Their cocaine was the best in the City, their delivery times unparalleled and their customer relations attentive and deferential. It was no wonder they called themselves the Top Gear gang.
Clients ranged from lawyers and traders to insurers and recruitment specialists – almost 10,000 of them, all expecting high-end service and mind-blowing quality.
Everyone who was anyone in the Square Mile knew the number of the Top Gear phone line – also called City Gear. It had been operating under the police radar since 2014, shifting millions of pounds worth of Class A drugs to well-off customers.
Detectives say the men behind the operation provided a middle class service to a largely middle class clientele – until it came crashing down thanks to an ingenious investigation by the City of London police.
The mild-mannered and bookish head of the Top Gear gang, 57-year-old antiques trader Nathan Samuels, has now been jailed for nine years at Inner London Crown Court.
Four of his fast delivery couriers – including a black cabbie – received prison sentences ranging from two years suspended to four years and three months in jail. All had pleaded guilty to a string of cocaine supplying offences. Last week, Samuels’ son, Matthew, 33, was imprisoned for three and a half years for his part in the operation.
‘We’d never seen anything like it – it was the longest-running and one of the biggest drug lines the City had ever known,’ says lead Detective Constable Matt Cooper from the force’s Serious Organised Crime team. ‘It sold 80 per cent pure cocaine – when the norm was about 50 per cent – and promised to get drugs to customers in less than 30 minutes. And if a client complained about a slow delivery, they’d receive an apology.’
Meticulously compiled ledgers seized by the police when the gang members were arrested in 2023 showed that in any given week they were selling up to £16,400 worth of cocaine, almost exclusively in the City.
Antiques trader Nathan Samuels, 57, was the head of the operation and was sentenced to nine years in prison
56-year-old Michael Redgrave, left, and Gary Miller, 36, right, worked as couriers and delivered cocaine to customers
In any given week the gang was selling up to £16,400 worth of cocaine, almost exclusively in the City of London
At the head of the operation was the most unlikely of crime bosses – a man with no criminal record at all. Nathan Samuels, a father of four and grandfather of two, lived in an £800-a month four storey council house in Cornwall Road, a stone’s throw from Waterloo Station, and had an interest in London books and artwork.
He had a business selling antiques, jewellery and watches, and owned a company – Samsite Ltd – which specialised in renting spaces outside train stations and subletting them to fast food takeaway trucks.
These included sites outside Waterloo and Southwark stations which were brought to their knees during the Covid pandemic as customers dwindled to almost nothing – and police believe this downturn could have focused Samuels’ attention on the drugs business.
City police’s investigation ran from March 2022 to October 2023 and during that period detectives established that the key phones in the operation had been in use since 2014. But such devices – whose contacts are a list ready-made drugs businesses – can change hands for large sums of money. It is thought Samuels’ Covid difficulties could have driven him to buying one.
‘He ran the business like a taxi cab office,’ says Detective Sergeant Darren Norman, who oversaw the case. ‘They called their wraps of cocaine “tickets”, so a customer would ring or message the Top Gear line and tell Samuels they wanted so many tickets delivered to a particular location or postcode. Samuels was able to track all his couriers using their phones, and would choose the nearest one to the customer. That’s why it was so fast.’
Because the cocaine was so pure, it was only sold in half-gram wraps at one for £50, two for £90, three for £140 and five for £200. Couriers, who were paid £300 a day plus bonuses for good sales, were encouraged to be customer-friendly and smart. As added perks, any congestion charge fees, parking tickets and car hire expenses were covered.
Samuels would hire up to six couriers a day, each expected to make between 50 and 75 sales. Deliveries took place from 10am to midnight.
One of the couriers, Michael Redgrave, 56, who lived on the same street as Samuels, used his black cab to make deliveries. A cabbie for 23 years, he told police he was making up to £500 a day from his taxi business, and a further £300 for drug drop-offs. A father of four and grandfather of one, detectives say he used some of the money to take his family on lavish holidays. He was also the proud owner of a purebred British bulldog.
43-year-old Aaron Bretao, left, and Martin Gupta, 35, right, both pleaded guilty. Police say Gupta had been overheard boasting to friends that he was making up to £3,000 a week
33-year-old Matthew Samuels, left, and Josh Atherton, 24, were also members of the ‘Top Gear’ operation. Matthew was jailed for three and a half years
The gang kept detailed ledgers of their accounts, which showed the extent of their crimes
Police also intercepted encrypted messages, which contained details of the thousands of customers the gang supplied
‘During 30 years as a police officer, I’ve never come across a London cabbie we’ve caught dealing drugs,’ says DS Norman. ‘They’re usually honest individuals who take pride in all the work they’ve put in to do The Knowledge. But he made the decision to deliver drugs – and it was almost the perfect crime. Nobody would think twice about a person getting into a cab, being driven off and then getting out farther down the road with cocaine in their pocket.’
