Perhaps the most jaw-dropping thing about the Netflix drama Legends, about customs officers in the early 1990s who were sent undercover with some of the world’s most ruthless gangsters, is that it’s based on real events.
Yes, ordinary people who may have checked your holiday suitcases underneath a “Nothing to declare” sign at Heathrow were given quickfire training in order to pose as heroin importers or engage in dangerous surveillance operations.
Neil Forsyth’s excellent drama drew inspiration from The Betrayer: How an Undercover Unit Infiltrated the Global Drug Trade, the 2022 memoirs of Guy Stanton, the real pseudonym of the character played by Tom Burke. In the six-parter he is shown prowling the streets of Green Lanes in north London and infiltrating a ruthless Turkish gang. But there are other characters too — Steve Coogan’s Don, who trains up the “legends”, who also include Kate (Hayley Squires) and Bailey (Aml Ameen).
So how much is actually true and what did Forsyth, who also brought us two series of The Gold, which told the story of the 1983 Brink’s-Mat bullion robbery, invent?
“It’s incredibly unusual in my shows to have characters who could be described as fictional,” the writer tells me. And as you can see from our analysis, he has a point. Be warned: this contains spoilers and should only be read if you have watched all six episodes.
Sort of. In the drama the death of a young Oxford student and daughter of a cabinet minister in 1990 is fictional, but it draws from real cases that heightened political pressure and media attention when heroin began to claim middle-class lives. In June 1986 Olivia Channon, the daughter of the trade and industry secretary Paul Channon, died after consuming a fatal mix of heroin and alcohol at an end-of-exams party at Oxford University.
Her death starkly revealed how the heroin epidemic had cut through all social class boundaries and increased pressure on the government to provide funding for HM Customs and Excise to tackle heroin, investigate and infiltrate the market at the highest levels. Furthermore, the struggles with heroin addiction of Mary Parkinson (1960–2017), the daughter of the prominent Conservative frontbencher Cecil Parkinson (1931–2016), were widely reported throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
Pretty much. Guy and others attended two short training camps in the early 1990s. The first was two weeks and was split between a classroom and field exercises, which included a mock kidnap and buying a stick of “dynamite” outside Hendon Underground station. Guy also attended a three-week course in the north of England overseen by one of the inspirations for Steve Coogan’s character, Don. This course primarily prepared officers on how to handle the intense pressure, stress and paranoia of deep infiltration undercover work. It was here that Guy created his “legend” — his undercover alter ego — down to the smallest detail that would stand up to scrutiny. In his case it included developing his musical tastes — Guy was a big fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, for instance.
Among those Forsyth spoke to in his research, some built their legends as travel photographers (so it wouldn’t be unusual to be openly carrying a camera), gold bullion dealers, wine importers and haulage company owners. They went to extraordinary lengths, renting premises in London and paying council tax and bills in their legend names. Many built their legends around their own names or middle names, in case they were approached by people they knew and reacted to their name being shouted.
Pretty real. Don, Kate, Bailey and Blake (Douglas Hodge) are all directly based on real people, many of whom Forsyth met and interviewed. In the drama they are largely composite characters for narrative clarity but also to give security to the real-life legends, who, generally speaking, did not want their real names to be used in the show. Guy’s accomplice Mylonas (Gerald Kyd) is partially inspired by Andreas Antoniades, known through the world’s security and criminal communities as Keravnos (the Thunderbolt). A Greek Cypriot, Keravnos fought for the EOKA guerrilla group against the British Army in the 1950s, and then for the British Army against the EOKA.
Not quite. Declan Carter is a composite of several Liverpool heroin gang bosses, one of whom formed an alliance with Turkish heroin gangs and is said to have travelled out to the poppy fields in Afghanistan to meet the warlords and inspect the heroin in person.
Yes. He was an international drugs trafficker and one of the founders of the widespread heroin trade that flourishes on either side of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Afridi operated from a vast fortified compound in Landi Kotal in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. Afridi was once one of America’s Most Wanted international criminals who would later work with the USA post-9/11 on the hunt for Bin Laden while (it is thought) secretly tipping off Bin Laden on US troop movements. He died of natural causes in 2009.
They did, but in reality the undercover work was male-dominated. A handful of women worked undercover in Beta Projects, but most tended to be handlers like Erin (Jasmine Blackborow), serving as a lifeline for the undercover officer and the back office, providing operational security, transferring intelligence and monitoring the safety and psychology of undercover operatives.
Yes. Eddie (Johnny Harris’s character, who turns on Carter after his son dies from a heroin overdose) is a composite of several key informers that worked with customs on their investigation of Liverpool heroin gangs. Forsyth is understood to have come across more than one example of someone motivated to become an informer after seeing a friend or relative die due to heroin addiction.
Yes. In the early 1990s Guy and a number of the other real-life legends worked on a high-risk sting operation. It involved receiving a drugs transfer in the Bay of Biscay from a smuggler’s yacht to a 50-year-old tugboat that the legends had managed to procure for the operation. After the drugs were transferred to the tugboat, a storm hit, the tugboat sank, and the undercover customs team only just managed to escape with their lives on to an inflatable dinghy. They were saved when they were eventually spotted by a Norwegian container ship and stayed “in character” until the Royal Navy search ship HMS Chatham picked them up; then the men had to explain themselves.
Yes. One day in the 1990s Guy was taking his wife and daughter on a day out to the London Aquarium. While on the London Underground two criminals that he was infiltrating, and who knew him as Guy Stanton, stepped into his carriage. Without missing a beat Guy went into his legend as Stanton as they shook his hand. At the same time his wife’s instinct kicked in. She took their daughter’s hand and they just left as if they weren’t with him. In reality Guy missed his family day out and spent six hours with the men drinking in a nearby pub and discussing criminal matters.
Mostly. After big cases where they had given evidence in court and would now be at risk of being recognised, several undercover operatives were left with no choice but to return to a desk job. Working long-term in deep cover for more than a decade made Guy Stanton unusual. He left Customs in 2005 and was awarded an MBE for his service to the government.
Yes. Forsyth came across several examples of customs officers being targeted by criminal gangs. One officer had his house firebombed, and another was rushed into witness protection with his family for their own safety. While working undercover exposing hooligan gangs, one was forced to take part in organised violence to preserve his cover.
To some extent. In the 1990s undercover investigators from Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise helped British law enforcement seize more than 12 tonnes of heroin with a street value of over £1 billion. This is significant and undoubtedly saved many lives.
The drama is not clear on this (there could be more series), but by the end of 2000 about 400 people were understood to be working for Beta Projects, with about 20 to 30 deep undercover. In 2006 Beta Projects was effectively disbanded when HMCE Investigation and much of its personnel was merged into the newly created Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), later renamed as the National Crime Agency. Many of the undercover officers went to the new agency, but it wasn’t the same as in the golden age of Beta Projects. The crime world was changing rapidly and new and different skills were required from investigators, not least in the digital sphere.
Legends is available on Netflix
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