Gangster

The Great Train Robber fugitive faces a stark choice: depression, debt and death in Rio ... or surrender to the UK justice system. Twenty-five years ago, Britain Most Wanted septuagenarian ceremoniously flew home on a private jet chartered by The Sun newspaper, after 35 years on the run. Some celebrated him as a hero, others demanded he live the rest of his days in Belmarsh Prison. As the series c...

Buy your ticket for ‘The Ronnie Biggs Experience’. For fifty dollars you will be entitled to Brazilian barbecue, a few beers, and an intimate audience with an international celebrity fugitive. Branded T-Shirts are available upon request. Live music may be provided by the Sex Pistols or, otherwise, a pop band of adorable children. Warning: the risk of a kidnap attempt occurring within the duration...

Welcome to Rio in 1970. Home to the most beautiful football team the world has ever known. Home to a brutal military dictatorship. And, now, home of the last Great Train Robber at large. The Ronnie Biggs rollercoaster is about to crank up for another wild ride that takes in a Scotland Yard sting, samba, teenage pregnancy, the tabloid scoop of the decade, and an accidental legal loophole that defie...

What price freedom? And why should you never wear crocodile shoes when you’re on the run?! While the rest of the Great Train Robbery gang are serving thirty-year sentences, the runaways are enjoying the delights of mid-sixties Paris and Las Vegas. But the life of an outlaw is not all about cabaret clubs, Frank Sinatra residencies, and sweet freedom … painful plastic surgery and familial misery is...

This episode contains reference to self harm. We’re in Wandsworth Prison, where the lights never go out. And where freedom for Ronnie Biggs might only be a chess game or a rope climb away … Meanwhile - outside the jail walls - the British establishment is shaking under the weight of working-class anger, the Profumo affair, the Swinging Sixties, and a media frenzy at the severe sentences handed dow...

In 1963, a small-time South London carpenter joins the biggest robbery in British history for one reason - he knows a retired train driver who is semi-competent. And yet Ronnie Biggs will, for the next fifty years, be far more famous than the man who planned it, the rest of the gang who pulled it off, the train driver who was so brutally attacked, or the Scotland Yard detectives who solved the cas...

How did a small-time carpenter with a minor and fumbled role in a 1963 violent heist become Britain’s most famous fugitive and - for many - an unlikely folk hero? From gangland tea boy to Brazilian playboy, this series recounts the controversial rollercoaster life of Ronnie Biggs in his own words, through previously unheard recordings. Actor Daniel Mays, who portrayed the Great Train Robber in a m...

It’s the 1990s and Wo Shing Wo gangsters think they’re untouchable. Georgie Pai is fighting yet another deportation order after being caught in the UK again. He’s granted bail on the condition that he reports weekly to a local police station. Meanwhile, a team of television journalists set up a sting in Manchester, aiming to expose how the Triads operate. The broadcast is devastating, a huge ‘loss...

A video war is raging across Britain’s Chinatowns, fuelled by a booming market for Hong Kong films and soaps, copied and rented out for huge profit. In Manchester, Wo Shing Wo quickly seizes control, establishing a near-monopoly on the lucrative video rental trade. But where money flows, so does violence. In Glasgow, restaurant owner Philip Wong is brutally murdered by contract killers wielding ma...

By the 1980s, Georgie Pai has been arrested in Glastonbury for overstaying a tourist visa, found guilty of terrorising Chinese communities in Southampton, and deported back to Hong Kong. But borders are no barrier for a man with the right connections. He slips back into Britain and continues to expand his empire. Manchester becomes his nerve centre as police begin building a database of suspected...

Two Hong Kong nationals are arrested in Southampton after guns are found in a vehicle. One of them speaks to police, revealing that a flourishing protection racket is operating right under their noses. He also provides the name of their gang leader – Georgie Pai. Hampshire Constabulary sets up a Triad squad but quickly encounters a wall of silence. The terrified community fears not only for themse...

From the neon-lit Chinatowns of Britain to the back streets of Hong Kong, we learn why the Triads were feared by so many. The secret societies were formed hundreds of years ago as resistance movements but morphed into organised crime. Triad membership has long been outlawed in Hong Kong, but for decades they were a powerful and insidious force. Their influence stretched across continents, with the...

In 1970s Britain, Chinese-heritage migrants worked long hours in restaurants and takeaways to build their new lives. But as the diaspora established itself, the gangs they thought they’d left behind in Hong Kong began to follow, quietly feeding off the very people they claimed to protect. Back in Hong Kong, Georgie Pai was already a senior member of Wo Shing Wo, one of the most feared Triad societ...

