Speaker 1: This is not a video or game. This is real life.
Speaker 1: You go to a fucking pup ar Christmas Eve with
Speaker 1: a machine guls if someone going there with a baseball
Speaker 1: bat and have a grievance with someone that's sundard. That
Speaker 1: happens every weekend. But you go somewhere with the machineles
Speaker 1: master when it is you go on it to kill someone.
Speaker 2: It's Christmas Eve. On the Wirral, a comfortable suburban area
Speaker 2: just outside Liverpool, a port city in the north of England.
Speaker 2: Twenty six year old Ellie Edwards is heading to a
Speaker 2: local pub with her younger sister Lucy. Ellie is a
Speaker 2: little less enthusiastic than her sister. She's been hungover for
Speaker 2: a couple of days already, but she's decided to head
Speaker 2: out for another night a beautician. Her long blonde hair
Speaker 2: falls down over her leather jacket and a big silver necklace.
Speaker 2: Inside the Lighthouse Pub, the sisters are soon singing and
Speaker 2: dancing together. Sometime after nine point thirty pm, Lucy heads home.
Speaker 2: She tells Ellie not to stay out late. Ellie says
Speaker 2: she'll just be another hour and continues back at the pub.
Speaker 2: What Ellie cannot know is that A man is also
Speaker 2: standing outside the pub in the car park. He's been
Speaker 2: waiting and watching the area for around three hours. He's
Speaker 2: carrying a Scorpion submachine gun. I'm Fiona Hamilton, the chief
Speaker 2: reporter at The Times and from The Times, the Sunday
Speaker 2: Times and News Corp Australia. This is cocaine in episode one,
Speaker 2: are shooting at Christmas. Trying to understand what happened next
Speaker 2: on that night in twenty twenty two ended up being
Speaker 2: a much bigger task than one reporter could do alone.
Speaker 2: Over the past year I've been working in a team
Speaker 2: from two separate countries with my colleagues David Collins from
Speaker 2: The Sunday Times in the UK.
Speaker 3: So you were part of a group that smuggled one
Speaker 3: hundred million pounds out of the UK. How do you
Speaker 3: reflect on that?
Speaker 2: And Stephen Drill from News Corps Australia.
Speaker 4: This is the end of the line.
Speaker 3: I'm just about to go in. Knock on the door
Speaker 3: are a ten million dollar house that is accused of
Speaker 3: being the proceeds of crime.
Speaker 2: This investigation has taken us to ten different cities in
Speaker 2: six countries, traveling over fifty thousand kilometers following trail from
Speaker 2: that pub in Northern England where Ellie was celebrating Christmas
Speaker 2: and leading us to column and cartel's drug smuggling in Mexico,
Speaker 2: a torture chamber in the Netherlands, money laundering in the
Speaker 2: Middle East, and police raids across Australia.
Speaker 3: Sydney's gun crime epidemic has claimed two more lives tonight.
Speaker 1: Police have established Task Force Magnus to try to win
Speaker 1: the bloodshed.
Speaker 2: What we uncovered was a global business operation based around
Speaker 2: a single illegal product, one so common that, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: it's likely that you or someone you know has snorted
Speaker 2: a line recently. We'll reveal how the world's legitimate business empires,
Speaker 2: trading floors and boardrooms have their shadowy equivalents in the cartels,
Speaker 2: traffickers and kingpens. But for now, this story starts with
Speaker 2: Ellie Edwards. David Collins, the Sunday Times and all An
Speaker 2: editor went to meet her father.
Speaker 3: I'm in Merseyside, probably most famous around the world for
Speaker 3: the Beatles and Liverpool football club. From the city of
Speaker 3: Liverpool itself. I've made a short drive through the King's
Speaker 3: Way tunnel under the River to an area called the
Speaker 3: wirel I've come to meet Tim Edwards. He's the father
Speaker 3: of Ellie Edwards, the young woman who went to the
Speaker 3: pub on Christmas Eve. He's never spoken about that night.
Speaker 3: In the detail you're about to hear.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get any easier, and sometimes you can you
Speaker 1: can feel you're getting ahead a bit and dealing with things,
Speaker 1: and everything's getting you know it's going to be brighter
Speaker 1: as the future, and then something will come along and
Speaker 1: trigger a memory or and then I might struggle for
Speaker 1: a couple of days. But as it happens today, today's
Speaker 1: good day.
