The number of hitmen on our streets today has reached epidemic proportions. Twenty years ago there was only a small crew of highly professional killers for hire carrying out a handful of hits. Yet by the beginning of the new century, there were more than one hundred paid-for murders in Britain each year.

But you wouldn’t always guess it by reading the nation’s newspapers. Professional hits get little coverage. As Fleet Street crime hack Peter Wilson says, ‘One villain knocking off another doesn’t have the same news appeal as a beautiful brunette blasting her cheating hubby to death.’

Genuinely professional hitmen revel in the low-key nature of their business. Says one, ‘The less publicity the better. The papers don’t seem that interested in most hits. The biggest coverage I ever got was a few lines in the Standard.’

In the past, even the police played down hits on criminals. As one retired detective recently explained: ‘We took the attitude that every time there was a hit that meant one less villain on the streets – and that can’t be a bad thing.’

But now even the force’s finest admit the situation has got out of control. Scotland Yard has a special secret squad to investigate these criminal renegades. David Veness, assistant commissioner in charge of specialist operations, admits, ‘We have a genuine fear that there is a greater capacity for criminals to gain access to individuals willing to kill for money. There are worrying signs that there are small groups for whom this is the main form of criminal activity.’ That’s copspeak for ‘It’s a big problem.’

The bottom line is that life’s a lot cheaper now than it was when sawn-off shotgun-toting armed robbers swaggered across pavements taking pot shots at The Sweeney’s John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as they crouched behind their Ford Granada. ‘A lot of it’s down to puff, E and coke,’ says south-east London criminal Gordon McShane. ‘Many of the robbers of the Seventies are now dealing drugs big time. We’re talkin’ about millions of quid changing hands. That means the rotten apples need to be dealt with. There’s no shortage of work for a decent shootist.’

But who are they?

THE PROFESSIONALS

These are the characters who come up through the ranks to become professional hitmen. Their so-called skills are known to the country’s most powerful underworld gangsters. They keep a low profile and tend to live anonymous, almost ‘normal’ lives. They also tend to only hit other criminals and avoid the high-profile jobs that end up in the tabloids. These pros thrive on the fact that their line of work is low profile and often hold down more respectable ‘careers’ within the traditional criminal fraternity. Many are so low-key it’s virtually impossible for police to prove a link between them and the murders they have committed.

YARDIES

There is a smack-crazed posse of West Indian gangsters who dispose of rivals and, sometimes, their families with cold-blooded, execution-style killings that serve as a warning to anyone who dares to double-cross them in drug deals. Often their hitmen target rival drug dealers, rip off their produce and then wipe them out. As a final calling card they have been known to sexually assault their victims, whether male or female. In June and July 1998, the Yardies carried out three barbaric murders, including the execution of two young mothers. Scotland Yard linked the slayings after forensic tests revealed the victims were shot with the same 9mm self-loading handgun.

TRIADS

This gang, with its sickening brand of maiming and killing rival gang members, has been operating on Britain’s streets for the past 30 years. But most of these murders go unreported – and unsolved – because of the Triads’ Mafia-style secrecy and the fears of those within the Chinese community. Four main Triad societies, the 14K, We On Lok, Wo Shing Wo and San Yee On, rake in vast profits from protection rackets, prostitution, fraud, illegal immigration and illicit gambling. The Triads train up their own hitmen by importing previously unknown individuals from the Chinese mainland.

THE OPPORTUNISTS/SEMI-PROS

These are small-time hoods prepared to knock off other villains, cheating lovers and work rivals. They underprice the pros and are often desperate for cash to feed a drug or drink habit. One recent classic example of this was when the shooter intended to hit a little boy’s stepfather who’d double-crossed local drug lords – instead the youngster was shot dead. These hitmen are more often caught because they don’t think through the science of being a hired killer and take necessary precautions. And, chillingly, some of them are mere teenagers prepared to kill for a few hundred pounds.

These categories are just the tip of the iceberg. The cold, hard reality is that hitmen can come from every type of background and, as this book will show, they share one common factor: an appalling lack of regard for human life.

Wensley Clarkson 2005