether involving more than 90 officers. But this address in Moss Side held the kingpin, and taking down Dritan Domi would be a serious wound in the corpus of the Hellbanianz in the UK’s northwest.

The Bronze Commander took over, leading his team up the stairs to the ninth floor, posting guards at each corridor to keep the scene sterile. You didn’t want a civilian popping out of his flat to watch the action and catching a stray bullet.

Rego waited in silence, his eyes flicking between his wristwatch and the ninth floor. As the digital display showed 6am, Rego heard a dull boom and then his police radio was filled with noise and shouting.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Rego recognised the voice of Foxtrot 1, the Bronze Commander.

“Armed Police come to the door!”

They didn’t dare give Domi time to recover from the early morning wakeup call in case he hid anything or wiped electronic equipment. They had one chance to get this right.

“Come outside with your hands up!”

The command was repeated several times, then Domi must have complied.

“On your knees! On your knees! Is there anyone else in there?”

Some muffled words over the radio, but Rego already knew that Domi’s girlfriend, Ellvana Sinani was inside.

Another minute passed, then the Bronze Commander’s relaxed voice came over the radio.

“Foxtrot 1 to DS Rego.”

Rego’s heartrate slowed, relief filling him that there had been no casualties.

“DS Rego, go ahead.”

“The flat is secure and clear. Two persons in the flat – both suspects are detained. You’re clear to send your team up. My officers will remain here until your team has control of the suspects and the flat, then we’ll stand down.” He paused. “You’ll need to arrange a boarding-up service – the front door is a bit of a mess.”

Rego smiled grimly to himself. An explosive entry left more than ‘a bit of a mess’.

“DS Rego to Foxtrot 1: all understood. We are en route to you, eta five minutes.”

Rego and his team hurried up the fire exit stairs, some of them nimbler than others. Rego promised himself he’d cut down on smoking as he arrived by the guards with the ballistic shield, panting loudly.

Domi was already back inside the flat sitting on the settee with his hands cuffed in front of him, completely naked. The woman was uncuffed, wearing a towel and a sour expression.

“I thought you’d like to do the honours,” the Bronze Commander said to Rego with a terse nod.

Rego appreciated the professional courtesy.

Shoving his Warrant card in front of Domi’s face, he took a few seconds to enjoy this moment after the long months of work.

“Dritan Domi, I’m DS Rego from Greater Manchester Police. I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy with others to import and distribute class A and Class B controlled drugs into and within the United Kingdom. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be used in evidence. Can you confirm that you understand English and what I have said?”

Domi’s lip curled and his eyes darkened with rage, but he gave a single, brief nod, so Rego continued.

“The grounds for your arrest are that we have evidence that you head an organised criminal gang that are importing class A and Class B controlled drugs into the UK, and use a network to distribute the drugs throughout the UK. It’s necessary to take you into custody now to ensure a prompt and effective investigation and to secure evidence by questioning. There is also a very strong likelihood that if you don’t come into custody now, you would abscond. Do you understand?”

The same, quick, furious nod.

“After we have completed the search of your flat, you will be taken into custody where a solicitor will be provided free of charge, and if you feel you need one, an interpreter. But I’m sure you know that already.”

The man stared at him stonily as Rego repeated the words to the woman. Then he handed them both a copy of the Warrant, and a page with an explanation of the legislation that the Warrant was being acted upon, but neither of them looked at the documents.

“Right,” said Rego, “let’s get them dressed and take them to the toilet if they want to go – but door open. Has this settee been searched?”

“Yes, boss.”

“Good, then sit them back in here.”

He had one officer for each of the pair to keep eyes-on at all times.

Domi stood up with a smirk on his face, proudly display his hairy belly and flaccid penis, turning to the female officer who’d be looking after his girlfriend.

“Maybe you come to see what real man look like.”

The female officer dropped her eyes to his crotch.

“I’ve seen bigger balls on my Nan’s pet budgie,” she said, sounding bored.

Rego’s team filled the small flat, as pieces of evidence were bagged and sealed, then brought to Exhibits Officer who recorded where they’d been found and which officer had found them. He was hard pressed to keep up with the amount of material being brought to him: passports and driving licences in three different languages, a notebook with names and addresses, receipts, bank statements and other paperwork.

Seven mobile phones, the laptop and router for the WiFi were immediately placed in a Faraday bag so that they couldn’t be wiped remotely. The router was a key piece of evidence, proving which phones had been connected to it, as well as anything done on the internet. However, if the router was turned off and on regularly, it wiped information and automatically created a new key. Rego hoped that Domi wasn’t as clever as the man clearly thought he was.

The dog handler arrived, working around the search team. Mylo immediately indicated on a wall socket. The dog handler plugged in a baby monitor, but when the bulb didn’t light up, he looked pleased.

Using a screwdriver, he found a false wall socket that had no power, but with an envelope of SIM cards jammed inside – a dozen of them. The dog was allowed five minutes to play with a ball as a reward, then brought back in. His next success was finding a roll of £20 notes stuffed inside a mattress.

The handler passed everything to the Exhibits Officer and said he was going to bring up Sissy.

The Alsatian went crazy when she found a brick of cocaine in a box of washing powder. Rego gave a silent cheer: they had their key piece of evidence.

Although that was just the start of the job: profiling drugs was important because whatever they’d been cut with made them unique; same for the packaging, this time stamped with an elephant. Once complete, the drug profile would be shared with other forces around the UK, demonstrating how deeply the Hellbanianz had penetrated the drug market.

But the flat search was still on-going. The Force Forensic Coordinator had arrived to work with the investigation team advising on current forensic techniques, the best places to send the exhibits, and the correct wording on lab forms to ensure that nothing was missed – labs only did what the lab form asked them to do.