Speaker 3: Tim is tall and broad, with thick, streaked gray hair
Speaker 3: and a beard. He's an imposing figure and I guess
Speaker 3: you might describe him as a man's man, the type
Speaker 3: of guy you'd sink a few pints in the pub
Speaker 3: with and chat about football and life. He was born
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy one and came of age in Liverpool
Speaker 3: in the eighties, a tough time for the city with
Speaker 3: high unemployment, but he remembers a close networking class community.
Speaker 1: No matter how bad things were, your neighbor would be
Speaker 1: looking out for you, you know, the local bobby. He
Speaker 1: would be on a bike or he'd be walking around
Speaker 1: only be keeping an eye on the kids.
Speaker 4: Then if the kids would get up, you know good it.
Speaker 1: Just go on the on the door and tell your
Speaker 1: mother and father the next monue you get a clip
Speaker 1: around here.
Speaker 4: Or when he got in.
Speaker 3: As a young man, like many, he went out clubbing,
Speaker 3: which is where he met his wife, Gainer.
Speaker 1: Back in the ninety early nineties. The club seems massive
Speaker 1: and Liverpool, And.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I met her on a nighthouse.
Speaker 3: And what happened after that?
Speaker 1: You were just yeah, I just fell in love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fell in love. I started having kids. I was a
Speaker 1: young lad and I was just doing well whatever I
Speaker 1: could to put food on the table and build a family,
Speaker 1: you know, build a fire home.
Speaker 4: That just did me best.
Speaker 3: The couple's first child was a boy, and then on
Speaker 3: the tenth of May in nineteen ninety six, their second
Speaker 3: came along, a daughter called Ellie.
Speaker 4: She was never a problem.
Speaker 1: She was always there. Some kids want when the babies
Speaker 1: are to be up all night, the one feeding every
Speaker 1: couple a couple of hours and what left my life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, she was never a bother. We have four
Speaker 1: kids altogether, Connor, Ellie, Lucy and George. It was a great,
Speaker 1: It was a happy house.
Speaker 3: Can you remember Ellie's bedroom when she was a teenager?
Speaker 4: Like what typical typical girl?
Speaker 1: To be honest, if I could help, but never went
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, typical teenagers where you just don't want
Speaker 1: to go in there.
Speaker 4: You just don't know what you're gonna find. So what
Speaker 4: was she into?
Speaker 5: What was she doing on her a Saturday night for
Speaker 5: example when she was a child, or she's in.
Speaker 3: A fifteen sixteen?
Speaker 1: Oh god, I remember the best friend she died a
Speaker 1: hair and I must have seen every color of the
Speaker 1: rainbow at least three times over.
Speaker 4: You'd see them coming now ready to go.
Speaker 1: Out on Friday, Saturday night, whatever, and you'd have different
Speaker 1: colored are of it.
Speaker 3: As an adult, Ellie put that creativity to good use.
Speaker 3: She left school at sixteen to study beauty at college
Speaker 3: and also became a qualified dental nurse.
Speaker 1: She had a little space in one of her friends
Speaker 1: had a beauty salon. She wanted to build this beautician
Speaker 1: side of her life a killer if you like. And
Speaker 1: Monday to Friday she would do the gentle nurse work.
Speaker 1: So that was her bread and butter, if you like.
Speaker 1: So she worked hard. She worked early hard.
Speaker 3: Ellie was a young woman with a bright future ahead
Speaker 3: of her, balancing two careers and close with her family.
Speaker 3: Although Tim and Gainer had now split, Christmas remained a
Speaker 3: full and happy time.
Speaker 1: Because although me and the moment were not together, and
Speaker 1: I hadn't been for a couple of years, but I would
Speaker 1: still make the Christmas dinner and we would all meets
Speaker 1: up and and have Christmas together.
Speaker 3: So can you remember Christmas Eve? And did you see
Speaker 3: Ellie that day?
Speaker 1: We'd been out the day before to Manchester. We've been
Speaker 1: to Christmas markets and shopping and the next day she'd
Speaker 1: bought me a coat for Christmas. And the original plan
Speaker 1: was for her to come to mine and she was
Speaker 1: going to help me wrap the presents for my grandson
Speaker 1: and all the other kids in there.
Speaker 4: And what she didn't.
Speaker 3: Instead of wrapping presents though, Ellie rang her dad and
Speaker 3: said she was going out with her sister Lucy. The
Speaker 3: pair were close and Lucy had made a surprise trip
Speaker 3: back from Dubai for the festive period.