From the back alleys of Hong Kong to the neon-lit Chinatowns of Britain, Georgie Pai built a nationwide criminal empire through his Triad gang Wo Shing Wo. With a network of protection rackets, gambling dens and an army of loyal followers, he controlled his turf with threats, violence and machetes. Gangster steps inside the world of the Triads. A brotherhood bound by secret handshakes and elaborat...

Amy and Joe had been planning a future together, outside — but now they’re stuck behind bars, facing the consequences of their actions. In this final episode, host Amber Haque unpicks how their story ends - and finds there’s still love, but also loss. And for Amy, the question that lingers - was any of it ever real? Credits Host: Amber Haque Producer: Becca Bryers Sound design: Ivor Manley Story a...

Amy knows this is the final run - just one more package of drugs to smuggle in, one more drop-off before Joe walks free and maybe they can leave crime behind. But this time, someone is watching. Will the couple stay loyal to each other, as a wider conspiracy begins to unravel? Credits Host: Amber Haque Producer: Becca Bryers Sound design: Ivor Manley Executive producer: Joe Kent A BBC Studios prod...

Highly-addictive, relatively cheap and easy to smuggle, Spice is running rampage through Britain’s prisons. And Spice is the reason Amy finds Joe zombie-like in his cell, eyes rolled back in his head. The reason, he’s in debt with other prisoners. The reason he’s asking her to smuggle something in for him. Again. Credits Host: Amber Haque Producer: Becca Bryers Sound design: Andy Fell Executive pr...

Smuggle one package of drugs into prison for her boyfriend Joe and he’ll be able to pay off his debts. That’s what Amy needs to do and then she can concentrate on planning their future together, or so she thinks. It’s not long till he’ll be released and then they can have the proper relationship she dreams of. Joe insists the smuggling is just a one-off, but will Amy do what he's asking? Credits H...

Amy is risking it all for a relationship with career criminal Joe - but who is the boy from Bradford she’s falling in love with. Host Amber Haque delves deep into his past and jumps down the rabbit hole of #prisontok as she attempts to make sense of the illicit affair and who’s really in control. Credits Host: Amber Haque Producer: Becca Bryers Sound design: Andy Fell Executive producer: Joe Kent...

The last thing mental health nurse Amy expected to encounter when she took a job at Lindholme prison was someone offering romance. Then she met Joe - cheeky, brimming with charisma and a career criminal. But surely she knows better than to listen to his relentless attempts to charm her…. Credits Host: Amber Haque Producer: Becca Bryers Sound design: Ivor Manley Executive producer: Joe Kent A BBC S...

The story of the biggest prison smuggling plot ever busted in the UK - and the love story at the heart of it. Journalist Amber Haque untangles what happens when mental health nurse Amy Hatfield meets convicted criminal Joe Whittingham. Her investigation leads into a world of blackmail and manipulation, where you never quite know who to trust or who's watching. Credits Host: Amber Haque Producer: B...

Linda spends the next 18 years behind bars with some of the UK's most notorious female killers. She shares stories of a life inside, a shock prison wedding and returning back to reality and a life on the straight and narrow. With her criminal past behind her, Linda reflects on the effect of her crimes both on the victims, and on her two children left to grow up without their parents. Credits Prese...

After being released from prison, Linda's living the quiet life catching up on lost time with her two kids. Trouble soon finds her again as Ronnie Cook's sentence also comes to an end. When Linda brings Ronnie home for a visit, the couple are confronted by a hitman and Linda's small kitchen is turned into a brutal murder scene. But as police begin to question Linda, they discover that the 'The Bla...

A partial fingerprint at the scene of a violent robbery puts the flying squad on Linda's trail. While they watch, she continues to live the high life funding by a spate of terrifying armed raids. A team of officers recall the day they caught Linda red handed at yet another Post Office heist, and when Linda finds herself at the wrong end of the barrel of a gun, she knows her time is up. But her tim...

Linda discovers Ronnie's dark side as he lets slip a shocking secret about the day Mickey died. She can't leave Ronnie, because he's too dangerous. But luckily for Linda, the police solve that problem for her - catching Ronnie red handed trying to pull off a million pound heist. With Ronnie out of the way, Linda begins her mission to become an armed robber in an underworld ruled by men. Credits Pr...