If you tax a man once, he can wear it. He may well put it down to experience, an occupational hazard, a necessary evil. However, if you tax him a second time, he will get angry, and it’s human nature that he will seek revenge. This is because a frightened man is a dangerous man. If you tax him twice, he’s going to think to himself, ‘Every time Frenchie is skint, he’s going to take my money.’ You’ll force him into taking some action against you.

Dead money is simply cash that is difficult to retrieve. The best tax is when you get the goods first time – often by surprise. But if you learn of a particularly big stash and you go after it and fail, write it off. Don’t bother going back for it, because you’ll be going into a nest of vipers. Remember, it’s only your greed that won’t allow you to let go. If it’s dead money, it’s likely that you could die in the process of going back for it again.

This seems pretty self-explanatory; however, after you’ve taxed someone, 101 reasons to give the stolen goods back might present themselves. For instance, a gangster you know might also be mates with the victim, and he’ll come lobbying to get the gear back on behalf of his pal. Or the victim or his allies might kidnap one of your gang and hold him for ransom until the goods are restored. Nevertheless, no matter what shit comes your way, you must hold firm, because thems your wages.

I’m not even saying for one minute that you’d do it deliberately. Sometimes it might be done by pure accident. For instance, you might not know when you tax someone that the gear is owned by a mystery third person in the background, who might turn out to be someone you know. Or you might be given some duff info about the ID of your intended victim, and when you attack the feller he turns out to be an associate. If so, you have to make amends. Crossing the line on this one can literally lead to murder, as will be later exemplified in a case study very close to home.

Following a nice touch, the difference between jail and a £15,000 holiday in St Lucia can be as minute as a molecule. Don’t leave any DNA on the victim. And remember, injuries are the most compelling evidence in court.

Don’t prey on criminal organisations bigger than yours. For instance, I once knew a drug baron called Jim, who was head of a powerful crime dynasty. If Jim phoned me up and said, ‘Some nice Charlie there. I’m going to put a ki away for you,’ I’d have to go down and see him, pay him for the gear and do a genuine deal. (Most of the time, the code he used was cars: ‘A lovely ride. You’d love to drive this. Come down and have a look.’) If anyone else rang up and said that to me, I’d simply steal the gear and get off without paying. However, you couldn’t mess with Jim. He and guys like him were so cocksure of themselves. They had so much confidence in their own reputations that they would give out kilos of cocaine or heroin on tick, knowing that they would be paid. If they weren’t, they would just murder the culprit. In the jungle, you won’t see a lion trying to feed on a rhino. D’you get me? As a taxman, you look for an antelope that’s come into the wrong part of the jungle or one who’s come to the waterhole to feed. If you want to be involved in the nefarious world of drug taxing, you’ve got to make sure that you can hold your own.

One day, I might be taxing someone, the next I’d be doing a legitimate drug deal with some proper dealers. But don’t chop and change and confuse one with the other. Get this in your head: if you’re doing a deal, do a deal. Don’t suddenly think, ‘I’m going to tax this person,’ cos you’re getting greedy. People will soon stop doing business with you, and your rep will suffer at the hands of the office politicians.

This is law five in The 48 Laws of Power, one of my favourite books. You’ve got to build your rep as a taxman with fear and violence, and then you’ve got to defend it. What I’m talking about here are the everyday slights made by your co-workers, designed to undermine your power. Everyone will understand what I mean when I say, ‘Gossip is the Devil’s Radio.’

If you crumble on the job, the lads will laugh at you. They’ll say things like, ‘Go and get the piece of wood out of that skip and strap it to your back. Get some backbone, lad, if you want to get involved with the graft.’ There was a rice mill near the docks, and they’d say, ‘If your arse is going to go, go and get a job in the rice mill and hump bags, don’t sell drugs.’ My fear was always under control, but I watched many fall by the wayside by lacking a good pair of town halls.

The reason why I was always taxing white geezers was because I didn’t really know any white people, and this made them practical, risk-free targets. (See the taxation code of conduct, rule 4.) Sure, it also made it easier for me to make them suffer, as I didn’t trust any white geezers in the first place – I was brought up not to like Johnnys, as in John Bull the Englishman. However, later in life, my opinion changed. I never really had much time for white people until I met a white guy called Franny Bennett, who was a mate of the Rock Star’s. And another white guy called Whacker, a really sharp young lad who was also a friend of the Rock Star’s, had an effect on me, too. I really liked him. Unfortunately, he never realised that, because he was scared of me.