LONDON CRIME Hired Assassins Available For As Little As $500

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31936, 13 March 1969, Page 6

LONDON CRIME Hired Assassins Available For As Little As $500

For as little as $5OO, a hired assassin will shoot down a man in cold blood—no questions asked. An additional $l2OO will dispose of a top gang leader, and $2OO will enable his body to be dumped from a speedboat in the English Channel.

These are the prices for murder and body disposal in London’s underworld today. For crime and the gangs have undergone a subtle change. Crime is a business and everything has its prices —even violent death. Gang leaders have become expert business men, handling their organisations with the skill of company directors. Their activities are conducted from behind a facade of respectable firms dealing with transport, property, bookmaking and clubs. They are used as “fronts” through which stolen money and property can be channelled without suspicions being aroused. “You’ve got to make your money work,” one gang member said recently. “It’s all very businesslike. We keep books and even pay income tax.” Socially, they infiltrate with incredible ease the most This article is the last in a series of three by NIGEL MUIR, in London. fashionable and plush clubs in the West End, brushing shoulders with the rich, famous and powerful. The Krays were expert at this and in court, Ronald Kray listened among his friends, Judy Garland, Sophie Tucker and peers Lord Boothby and Lord Effingham. “I have some very influential friends, some distinguished people,” he boasted to the court. Unlikely Suspects Many have become known publicly for their generosity in contributing to charities and consequently seem the most unlikely suspects. Others develop a penchant for the theatre and fine arts as did Tony “The Fox” Maffia who, after his death, was found to have 27 paintings in his possession—all dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Despite the.cleaning up of the Kray and Richardson gangs, Scotland Yard acknowledges that wellorganised gangs are still operating in London. They trade in extortion, blackmail, threats with violence and murder. Evidence of their continued activity are three gangland murders in the last two years, none of which

can be connected with the Krays or Richardsons. Just which gangs were responsible and the names of the men who gave the orders is not known.

In London’s underworld, a man’s disappearance from the local scene is usually noticed long before his bul-let-riddled body is discovered by the police.

Such was the case with John James Buggy, a 33-year-old Soho and West End gambler. Gained Notoriety

Buggy was well-known throughout London’s underworld and gained notoriety when he was gaoled in 1960 for shooting a man with intent to murder outside a restaurant in busy Piccadilly. A heavy gambler and frequently in financial difficulty, it was no surprise when Buggy (known to his friends to Scotch Jack) disappeared in May, 1967. Reports that shots had been heard in a gambling club were linked with his disappearance but despite an extensive police investigation, no trace of Buggy could be found. In fact Buggy’s body might never have been found if it had not been for a N.A.T.O. naval exercise off the Sussex Coast five weeks later.

It was a minesweeper dropping depth charges which brought his body floating to the surface from the muddy bottom. Arms bound and mouth gagged, Buggy had been shot twice through the head before his weighted body was dumped into the sea. But even today, more than 18 months after his disappearance. his killer has not been found. Two theories for his murder have been advanced by the police who are now working on the lead that the assassin, formerly a London gangster, is in Canada. The first is that Buggy was unable to pay his gambling debts. But the second, and more plausible, is that Buggy had discovered the hiding place of some of the loot from the $4.2m Great Train Robbery. 30-Year Sentences

It is known that the gang had entrusted $850,000 to Buggy for short-term safekeeping soon after the robbery was committed. What is left of the money has undoubtedly been earmarked for those who are in gaol serving 30-year sentences. The problem of Buggy’s

discovery of the hide-out could only be solved with his life. But the murder of Terence (“Ba-Ba”) Elgar is one crime which reveals the truly horrifying way of life in London’s terror gangs. Every facet of gang warfare—treachery, greed, suspicion and the all-powerful factor, fear—is inherent in it. The 32-year-old Elgar, like the Richardsons, was in the scrap metal trade, was a gangster and lived a violent existence. His immediate boss was Tony Lawrence, another scrap dealer known throughout South London as “King of the Cowboys” because of his mania for Western films. It was in early January last year that Lawrence ordered two of his gangsters, lan Horton and safebreaker George Marshall, to shoot two rival scrap metal merchants who had been trading in their area. Bld Failed Each man was paid about $450 to carry out the shooting, but at the very last minute their assassination bid failed.

