The Betrayer is – as the cover sticker says – the inspiration for the Netflix series LEGENDS. I don’t have Netflix, so I haven’t seen the show, but a lot of the publicity turns around how Stanton (played by Tom Burke) was plucked from HM Customs and Excise airport baggage searching, given two weeks training, and sent undercover with the drug gangs.
Whether that reflects the series or not, The Betrayer shows that Stanton had a more paced progress from admin, through airport anti-smuggling, local VAT control and Collection Investigation Unit, onto the Investigation Division. But it’s true that, when Stanton is asked to apply for a new undercover team, “we had no undercover training course of our own, so I had to pick up tips from colleagues who had done it in the past.”
There is some fascinating detail about HMCE’s varied attempts to develop undercover training, before settling on the police SO10 course and Greater Manchester Police’s Henri Exton, who had devised his own psychological training course. “The real challenge of undercover work is handling pressure, isolation and paranoia…” Exton’s training out in the real world was designed to test their ability to cope.
Stanton’s bosses introduce him to Keravnos, a Greek Cypriot known on the streets as a godfather, who is also an informant whose intelligence has led to countless drug seizures and arrests. As Stanton points out, honour among thieves was a myth, and they would all inform on each other if need be. “The problem was that as an out-and-out rogue he was prone to embroiling himself in the evidential chain, something defence lawyers could spot and use to undermine a prosecution….I was to accompany him and make decisions based on my knowledge of the law…of what was permissible.”
Much of the book takes us through Stanton’s recollections of posing as an underworld fixer who can intercept goods on behalf of smugglers. The characters are entertaining and the outcomes are unpredictable. Sometimes meetings lead to nothing, and Stanton is left unsure whether the smugglers didn’t trust him, or couldn’t come up with the goods. One of the hairiest moments comes when Stanton is almost exposed by the cost-efficient methods of HMCE’s hotel-booking team.
I couldn’t help compare The Betrayer with Lima 3, a 2005 book by Harry Ferguson, also set in the 1990’s Investigation Division. Ferguson relates his time with a surveillance team investigating a Turkish trafficker supplying gangs in Liverpool and Brixton. It is much more about the relationships within the team, the hours following remote targets in cars, and the occasional raid hoping to get enough evidence to stand up in court. In a way it harks back to those old black and white Flying Squad movies with the intricacies of trying to match the speed and direction of a driver who is constantly changing his movements to flush out anyone who might be following him. It also has little insights into the past such as the three man photographic team, “like an alchemists laboratory…oppressively hot…stank of chemicals…dominated by two massive machines for developing rolls of photographic film.”
What both men have in common is the cost the work takes out of them. Both eventually fall ill, likely as a result of the long hours, and emotional strain.
Nevertheless, The Betrayer is a fascinating insight into a previously unreported world. Stanton’s recollections of his personal experiences are vivid and entertaining, while Walsh (I assume) adds welcome context with copious background detail about the Investigation Division and undercover work in general.
The Betrayer – Milo Books 2022 – ISBN 978-1-908479-96-9 £8.99.
