Instead of a Mafia in England we have various groups called 'Firms' operating around major city's in the country back in the 90's you had the Essex Boys and Kenneth Noye's Firm in Kent both of those have fallen.

I know that there's a Firm in Canning Town that even Gerry Adams crew won't mess with, the Johnson Brothers in Wolverhampton went down a couple years ago with Carl being back in jail after failing to re-pay money gained from Fraud whilst his brother Anthony repaid and is still out on the streets (dunno if he's active).

Any other Firm's you can name?

Lot of British firms don't name themselves but people know who they are. It's mostly known by an area etc, lot of firms in Liverpool and the likes of Glasgow, Newcastle and of course London.

The Canning town firm are very powerful

Sinn Fein have a crew?

Well 'ard..

Liverpool is a ground zero for 'crime firms'. There are so many small groups of organized thugs active in the city it isn't even funny. The thing is though, as of late there doesn't seem to be a firm with a steady power in the city. One firm may stay on top for a couple of years, but another one quickly seems ready to take their place.

Glasgow has been 'controlled' by the Daniel family for years, but apparently they have diminished their activity and a few mobs from the city's southside seem to be coming up, ready to take their place.

The London area still has some behind the scenes activity from the traditional powerful families: Adams, Arif, the Canning Town group (who are now mostly based in Essex)...though the presence of any of those groups isn't as aggressive as it once was. Especially the Adams', Brindles and Arifs have taken heavy blows in the last years.
Traditional OC in the East End is done. There are barely any white working class people living in the area now. A lot of South Asians, Caribbeans and white yuppies living there now.
South London, at least parts of it, still have a more substantial British white working class population. Lots of smaller firms operating over there (and into Kent and Essex), though I don't know if their power if of the scale of the Adams and the likes.

Newcastle, Nottingham...and assorted smaller British cities will always have their fair share of firms as well.

The Riley brothers?! They operated around the clerkenwell
Area and clashed with the Adams seeing that's their door step too

How many members does a Firm usually have?

Two. Celtic and Rangers.

It varies. Liverpool to Manchester had a lot of them. Liverpool has the most firms. When I was visiting Liverpool, the Ungies, and Whitneys were the top two in that city with a guy named Smith coming up in a different firm.

Glasgow greet

Anybody has information on a Liverpool old-time gangster named Robert McGorrin aka "Bob the dog"? I read on some forum this is the real name and nickname of the character represented in Graham Johnson's book "The Cartel" as "Fred the rat". He is supposed to be the "founding father" of the biggest drug organization in Liverpool since the 70s. Don't know if he is still alive though.

Also, anything new on Christopher Bailey, the (former?) boss of Nottingham (at least I heard he was)?

Also would be interesting to hear about David Hunt from London, is he still free?


Is he the same Colin Smith whacked in 2007?

Maybe. He was from Toxteeth. There was a Mr. McGorrin at the card house, he was with the Ungies, was in his mid forties when I met him.

Hunt is free and it will probably stay that way. They have zero direct evidence against him. Most of it they got from a novel (and a good one to be honest) written by a bitter ex-gangster who may or may not have made everything up.
If everything that's written about him is true, he's probably the biggest criminal mastermind to ever come out of London.

Question. There was an old boss they called Tacker in Liverpool. That's what they called him, he was involved in many dealings in the city in the 60s, went to prison for a bank job, came out in the 70s and started Liverpool on the road to international drug hub, then went to prison again, then out in the 90s. When I was visiting Liverpool in the early 2000s, he had legal problems, but everyone said he retired when he got out, and the charges were bullocks. Who is this guy?

Think that was a guy named Tommy Comerford. Believe he died in the early 2000's.

Thanks SonnyD, after digging into that name. He matches up with the guy I was trying to think of. Yeah like I said this was the early 2000s during the summer. There was a war going on between the Clarks and Lowery firms I remember, and something about the Garston gang hijacking ships cargo. It was called the Garston gang and not a firm, did not know the difference back then but do now.

Fugitive Liverpool drug boss Robert Gerrard turns himself in
http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/bl...urns-himself-in

from 5 to 20 members in a firm . The more you have the more snakes there are

Purple Aki is the most feared man in Liverpool.

Colin and David Gunn ran the Bestwood Cartel in Nottingham in the early 2000s they were crazy they killed guys and fed them to pigs. I think they are both in prison Colin doing life he had the mother and father of a another drug dealer killed. I think David might be out now could be wrong about that

London crime boss Patrick Adams admits to shooting man in the chest after suspecting he was a snitch
http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/bl...-man-in-the-che

Patsy has always been the most crazy of the brothers.

It's usually one crew of Enforcers with its own leader then an Administration of a Boss and Underboss, maybe a Business Manager and then a couple of earners

You also get quite a lot of this sort of thing going on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38233518

Relatives of deceased Liverpool crime boss lose £2m hidden nest egg
http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/bl...-hidden-nest-eg

The feeding to pigs story is probably bullshit, they killed a lot of people though. Bestwood is about 10 minutes from where I live.

Colin ordered the murders of Michael O'Briens parents, not because of drug dealing, O'Brien shot dead Marvyn Bradshaw in front of Jamie Gunn, who is Colin's nephew. They were best friends, Jamie couldn't live with it, became a drug addict and alcaholic, died not long after, Colin Gunn blamed O'Brien for Jamie's death, O'Brien also threatened Colin in court and disrespected Bradshaw's family, laughing and saying his head looked like a doughnut after he shot him when he was getting sentenced.

Colin's goons shot up O'Briens parents house not long after, then threw a grenade through the door. They moved out of Nottingham straight away to the sea side in Lincoln, Colin had a couple of police officers in his pocket, one gave him the location, really disgusting what he did. Should never be released.

David Gunn has been out of prison for a couple of years

Fugitive British drug smuggler gets 13 years for role in 400 kilo cocaine shipment
http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fugitive-british-cocaine-smuggler-gets-13-years

Were the so called Essex Boys a real firm though ? I mean based on what I"ve read about them , they were no more than a bunch of rather inept drug dealers who got too big for their boots .

Also is the Canning Town firm that has been mentioned in this thread the same firm that is allegedly led by David Hunt ?

The "Essex Boys" were just a bunch of obnoxious drug dealers. Now, locally speaking they did have "some" control: Tucker had a few stakes in local bars and nightclubs and his connection to the bouncer scene made sure he did hold some power over some of the drug flow in Essex. In terms of business accumen and (slight) inroads into more organized criminal activity, they were still at least a step above your average "posse" street gang in inner city London.
Nevertheless they were still low on the local food chain and they certainly weren't important enough to warrant them a green light for their reckless and arrogant behavior at the end of their "career" when they were more occupied stuffing coke up their noses and shooting nubain in their veins. At one point they must've upset basically every serious firm in the area, from London to Essex to Kent: Kenneth Noye, the Blundells, the Adams, the Arifs, the Brindles, the Canning Town guys, the Walkers, the Daleys...basically even local firms that hated each others' guts weren't exactly mad to see Tucker, Tate and Rolfe kick the bucket.