Speaker 1: It could have been so difference if we're just stuck
Speaker 1: to our plan, but girls being the girls, it was
Speaker 1: never going to stick to our plan. She just ended
Speaker 1: up gone out with her friends, which is quite right
Speaker 1: what she should have been do.
Speaker 3: Elly and Lucy headed to a pub called the Lighthouse.
Speaker 3: The pubs in the middle of a small row of
Speaker 3: shops and businesses, surrounded by residential streets and set a
Speaker 3: little back from the road. There's a large beer garden
Speaker 3: out front. Inside it's a big, spacious boozer, the kind
Speaker 3: of place where you can watch sport, playpool, gamble on
Speaker 3: the machines in the corner. Back at home, Tim went
Speaker 3: to bed.
Speaker 1: I don't know what time it was, well three o'clock,
Speaker 1: maybe two o'clock, I don't know. And the eventually he
Speaker 1: banged on my door and got me up out.
Speaker 4: Of bed.
Speaker 6: And he opened the doors me so, and can you
Speaker 6: remember what he said to you? Just said it was early.
Speaker 6: We need to hear the gospel.
Speaker 3: Let's pause a second, because on that Christmas Eve, it's
Speaker 3: the actions of someone Tim had never even heard of
Speaker 3: that would change his life beyond recognition. A few miles
Speaker 3: from the pub, a man puts on dark clothes with
Speaker 3: a hood and gloves. He gets in a stolen Mercedes
Speaker 3: with false license plates. For three hours, he drives to
Speaker 3: six different locations, watching and waiting before finally settling on
Speaker 3: a parking spot near the front of the lighthouse. At
Speaker 3: the same time, Ellie is laughing with friends inside the pub.
Speaker 3: She spots someone across the room and makes her way
Speaker 3: over to give him a hug. At eleven forty seven pm,
Speaker 3: she goes outside for a cigarette in the car park,
Speaker 3: the man waits around the corner, out of sight, wearing
Speaker 3: a mask. He's holding the Scorpion submachine gun loaded with
Speaker 3: twelve bullets. He moves forward until he's only a few
Speaker 3: meters away from Ellie and fires. CCTV caught the attack,
Speaker 3: the man retreats, scrambles into the stolen car, and speeds off.
Speaker 3: Six people have been shot.
Speaker 1: I just remember getting to the hospital. Yeah, as quick
Speaker 1: as it could. It was quite hearing. There was there
Speaker 1: was no one there, and I remember the sage and
Speaker 1: coming down and it's just just.
Speaker 4: It was awful.
Speaker 5: And it was obviously the early hours of the morning
Speaker 5: and Christmas Christmas Day, there's nobody there and there's You're
Speaker 5: with your son and.
Speaker 1: The kids and all the family and the pullers in
Speaker 1: the children's ward, which was crazy. It was I remember,
Speaker 1: I was just angry. There was no patience or kids
Speaker 1: in it, and yeah, I was just very hungry.
Speaker 3: Was it the surgeon in that moment that broke the
Speaker 3: news that Elliot had died? And what was and your
Speaker 3: initial act reaction was anger?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was just ready.
Speaker 4: I was ready to go to war. I was ready
Speaker 4: to flatten the hole of the world, no bother.
Speaker 3: And did you have any idea at that point of
Speaker 3: how she died?
Speaker 4: They knew she'd been shot, but.
Speaker 6: That was it.
Speaker 1: That was the only thing really, I was still as
Speaker 1: I was contained. She was going to turn up at
Speaker 1: the mors. I tried drinking her phone.
Speaker 3: After the moment with the surgery, tried to run a phone.
Speaker 3: What was the purpose of ringing the phone.
Speaker 4: To Speater?
Speaker 3: Did you get a voicemail or a message or just
Speaker 3: for I actually remember seeing Tim on television after Ellie's
Speaker 3: death on Boxing Day, he went to lay flowers on
Speaker 3: the pavement outside the pub. The waiting news cameras zoomed
Speaker 3: in on him as he arrived.
Speaker 7: At the scene where she was killed. Ellie's family came
Speaker 7: to lay flowers for a woman they so deeply loved.
Speaker 7: On what was supposed to be the happiest few days.
Speaker 7: They've undoubtedly been the worst.
Speaker 4: It's a blair to be honest. So much happens.
Speaker 1: I always explain that there's been in an elevator that
Speaker 1: doesn't stop at any floor, just keeps corn up so
Speaker 1: you can never get off. Just so much that goes
Speaker 1: on really quickly to process, and I was protecting the
Speaker 1: family from having to deal with all that, so I
Speaker 1: bore the bruns of all of it.
