In the 1990s, Brian Brendan Wright, known as The Milkman, became one of the UK's most significant cocaine traffickers. His operation stretched from coca labs in Colombia, through Venezuelan jungles and Caribbean sea routes, to quiet marinas and racecourses in Britain. Bulk shipments crossed the Atlantic by sailboat. Cartel brokers negotiated deals in Miami. Public phone boxes carried coded conversations.At home, Wright cultivated a different image: racehorse owner, gambler, a familiar face in elite restaurants and private boxes. Behind that public life sat an organisation moving hundreds of kilos of cocaine at a time. Couriers, skippers and middlemen handled...
Latest episodes
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31 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: 6. The Catch
In Spain, a coded phone call from a public payphone alerts HMCE that Wright is no longer hiding successfully. Surveillance confirms his location on the Costa del Sol, and an intern…
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31 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: 5. The Long Run
A covert entry at a lock-up garage in Essex reveals hundreds of kilos of cocaine hidden in holdalls.After years of surveillance, coded diaries and phone-box intelligence, Operation…
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31 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: 4: The fix is in
Horses and gambling form the backdrop to Brian Brendan Wright’s public life. In racing circles he appears as a wealthy, well-connected owner with celebrity friends and a passion fo…
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32 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: 3: Operation Extend
As cocaine profits multiply along the route to Europe, HMCE launches Operation Extend following the seizure of the Sea Mist. Barry Clarke and his team monitor payphones, trace Colo…
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34 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: 2: Cocaine by the sea
Who were the middlemen behind the cocaine flooding Britain in the 1990s? From midnight yacht transfers in the Atlantic to cartel Narcos in Miami, and US agents piecing together the…
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33 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: 1: The Sea Mist
A force nine gale off the coast of County Cork leads to a late-night report of a vessel behaving oddly in Cork Harbour. When Irish Customs board the Sea Mist, they uncover 600 kilo…
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3 min ↗
The Story of The Milkman: Trailer
In the 1990s, Brian Brendan Wright, known as The Milkman, became one of the UK’s most significant cocaine traffickers. His operation stretched from coca labs in Colombia, through V…
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39 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 6. The White Cliffs of Dover
The Great Train Robber fugitive faces a stark choice: depression, debt and death in Rio ... or surrender to the UK justice system.Twenty-five years ago, Britain Most Wanted septuag…
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30 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 5. The Magic Balloon Gang
Buy your ticket for ‘The Ronnie Biggs Experience’. For fifty dollars you will be entitled to Brazilian barbecue, a few beers, and an intimate audience with an international celebri…
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35 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 4. The Slip-Up
Welcome to Rio in 1970. Home to the most beautiful football team the world has ever known. Home to a brutal military dictatorship. And, now, home of the last Great Train Robber at…
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32 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 3. The Land of Milk and Honey
What price freedom? And why should you never wear crocodile shoes when you’re on the run?!While the rest of the Great Train Robbery gang are serving thirty-year sentences, the runa…
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34 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 2. The Hate Factory
This episode contains reference to self harm.We’re in Wandsworth Prison, where the lights never go out. And where freedom for Ronnie Biggs might only be a chess game or a rope clim…
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30 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 1. The Big One
In 1963, a small-time South London carpenter joins the biggest robbery in British history for one reason - he knows a retired train driver who is semi-competent. And yet Ronnie Big…
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2 min ↗
The Story of Ronnie Biggs: Trailer
How did a small-time carpenter with a minor and fumbled role in a 1963 violent heist become Britain’s most famous fugitive and - for many - an unlikely folk hero? From gangland tea…
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28 min ↗
The Story of Georgie Pai: 6. Losing Face
It’s the 1990s and Wo Shing Wo gangsters think they’re untouchable. Georgie Pai is fighting yet another deportation order after being caught in the UK again. He’s granted bail on t…
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31 min ↗
The Story of Georgie Pai: 5. Video Wars
A video war is raging across Britain’s Chinatowns, fuelled by a booming market for Hong Kong films and soaps, copied and rented out for huge profit. In Manchester, Wo Shing Wo quic…
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31 min ↗
The Story of Georgie Pai: 4. The Northern Powerhouse
By the 1980s, Georgie Pai has been arrested in Glastonbury for overstaying a tourist visa, found guilty of terrorising Chinese communities in Southampton, and deported back to Hong…
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27 min ↗
The Story of Georgie Pai: 3. Sleeping Tiger
Two Hong Kong nationals are arrested in Southampton after guns are found in a vehicle. One of them speaks to police, revealing that a flourishing protection racket is operating rig…
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30 min ↗
The Story of Georgie Pai: 2. The Hong Kong Connection
From the neon-lit Chinatowns of Britain to the back streets of Hong Kong, we learn why the Triads were feared by so many. The secret societies were formed hundreds of years ago as…
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28 min ↗
The Story of Georgie Pai: 1. Enter The Godfather
In 1970s Britain, Chinese-heritage migrants worked long hours in restaurants and takeaways to build their new lives. But as the diaspora established itself, the gangs they thought…