Angry, frustrated and suspicious, Lawrence and Elgar stormed into a dimly-lit cellar in a derelict building in South London on February 10 to have it out with Marshall and Horton.

They wanted to know why their rivals had not been “bumped off.”

Lawrence was armed with an automatic rifle stolen only a few weeks before from the storehouse of the Coldstream Guards, and Elgar carried a small pistol. Frightened of Lawrence’s wrath and violent temper, Marshall and Horton had also armed themselves with pistols. A terrible argument flared up between the four men and ten shots richocheted off the cellar walls.

Elgar, with four bullets in the top half of his body, ran from the cellar before collapsing and dying in the front garden of the neighbouring house.

Gave Themselves Up Lawrence, critically wounded, also escaped into the street; he collapsed in front of a patrolling police car. Marshall and Horton gave themselves up to the police a week later, maintaining that they had shot in self-defence. However, although Horton was acquitted, Marshall was sent to gaol for life. The strange murder of Tony Maffia, a 36-year-old car dealer, eight months ago also opened up to public view another aspect of big-time criminal activities. It exposed the - rich rewards, the opulent life and the improbability of living to three score and 10 if you dabble in the underworld. Maffia was married, living in a $25,000 home, was an avid stamp and coin collector and rarely carried less than $2OOO in cash in bis pocket with him. His acute business brain had earned him the title of “The Fox” from his associates, and his car sales firm was most successful. His criminal career, as far as the police were concerned, was unremarkable, Maffia having served only one year in prison in 1957 for helping a prisoner on remand to escape from custody. Biggest “Fence”

But his business was only a “front” too. For Tony Maffia was the best and biggest “fence” (dealer in stolen property) in all Britain. The proceeds from just about every major jewel or art theft passed through Maffia’s bands.

Oddly, it was his best friend and business associate, Stephen Leonard Jewell, who killed him with two bullets high in his back. Six days after his death on June 2, his body was found covered by a tarpaulin in the back seat of his Jaguar, which was parked in a petrol Station. Untouched in his pocket was $6500 in notes. Scotland Yard were quick to arrest and charge Jewell with the murder and after his conviction, Jewell went to prison for life.

But it was the discoveries police made when they examined safe deposit boxes belonging to Maffia that caused the real sensation.

As they opened the boxes, they found fabulous coin and stamp collections worth thousands of dollars—obviously stolen some years before. I

These, Maffia had either decided to keep for himself or had found too hot to sell. Big Find Twenty - seven valuable paintings were also unearthed, many of which have now been claimed by the rightful owners. However, the big fiind was yet to come. In one of the safes, they found $428,000 worth of gold bullion, including a 201 b gold brick. As the investigation continued. the police discovered the existance of an elaborate plan to illegally ship the bullion to France for disposal on the continent. Maffia, the instigator of the plan, had even decided that the carrier would have to be killed and dumped in the channel afterwards to ensure complete silence. As yet no direct motive has been advanced for the murder of Maffia and it seems unlikely one will ever be found. Not all the London gangs’ activities are devoted to sadism, murder and torture. But every one of them is expert in systematic terrorism. In the last 18 months a reign of terror, unequalled in 20 years, has been in existence. Rivals are threatened and one man who ignored the warnings bad one of his legs shot off. In one month, six hand grenades were thrown through office windows to frighten off people who bad dared compete with the gangs. And one man’s car had bombs placed under the bonnet three times in as many weeks. Top Detectives Scotland Yard devotes more top detectives to work on smashing the London gangs than it does on any other single aspect of crime. For the fear which these men create in the hearts of the innocent public is incalculable. Some pubs in London’s East End are evacuated with incredible speed the moment a member of a gang enters, even if he is there for only a quiet pint of beer. But the courts are equally determined to smash down the terror gangs as can be seen from the 25-year sentence passed on Richardson. Mr Justice Lawton gave this warning to all gang leaders at the time: “You terrorised those who crossed your path. It must be made clear to all those who set themselves up as gang leaders that they will be struck down hard by the law.”