Speaker 3: Merseyside Police acted quickly.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 8: First of all, I'm going to read a statement on
Speaker 8: behalf of Ellie's family. There was no one as beautiful
Speaker 8: as our Ellie may her looks.
Speaker 3: In a press conference in the week after Ellie's death,
Speaker 3: I watched Tim sitting next to a detective superintendent as
Speaker 3: she read from a statement the family had written.
Speaker 8: Everyone that knew and met el knew how special she was.
Speaker 3: After six people were shot that night, Ellie was only
Speaker 3: one not to survive. Looking back at this now, the
Speaker 3: grief is obvious on Tim's face. From time to time,
Speaker 3: he sniffs and his lip quivers as if he's holding
Speaker 3: back tears. The officer appeals for information.
Speaker 8: They don't deserve to be protected. They belong in prison.
Speaker 8: We know that the answers to this lie within our communities.
Speaker 8: So my appeal to you is please tell us what
Speaker 8: you know and help us get justice for Ellie's family.
Speaker 3: And the public responded. In a week after a murder,
Speaker 3: the police received one hundred and fifty tips and leads
Speaker 3: suggestions of people to look at and over potential evidence. Then,
Speaker 3: after two weeks, on the tenth of January in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, a twenty two year old called Connor Chapman
Speaker 3: was arrested in North Wales. He was spotted in a
Speaker 3: supermarket where he's rushed at to check out and detained
Speaker 3: by plain clothes police officers.
Speaker 1: It's surrendous your coach su pub as a machine gun
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve? Really, come on, this is not a video game.
Speaker 1: This is real life. You go to a fucking put
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve with a machine guns if it was
Speaker 1: someone going over a baseball bat and have a grievance
Speaker 1: with someone, that standard, That happens every weekend. But you
Speaker 1: go somewhere with the machine guns matter when it is
Speaker 1: you going to kill someone. That machine gun is not
Speaker 1: gonna just slightly hate someone. It's gonna kill someone. So
Speaker 1: he would have fuck goes over with that mentality, and
Speaker 1: especially on Christmas Eve, I just did one thing that
Speaker 1: makes me angry. What part of your brain makes that
Speaker 1: think that that's okay.
Speaker 3: Chapman soon found himself in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court.
Speaker 1: The very first day that Charlie walked into the courtroom,
Speaker 1: you obviously be on a piece of glass and all
Speaker 1: that protected. But he decided to give it a bit
Speaker 1: of a show. Bravardo. But you know what, within twenty
Speaker 1: minutes he never looked at me again, because he's just
Speaker 1: a coward.
Speaker 3: The trial lasted sixteen days and after around four hours
Speaker 3: of deliberation, the jury found Chapman guilty of Ellie's murder.
Speaker 3: The judge sentenced him to forty eight years behind bars.
Speaker 9: The murder of Ellie Edwards has caused profound and permanent
Speaker 9: grief to her family and a great shock to.
Speaker 4: The entire community.
Speaker 9: So then it's understood by you, Connor Chapman, as well
Speaker 9: as those who are observing. It means that you will
Speaker 9: have to serve forty eight years in custody before you
Speaker 9: could apply for release. And if you're ever released, and
Speaker 9: considering your dangerousness, that might never happen.
Speaker 3: Just in the last few minutes, this guilty verdict for
Speaker 3: Connor Chapman found guilty of murdering Ellie.
Speaker 10: Edwards, Ellie Edwards's father Tim once again looking directly at
Speaker 10: Connor Chapman as those verdicts were read out to him
Speaker 10: as he stood in the dock.
Speaker 1: The amounts of people involved in this investigation from day one,
Speaker 1: literally from the minute it happened, has been remarkable, and
Speaker 1: they did not give up.
Speaker 4: They were relentless in.
Speaker 1: Achieving the goal, which was to get justice for Early
Speaker 1: and catch the killer. Thankfully now he's got forty eight
Speaker 1: years and hopefully he never sees Christmas again.
Speaker 3: What are your feelings towards I mean, I know you
Speaker 3: said earlier to me before the interview. You know you
Speaker 3: can't even say his name.
Speaker 1: I'll never mention his name. Doesn't deserve the breath out
Speaker 1: of my mouth. So mentioned his name as far as
Speaker 1: I was a piece of shit, And what happened to
Speaker 1: him until his last breath, I couldn't careless.
