Powder Wars is the true story gangster Paul Grimes, a one-man crimewave with a breathtaking capacity to steal. He robbed safes, banks, lorries, warehouses, even whole buildings. Villains who got in his way were shot, stabbed, tortured, thrown out of windows and ejected from speeding cars. But when his son died of a drugs overdose, the old-school mobster turned undercover informant, swearing revenge on the new generation of Liverpool-based drug dealers flooding Britain with ?powder?. Focusing initially on Curtis Warren, the wealthiest and most successful criminal in British history, Grimes infiltrated his cocaine cartel and led Customs to the largest narcotics seizure on record, worth #260 million, putting Warren in the dock in the drugs trial of the 20th century. He then turned his attention to notorious heroin dealer John Haase. Grimes rose to become the boss of Haase?s ?security firm? ? a professional gang of rapid-fire, round-the-clock racketeers addicted to cocaine, explosive violence and non-stop criminality.
In the morning they would take delivery of six kilos of heroin, in the afternoon they would send a cache of guns to Scotland and in the evening they would petrol bomb a nightclub. And then they would go to work ? as doormen on Liverpool?s buzzing and brutal nightclub scene. They would fight gun-slinging turf wars with rival door teams, kidnap drug dealers and broker the sale of swag ? lorry loads of stolen whisky and designer sportswear worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Finally, as his net began to tighten, Grimes was confronted with the ultimate dilemma. He discovered his second son was now a rising star in the drugs business. Should he shop him or not? Today Paul Grimes has a 100,000 pound contract on his head, a real-live dead man walking. Powder Wars is an account of modern gangsters told in fascinating, brutal detail.
- ISBN10 184018793X
- ISBN13 9781840187939
- Publish Date 8 April 2004
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 23 February 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Transworld Publishers Ltd
- Imprint Mainstream Publishing
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 224
- Language English