Undercover Work? – What’s it Like? As an undercover veteran, I was intrigued by this question when I spotted it in a  Quora forum. I was even more intrigued by the first of the answers. That answer is reproduced in full below. It is written by  Tim Dees, a criminal justice technology writer and consultant. His Quora profile adds that he is a retired police officer and criminal justice college professor, now writing on applications of technology in law enforcement and corrections. Dees is therefore an academic now and a popular one at that! His answers on Quora have exceeded 500k in the past 30 days! He is a retired cop from Reno. A lot of what he says below is correct, but I do take issue with… Read More

Try Your Hand at Being an Undercover Cop As an undercover cop what would you do given the following situation? It happened to me in real life and the detail of the encounter will be revealed in full in my forthcoming book.  The chapter will also reveal just what happened and the results. I’ll give you a clue – think out of the box! Undercover cop  police work is dangerous, no more so than when you have infiltrated, like me, close to the top echelons of a major drugs cartel. Possibly one of the largest gangs that ever existed, and the work I did certainly helped result in  one of the largest seizures of drugs by any law enforcement agency anywhere in the world! Here is… Read More

Driving Filipino Style – No Fun No Joke No Common Sense I have previously written here and here about my perspective on driving in the Philippines as a foreigner.  I really thought it was “out of my system” and had fully acclimatized to the “different” way of driving and lack of traffic discipline here. Hell! No! I may have acclimatized to driving about Bacolod, the City of Smiles but on the laughably described national highways you would have to be brain-dead to get used to it! My first two posts on this subject went a little viral (20k + readers on Medium for example), certainly here in the Philippines, and were met in some quarters with criticism. “Who the hell is this foreigner telling us what to… Read More

To Being Completed …… Three cheers and a huge hip hurrah for my sister! She arrived in the Philippines last week suitcase full of my important stuff I had left behind in England. The Holy Bible that Dad bought for us all when we were kids. It must have cost a fortune then back in the day and boy! It’s heavy! Five kilograms in weight! I love that Book, not just because of the Scriptures, but also because it is replete with prints of famous Rembrandts and Reubens paintings depicting Biblical scenes. As you are aware, from my newsletter, I have a “forthcoming book” in the pipeline. It is my story. A true story of a remarkable part of my life as an undercover detective… Read More

This article in the Phuket Wan News describes what has been happening  to sunbeds on the beaches of Phuket ever since the Thai military took over the country in 2014. They have all but disappeared! Essentially the military ordered the clearing of all commercial activities from Thai beaches. But now beach workers in Phuket want their sunbeds back. Things have reached such a state there that a university team of researchers is investigating the problems and plan to devise a solution. Here is what the article has to say about  this Phuket beach madness: ”We need more time,” Dr Pan Thongchumnum of Prince of Songkhla University told Phuketwanyesterday. ”New points are being made as we talk to stakeholders.” ………… However, European tourists usually decide where to go… Read More

Christmas Eve and I was on duty throughout the day. I was a Detective Sergeant in a town in Hampshire, England. Bob was a Detective Constable. We were the only detectives on duty that day working a 10 hour day minimum but on call out through the day and night. Some time that afternoon we were summoned to a house in the town. There had been a burglary, or home invasion as my American colleagues call it. The home owners had been out for a few hours completing their last minute gift shopping. On their return home they found every room ransacked. Items and belongings turned upside down. Naturally they were very upset. Several items of electrical goods had been taken. A TV set, hifi… Read More

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are working with police in Australia, where the remains of a girl were found. Source: Madeleine McCann detectives contact Australia over body find – NY Daily News This is an article by the NY Daily News. An unidentified body of a girl has been found in Australia. Note the word unidentified. Now how can any newspaper run a story linking it to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal in 2007? How must the parents of Madeleine feel? I suspect that they are used to this garbage reporting but it must still hurt. Disgusting! My blog is primarily to write about my expat life here. However in light of my past work experience, I must from time to… Read More

FUNNY BUT TRUE COP STORIES The Duchess Not Getting Enough! Z Cars was a British TV series in the 1960s set in the fictional town of Newtown. It was a highly popular show which led to other spin off shows and a step to Hollywood stardom for Brian Blessed, Fancy Smith in the series. The real Newtown was in fact Kirkby, Liverpool. It was a vast overspill housing project to rehouse families from a heavily bombed Liverpool as part of the post WW2 housing plan. Kirkby Police Station Two of the main characters in Z Cars were Police Constables Fancy Smith and Jock Weir. They drove a Ford Zephyr police car. It bore no police markings but had a siren fitted and a drop down… Read More