The Top Gear operation began to unravel when, in February 2022, another courier, Gary Miller, 36, from Islington, was caught making a cocaine delivery. As detectives examined his phone records, they were able to begin a huge and meticulous cross-referencing operation that led to customers, fellow couriers – and, eventually, to gang boss Samuels.
The investigation was groundbreaking because police were able to close down the most sophisticated cocaine operation on their patch – and elicit guilty pleas – without carrying out any large-scale seizures. In fact, the drugs they found were almost exclusively recovered from customers during the arrests of couriers who had just delivered to them.
The cross-referencing of calls and delivery locations enabled the police to begin making arrests without having to catch the couriers in possession of drugs.
Samuels’ son Matthew, a personal trainer and father of one, also a director of Samsite Ltd, was arrested with no drugs on him. Unlike the other gang members, he did not reply ‘no comment’ to every question during interview. Instead, he made risible excuses to Detectives Cooper and Norman.
‘We asked why there were so many references on his phone to “Charlie”, which is slang for cocaine, and “Henry”, short for Henry VIII – which, in drugs circles, refers to an eighth of an ounce of cannabis, which he had a sideline selling,’ says DS Norman. ‘He insisted that Charlie and Henry were friends of his. And he kept that up right up until court when he changed his plea to guilty for supplying cannabis.’ He pleaded not guilty to the cocaine charges, but was later found guilty.
Also found with no drugs – but entering guilty pleas – were couriers Aaron Bretao, 43, from Clerkenwell, and Martin Gupta, 35, from Barnet. They were arrested in May 2023.
Gupta, who had previous convictions for actual bodily harm, assault, and being drunk and disorderly, was caught empty-handed but he had been witnessed making two drug deals before his arrest. Driving a moped, delivering drugs had been his full-time job for around three years.
Police say he had been overheard boasting to friends that he was making up to £3,000 a week. He spent much of it on holidays to destinations such as Cape Verde and Morocco with his wife and stepdaughter.
After the arrests of Miller (who was given 45 months in prison at an earlier hearing), Gupta and Bretao, Nathan Samuels feared the police would be coming for him next and handed over three drug phones for safekeeping to another gang member, Josh Atherton, 24, a former carpenter. But detectives had already linked him to the operation.
When they raided his home in Hemingford Road, Islington, two days after detaining Gupta, Atherton had none of the vital phones on him – but DS Norman found them during a search of nearby gardens.
‘He had thrown them there, but once DS Norman had sniffed them out, you could say the net had closed on Samuels,’ says DC Cooper. ‘Two of those phones had numbers used for the Top Gear drug lines – and inside those handsets we found the contact details of more than 9,700 customers.’
Police also recovered ledgers at Atherton’s home detailing the gang’s incomings and outgoings. They reinforced the case against Nathan Samuels.
Samuels and son were arrested simultaneously a week later, on July 12 2023. Again, no drugs were found, yet guilty pleas were forthcoming because of the airtight nature of the communications evidence against them.
‘Nathan Samuels wasn’t like Pablo Escobar, sitting on piles of coke,’ says DS Norman. ‘We found no drugs at all. He was calm and mild-mannered. But after the arrests of the other gang members, he had probably been expecting us.’
Officers did not discover the source of the Top Gear gang’s supply of drugs, but it may not be a coincidence that Nathan’s nephew, Harry Hicks-Samuels, 28, was jailed in November 2022 for conspiracy to import cocaine.
He had been caught as a result of a National Crime Agency operation after French police cracked a secret messaging system called EncroChat which had been widely used by international criminals who wrongly thought its sophisticated encryption was foolproof.
Again, it may not be a coincidence that Hicks-Samuels, like his uncle, ran a business selling watches, an enterprise that turned out to be a front for his cocaine operation.
No Top Gear customers have faced criminal charges, but all those caught after buying drugs in the moments before the couriers were arrested were given cautions for possession. Their evidence helped bring down the organised crime group.
However, the top 2,000 most prolific customers were subsequently given a jolt as strong as anything the Top Gear gang ever sold them. They were sent a text message by the City of London police that would have had hearts racing.
‘Significant police activity has highlighted that this number has been used to contact the “City Gear” drug line, a number involved in the supply of Class A drugs,’ it read. ‘Drug misuse can affect your employment. Drug possession is still illegal and can lead to your arrest. Convictions for drug misuse can affect your right to travel to certain countries.’
It then advised them to seek help at the City and Hackney Recovery Service provided by Turning Point – helpfully including the drug charity’s website, www.turning-point.co.uk/services/city-hackney.
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