CHERUB: Class A - Robert Muchamore Page 0,13

£200–£250. Twenty years later, the street price of cocaine has dropped to less than £50 a gram. In some areas of Britain, a gram of low quality cocaine can cost as little as £25.
The United States pays South American governments to hunt and destroy coca plants in the highlands where they grow. Despite this, the street price of cocaine has continued to drop, suggesting that supplies are still plentiful.
Most cocaine brought into Britain arrives via the Caribbean. There are thousands of smugglers in British prisons. Tough sentences have done little to stop the trade. Cocaine dealers continue to find people willing to act as drug couriers, often in return for less than a thousand pounds and an airline ticket.
It is impossible to catch every smuggler entering Britain. The police must aim higher and capture the people in control of the drug gangs. Close to one third of the cocaine entering Britain passes through an organisation commonly referred to as KMG. The initials stand for Keith Moore’s Gang.

KEITH MOORE AND KMG: BIOGRAPHY
1964
Keith Moore was born on the newly built Thornton. estate on the outskirts of Luton in Bedfordshire.
1977
After being caught selling cannabis in his school library, Keith was arrested by police and excluded from school. He became a chronic truant, suspected of many car thefts and burglaries.
1978
Keith began training as a boxer at the JT Martin Youth Centre. JT Martin was a retired boxer and armed robber who controlled the underworld in Bedfordshire from the early 1960s until 1985. JT used his boxing club as a recruiting ground for young criminals.
1980
Keith was spotted in police surveillance photographs of JT Martin. In the pictures, Keith is a slightly built sixteen-year-old who looks out of place amongst JT’s crew of boxers and nightclub bouncers.
1981
Keith became JT Martin’s chauffeur when a previous driver was banned for speeding. Moving around with JT gave the seventeen-year-old an insight into all aspects of the drug business.
1983
After eleven amateur fights, with a record of one win, two draws and eight defeats, Keith retired from boxing. Shortly afterwards, he married Julie Robertson, a girl he had known since infant school.
1985
Police captured JT Martin and a number of associates selling drugs. JT was sentenced to twelve years in prison. Keith Moore had been JT’s driver for four years, but the rest of JT’s crew regarded him as a wimpish hanger-on.
1986
With JT in prison, a power struggle erupted amongst his former employees. Keith kept away from the violent struggles and developed an interest in JT’s cocaine business. Cocaine was a tiny proportion of the criminal empire, which made most of its money selling heroin and cannabis. JT also owned nightclubs, pubs and casinos, as well as dozens of small businesses such as laundrettes and hairdressing salons.
1987
The price of cocaine kept falling and supply was growing. Keith Moore was one of the first people in Britain to realise that the cocaine business was about to explode.

While his colleagues battled over heroin and nightclub profits, Keith travelled to South America and met with members of a powerful Peruvian drug cartel known as Lambayeke. He agreed to buy regular bulk shipments of cocaine at a discounted price. To sell this increased supply of cocaine, Keith launched a telephone delivery service, based on similar services that were thriving in the United States. It took advantage of two new technologies: mobile telephones and message pagers. Instead of having to go searching for a drug dealer, rich clients dialled a number and Keith had someone deliver drugs to their doorstep, usually within an hour.
1988
The cocaine business was earning Keith over £10,000 per week. This cash enabled him – at just 23 years of age – to take effective control of JT Martin’s criminal empire. Keith avoided violence whenever possible. He manipulated jealous rivals, setting them against one another. When manipulation failed, he bought rivals off by handing them parts of the business that did not interest him.

Keith’s next ambition was to build his profitable cocaine business into the biggest in the country. The only part of JT’s empire Keith held on to was the youth centre/boxing club in the neighbourhood where he grew up.
1989
Keith’s first son, Ringo, was born (now aged 15).
1990
Keith’s business grew tenfold in three years. Cocaine delivery expanded into Hertfordshire and London. He also began selling wholesale quantities of cocaine to other dealers all over Britain and mainland Europe.
1992
Julie Moore gave birth to twins, April and Keith Jr (now aged 12).
1993
Keith’s youngest child, Erin, was born