Additionally, she would analyse all the exhibits as they came in: the drugs would be separated from packaging, looking only for an early indication of the contents for interview purposes and the weight. Purity would come later, and the packaging would be checked for fingerprints and DNA.

Analysis of data from phone records would tell them still more. Rego suspected that the drugs had been brought in via the huge international docks at Merseyside, so officers would be looking for phone numbers and cell towers to prove that link – then they’d look at ANPR on traffic cameras to see if it matched Domi’s vehicle, or one belonging to a known Hellbanianz member.

Then one of the search team came up to Rego looking excited.

“Boss, the drone pilot says that something was thrown out of the window, and I found this – it was inside a box of tissues.”

Rego had a second to glance at the seemingly random list of numbers and letters before the woman on the settee who’d been watching everything silently, screeched like a train and launched herself at Rego, slashing his bicep with a small kitchen knife.

She grabbed at the piece of paper as Rego stumbled backwards, his right hand clamped to the wound as blood spilled down his arm.

Domi shouted something in Albanian, throwing himself at the officer guarding him, while his girlfriend tried to stuff the paper in her mouth. The female officer was faster, called a brief warning, then put the woman down with a taser.

Sinani’s body jerked as her muscles contracted violently and there was blood in her mouth, but she hadn’t managed to swallow the paper.

“I think she’s bitten her tongue,” the taser officer said calmly as Sinani started to come round. “I’ll call the paramedics. Are you alright, boss?”

“Fine,” Rego hissed. “Where the fuck did she get that knife? Who the hell searched that settee?”

“Armed Operations Unit,” she answered, her expression flat.

Rego swore softly but was relieved to see that the cut, whilst painful, wasn’t deep. More importantly as far as he was concerned, Sinani hadn’t managed to destroy the piece of paper. Rego pulled on a pair of forensic gloves, picked it up, then glanced at Domi’s face in triumph.

“This looks like an address for a bitcoin wallet,” he said, unable to hide his delight as he handed it to the Exhibits Officer. “Get the financial forensics team on it immediately – I want that money in the police account.”

He looked at Domi.

“And your girlfriend is going to be locked up for a Section 18 ‘wounding with intent’ – maybe attempted murder. It’s life imprisonment.”

The woman was still on the ground, moaning softly, but Domi shrugged as if to say, Not my problem.

“I wonder if she’ll want to make a deal?” Rego said out loud.

Domi just stared.

The raid had been successful with drugs, money, burner phones and the crypto key: now it was a race to try and secure it, get into the bit locker and then place it in a vault that the police owned.

Rego travelled back to the station at the same time as the suspects arrived at the custody suite. He had an hour to polish his interview questions before their solicitor turned up, although he was fairly sure that Domi would give a ‘no comment’ interview. Sinani was the most likely to crack, although she the chances were strong that she’d be more scared of Domi and his network than the prospect of a long prison sentence. Although you never knew till you tried.

Hours later, Rego took his team for a well-deserved drink at the pub nearest to the police station. It was also his farewell party. He’d pushed hard to get this raid done before he said goodbye to Greater Manchester Police and took up his role as a newly promoted Detective Inspector with Devon & Cornwall Police, a remote and largely rural patch 300 miles away.

Rego leaned back in his seat, watching his team celebrate the significant win.

Being in the Drug Squad had been the most exciting six years of his whole career. But he had a family to think about now, and the extra salary was going to make a big difference to them. Besides, he was ready to take on a more strategic role, more managerial – help train up the next generation of young officers. Although he was only 33, sometimes he felt decades older.

But God, he was going to miss this. The best six years of his service had been smashing in doors. He was going to miss the excitement, the adrenaline, the satisfaction of taking the bastards down.

“You sure about this, Rob?” his DCI asked, echoing his thoughts. “I know it’s a promotion for you but what are you going to do all day? Be a bloody carrot cruncher?”

“I’m not going to the southwest for a holiday,” Rego laughed, feeling the tiredness of the day wash through him.

The DCI didn’t look convinced.

“Seriously? Won’t you miss Manchester? Being in the city? What will you do in Cornwall apart from getting fatter on scones and clotted cream? You’ll end up with more chins than a Chinese phone directory.” His DCI took another long drink of beer. “Anyway, how will you fit in? Aren’t they all racist down there?”

Rego looked over his boss’s shoulder where another officer mimed choking, but Rego just smiled. He’d heard worse. And he didn’t bother to point out that his DCI had already got a head start with piling on the pounds: a diet of ale, pork scratchings, and living on takeaway fish and chips would do that.

All of Rego’s colleagues had taken the piss relentlessly about his decision to leave the city. The more they drank, the louder the jokes became. He was just glad that the blow-up toy they’d given him was a surfboard and not a sex doll. As it was, he winced at the bright yellow budgie-smugglers that they’d given him to wear over his jeans.

It had been a good result today, exceeding expectations. The crime scene was contained for forensic and evidence gathering, feeding into a wider, pan-European investigation.

But that job would be done by Rego’s colleagues – not him.

“We’ll really miss you, Rob,” his DCI continued. “There’s always a job for you if you ever want to come back.” He slapped Rego on the back. “And I’ll see you at the trial anyway.”

Amazingly, Domi had no previous convictions in the UK, but the ten kilos of cocaine was an indictable offence, so the case would go straight to Crown Court within a week for the charges to be read. Then the hard work of case-building, file-building, financial and technical investigations would take place. The trial could be at any time within the next six to twelve months, depending on how backed up the courts were.

“Nah, you’ll be back,” his DCI said with certainty. “When the sun’s gone in, you’ll be back to Manchester.”

Rego raised his pint of Guinness.

“Cheers to that!”

Find out how Rob does in his new job as a Detective Inspector in rural Cornwall. DEAD WATER is out now.