Scotland Yard's Cocaine Connection - Tapa dura

When the authors began their seven-year investigation into organised crime and its detection, they little dreamt it would lead them to a story of police corruption that spilled from the cocaine cartels of Colombia on to the streets of Florida and into the very heart of Scotland Yard. They had interviewed hundreds of major criminals and detectives to chart the rise, since the Great Train Robbery, of a new breed of highly organized armed robbers. The three compiled the first detailed exposure of Scotland Yard's inability to control escalating crime, its dubious methods and its growing dependence on supergrass, and uncovered a disturbing web of incompetence and corruption. Their book names and discloses the truth of cases such as the sorry failure of "Operation Countryman" to clean up the Met and the Yard's handling of the 1980 Silver Bullion Robbery. Yet the most starling secret of Scotland Yard was still to be revealed. The authors tell their story of how an international gang of cocaine smugglers "paid off" an inside man at Scotland Yard. They have gained evidence that the Yard ignored warnings from Los Angeles detectives, Florida special agents, and its own most senior officers. The book reveals for the first time all the highly sensitive details of this case, including the confessions of one of the world's ten most wanted men - German fugitive Nikolaus Chrastny - who names the cocaine ring Scotland Yard mole. Andre Jennings and Vyv Simson won the Gold Medal for the Best Investigative Journalism at the 1988 New York Film Festival. Paul Lashmar was "Reporter of the Year" in 1986.

Television journalists Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simpson won the Gold Medal at the 1998 New York Film festival for their investigation revealing that British mercenaries were hired by the White House during the Iran-Contra scandal. They were shortlisted the following year when their Granada TV World in Action programme first revealed Scotland Yard's Cocaine Connection. Paul Lashmar, formerly with the Observer, was Reporter of the Year in 1986. He has been investigating Scotland Yard since the early 1980s. He is now a memeber of the World in Action team.