Speaker 3: So what was Chapman doing that night? Why was he
Speaker 3: spraying bullets into a busy pub beer garden? Will He'd
Speaker 3: actually been targeting two men who Ellie happened to be
Speaker 3: standing near. You see, Chapman was from a place called
Speaker 3: the wood Church Estate, a notorious area not far from
Speaker 3: the pub. The previous day, one of his associates had
Speaker 3: been beaten up by rival gang he was seeking revenge.
Speaker 3: When the case came to court, Chapman said he was
Speaker 3: a quote low level cocaine dealer. The shooting was part
Speaker 3: of an ongoing conflict between rival gangs fighting over territory
Speaker 3: in the area's cocaine trade. The same month that Chapman
Speaker 3: was convicted of murder, July twenty twenty three, on the
Speaker 3: other side of the world, five people were shot within
Speaker 3: five days in Sydney, Australia, two of them killed in
Speaker 3: another tit for tat gang conflict.
Speaker 9: Escalating gang wars in Sydney is leading our bulletom, with
Speaker 9: New South Wales police under pressure to prove they have
Speaker 9: controlled the street.
Speaker 3: That conflict was over a shipment of cocaine that went missing.
Speaker 3: The shipment was said to be worth around one hundred
Speaker 3: million Australian dollars. One of the murdered men was left
Speaker 3: lying on the road.
Speaker 6: School children subjected to the horror on a Canterbury street
Speaker 6: passing the body of.
Speaker 3: A man his death. Like others in that gang war,
Speaker 3: and like Eli's had one thing in common.
Speaker 4: The all is cocaine.
Speaker 3: Mainly that has enormous profits for criminals here in Sydney.
Speaker 3: The cocaine trade one of the most lucrative businesses in
Speaker 3: the world, a business where the global supply is currently
Speaker 3: at record levels, where the profits are counted in millions
Speaker 3: and the loss is measured out in murders. But those
Speaker 3: I just don't care about the human cost. It's only business,
Speaker 3: and right now business is good. Coming up in this series,
Speaker 3: we go inside that multimillion dollar global industry. Very casually.
Speaker 3: The guy says, all right, so if they found this,
Speaker 3: they know about the torture celler and I'm like, torture seller,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about.
Speaker 4: I'm down here in an hot tunnel. We're about eighteen
Speaker 4: meters from the Mexican border, and to be honest, it's
Speaker 4: just quite frightening.
Speaker 11: I raise my hands and I say to my God,
Speaker 11: I forgive the person that give me that. And I
Speaker 11: say to my God, forgive them, and forgive me, because
Speaker 11: in this time I need you so much.
Speaker 4: I think we can arrest our way out of this.
Speaker 3: They are twenty four to seven.
Speaker 10: They are notified by money, greed and ego and that
Speaker 10: drives them.
Speaker 3: It's power, just between you and me, just between you
Speaker 3: and me. Literally, some of the money might be from
Speaker 3: like drugs in the UK.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the cameras.
Speaker 3: It's too dangerous.
Speaker 2: You're worried, it's too dangerous to get out? Are you
Speaker 2: worried about my safety?
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 6: You are, my guest.
Speaker 3: What are these rows about?
Speaker 11: Do you think you know what it's about.
Speaker 3: I don't have to say the word, you know the
Speaker 3: word drugs.
Speaker 4: I'm getting out today. Okay.
Speaker 7: The first time I saw the money, I felt like
Speaker 7: I was in a film.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe how much it was, and I thought,
Speaker 3: what the fuck have I got myself into?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 3: How would you like her to be remembered?
Speaker 1: I'd like it to be remembered for being a good soul,
Speaker 1: good example two women, you know. I thought she would
Speaker 1: never get it to see the grandkids that we may
Speaker 1: have had with Ellie, but just oh, she's always spoke
Speaker 1: about in a good, positive way.
Speaker 3: Since Ellie died, a foundation has been set up in
Speaker 3: her name. It's mission is to raise awareness of gun
Speaker 3: crime and help families affected by it.
Speaker 2: Cocaine Inc. Is a joint investigation from the Times, The
Speaker 2: Sunday Times and News Corps Australia. The reporters are David Collins,
Speaker 2: Stephen Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series is produced
Speaker 2: by Sam Gentratsak. The executive producers are Will Row and
Speaker 2: Dan Box. Audio production and editing is by Jasper Leak,
Speaker 2: with original music by Tom Burchell and If you want
Speaker 2: to get in touch with any questions or thoughts on
Speaker 2: the series, email Cocaine Inc. At The Times dot co
Speaker 2: dot uk.