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True Crime

Gangster

by BBC Radio 5 Live
True Crime
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Latest episodes

  • The Story of The Milkman: 6. The Catch

    September 10, 2026 · 31 min

    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 international warrant leads to his arrest and extradition to the…

  • The Story of The Milkman: 5. The Long Run

    September 3, 2026 · 31 min

    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 Extend moves into its decisive phase. The arrest of a…

  • The Story of The Milkman: 4. The Fix Is In

    August 27, 2026 · 31 min

    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 for betting. Wright’s name begins to surface in allegations…

  • The Story of The Milkman: 3. Operation Extend

    August 20, 2026 · 32 min

    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 Colombian numbers and build intelligence from a London office…

  • The Story of The Milkman: 2. Cocaine by the Sea

    August 13, 2026 · 34 min

    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 network supplying Brian Brendan Wright. Credits Presenter…

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  • The Story of The Milkman: 1. The Sea Mist

    August 7, 2026 · 33 min

    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 kilos of cocaine hidden inside a dumb-waiter shaft. The seizure…

  • The Story of The Milkman: Trailer

    August 3, 2026 · 3 min

    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…

  • The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 5. The Magic Balloon Gang

    June 4, 2026 · 30 min

    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 celebrity fugitive. Branded T-Shirts are available upon…

  • The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 4. The Slip-Up

    May 28, 2026 · 35 min

    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 large. The Ronnie Biggs rollercoaster is about to crank up…

  • The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 3. The Land of Milk and Honey

    May 21, 2026 · 32 min

    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 runaways are enjoying the delights of mid-sixties Paris and…

  • The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 2. The Hate Factory

    May 14, 2026 · 34 min

    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 climb away … Meanwhile - outside the jail walls - the British…

  • The Story of Ronnie Biggs: 1. The Big One

    May 7, 2026 · 30 min

    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 Biggs will, for the next fifty years, be far more famous than…

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About the show

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 the risk. Cocaine flooded British streets while its organiser remained largely unseen. The investigation to dismantle the network lasted 11 years. Customs officers, DEA agents and police forces across multiple countries tracked phone numbers, cracked codes, followed boats and recruited insiders. Arrests reached from Colombian suppliers to UK logistics men. As pressure mounted, Wright fled abroad and became one of Britain's most wanted fugitives. Gangster: The Story of the Milkman follows the rise and fall of a transatlantic cocaine empire — the smugglers who ran it, the officers who pursued it, and the human cost left in its wake.