They can be very intimidating and are very good at getting at witnesses, which is why the police find it very difficult to build cases, and they’re extremely good drug dealers, so it’s a recipe for success as an underworld crime family”. Ripping off the state But a listening device was planted inside, and for three years Soca investigators eavesdropped and recorded hundreds of hours of conversations. Shaun Smith, who grew up in Kirkdale, served out a prison sentence after he was linked by police to a handgun. It started in Liverpool, and it’s still mainly controlled in Liverpool—but it has hooks in Amsterdam, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, South America… all the usual suspect countries. I interviewed the Amsterdam police, and the first thing they told me is that they investigate everyone—Triads, Eastern European gangs, and the Italian and Russian Mafias—but they roll their eyes when you mention the "scousers" because they're the ones they have to deal with constantly. Her 40-year-old son Jason (above, left) was in charge of transport; her other son, Ian (above, right), aged 39, was in charge of logistics. Place of safety

They used false passports to travel, booked flights they never caught, and paid for with cloned cards. Trips to Turkey were via circuitous routes.

Graham Johnson: The police I spoke to said it’s like a global corporation with hundreds—possibly thousands—of employees in a rigid hierarchy. It’s got hundreds of millions, possibly billions of pounds if you count the asset values of the businesses they own and the drugs they trade. It was founded in 1973, and it’s still going strong now after 40 years. A lot of this is the social history of the city, with drug gangs becoming more and more powerful over recent decades. Journalist and author Graham Johnson is Mr Smith's business partner and has been leading the negotiations. Crime writer Graham Johnson, who studied the family, told Channel 4 News: “The Fitzgibbon crime family have been major players in organised crime for 30 or 40 years, and one of the reasons they’ve stayed at the top of their game is because they use extreme violence when necessary to protect their interests.

She was the so-called company secretary. She laundered the money and advised on how to avoid detection. The Fitzgibbons stayed at the top of their game because they use extreme violence to protect their interests. Graham Johnson, crime writer When I started writing books about organised crime in Liverpool in 2003 it was very much a cult audience – now it’s mainstream." Receive newsletters with the latest news, sport and what's on updates from the Liverpool ECHO by signing up here Read More Related Articles

year-old Christine Fitzgibbon (above, centre) is the matriarchal head of a Merseyside family whose drug connections extended round the globe. Liverpool's courts are some of the busiest in the UK, with a huge variety of cases being heard each week. Mr Smith says he is now involved in advanced stage negotiations with production companies and agents who are interested in dramatising his life story.