'I lived a dangerous double life, going undercover to infiltrate London drug gangs'

Undercover customs officer "Guy Stanton" was off duty and enjoying a day out with his wife and young daughter when he spotted two members of a dangerous criminal gang in the carriage of the London Tube train they were riding in. He gave a quick glance at his wife Jo, who got off at the next stop with their four-year-old while he slipped back into his "legend" – the fake identity issued to undercover operatives – as a big shot London gangster to engage with the men. In true spy thriller fashion , their first ­meeting was under the clock in Waterloo Station. "He was stockily built and immaculately dressed in a dark overcoat, suit and polished shoes and looked like a very tough but successful businessman – or a gangland boss," reveals Peter. Guy laughs. "Tom Burke, who plays me in Legends, does look a lot like I used to look. He came to see me and really studied me and has got my mannerisms." Guy's "Legend" was a London gangster with a brief to infiltrate the capital's drug gangs. "They had set him up with this council flat in Tower Hamlets [in the series it is in Green Lanes, North London]," says Peter. He would get other operatives to send him postcards from South America so the gangland criminals would think he was a real drugs lord." Guy picks up the story. "Yeah, it was a drugs flat, mattresses against the window. Horrible to live in. This little Asian guy a couple of doors down came round once and said the police had been looking for me. I gave him £20 and he became my ­security, my eyes and ears there." Guy's undercover role in London eventually took him all over the world . In an extract from The Betrayer, he describes a situation on the south Caribbean island of Curaçao where he got caught up in a gun battle and hid under a car, describing how one man's "head exploded in a haze of red". "People lay wounded around me," he says. "My great fear had been that it would end like this, far from my home and family, the truth of my parallel life dying with me. I don't get paid enough for this, I thought, as petrol began to drip on to my head." But he says there were other far more dangerous situations where he had a gun pointed directly at him, although none of the Beta operatives were ever killed in the field. They are dying off now though, of natural causes," he says. "I don't go to their funerals. I write a letter. I find them too depressing. I have had bouts of depression due to my illnesses and I had a full nervous breakdown after I left the job. But I am an optimistic person and I have had quite the adventure and quite the life." Throughout his decade undercover, his parents, siblings and friends thought Guy worked in a quiet customs policy office. "In fact my colleagues and I were travelling the world, clandestinely and incognito," he says. "We jetted many thousands of miles, braved stormy seas in small boats, drove into jungles and deserts, cultivating some of the most dangerous criminals on the planet. Some of them were even enjoyable company." One of those Guy grew to like was Pablo Escobar's cousin Vittorio. He adds: "I was woken up at 3am in Dubai to be told he had died on the operating table and I have to say I was really sad. We had got on really well. Some of the criminals I met had great brains. They were brilliant with money and could have been highly successful legitimate businessmen – if they had wanted to." By 2000, the Beta Projects methods were becoming known in the criminal underworld thanks to their success and having to declare so much information in court, and the group was eventually closed down. Then, just as Guy was beginning his fight against cancer, he was wrongly accused of taking a bribe. A lengthy investigation followed and Guy was finally exonerated, but the pressure took its toll on his health physically and mentally. "He was badly let down in the end, you could say he was himself betrayed," says Peter now. "What Guy and others did stopped tons of drugs coming into the UK, broke up entire trafficking groups and saw many dangerous criminals jailed for long terms. But it only made a small dent in the amounts of illegal drugs that flow around the world. The war on drugs today is the same as ever and there are no simple answers." Guy is more sanguine. These days his near death battles are with cancer rather than criminals. Nevertheless, he continues to work as a private investigator, currently working for the Mauritius government investigating the smuggling of gold and rosewood, a protected timber. And he is enjoying watching his previous life unfold on Netflix of course. "Neil Forsyth is a great writer," he smiles. "What he has written is an amazing ­adventure story but there is a line of truth through everything in the series and it ­happened to me." *Legends is available to stream on Netflix now. The Betrayer: How An Undercover Unit. Infiltrated The Global Drug Trade, by Guy Stanton and Peter Walsh (published by Milo Books, £8.99) is out now.