The deeper Neil Woods plunged into his undercover policing job, the more he came to rely on espionage tradecraft. Neil’s day job in the ‘90s involved befriending illicit drug users and then gaining the trust of Britain’s most violent drug-dealing gangs.
“I thought I was going to die on several occasions,” Neil Woods told the True Spies podcast. “I look back now and try to count them, and it seems difficult to even count how many times I came close to death.”
Woods worked the streets for 14 years and helped fill prisons with drug dealers - putting people away for a cumulative total of 1,000 years - yet late in his career, Woods had an epiphany. He’d never likely win the war on drugs, neither would Britain. But there was another way he might make a huge difference.
Neil Woods: a life of heroin, drug dealers, and violence
Neil grew up in a quiet town in Derbyshire, central England, where he spotted an ad for police officers in the local newspaper and thought the job sounded adventurous.
“It was a great shock,” he recalled. “I soon realized that some people still just want to punch you no matter what you say.” A senior officer saw potential in Neil and taught him how to play to his strengths. He had a talent for coaxing confessions out of hardened criminals. Neil could read body language and spot when someone was lying. Soon he was promoted to detective and later joined the Drug Squad (DS) as heroin flooded into Britain from Central Asia.
“The Drug Squad, at the time, they were the rock stars,” he said. “They were cool. They were the mysterious people and it was the squad that all of the detectives wanted to get onto.”
Neil took part in surveillance and other operations. One day, he was asked to go out, knock on a suspected drug dealer’s door, and buy crack cocaine. He came back with a little paper twist of crack. No fuss. No problem. His colleagues were impressed. Neil had made it look as easy as buying a newspaper. “So it was a great reception but the thing is,” Neil said, “that day then defined the next 14 years of my life.
Listen to Neil Woods’ True Spies podcast: Drug Wars
The deeper Neil Woods plunged into his undercover policing job, the more he came to rely on espionage tradecraft. Neil’s day job in the ‘90s involved befriending illicit drug users and then gaining the trust of Britain’s most violent drug-dealing gangs.
“I thought I was going to die on several occasions,” Neil Woods told the True Spies podcast. “I look back now and try to count them, and it seems difficult to even count how many times I came close to death.”
Woods worked the streets for 14 years and helped fill prisons with drug dealers - putting people away for a cumulative total of 1,000 years - yet late in his career, Woods had an epiphany. He’d never likely win the war on drugs, neither would Britain. But there was another way he might make a huge difference.
Neil Woods: a life of heroin, drug dealers, and violence
Neil grew up in a quiet town in Derbyshire, central England, where he spotted an ad for police officers in the local newspaper and thought the job sounded adventurous.
“It was a great shock,” he recalled. “I soon realized that some people still just want to punch you no matter what you say.” A senior officer saw potential in Neil and taught him how to play to his strengths. He had a talent for coaxing confessions out of hardened criminals. Neil could read body language and spot when someone was lying. Soon he was promoted to detective and later joined the Drug Squad (DS) as heroin flooded into Britain from Central Asia.
“The Drug Squad, at the time, they were the rock stars,” he said. “They were cool. They were the mysterious people and it was the squad that all of the detectives wanted to get onto.”
Neil took part in surveillance and other operations. One day, he was asked to go out, knock on a suspected drug dealer’s door, and buy crack cocaine. He came back with a little paper twist of crack. No fuss. No problem. His colleagues were impressed. Neil had made it look as easy as buying a newspaper. “So it was a great reception but the thing is,” Neil said, “that day then defined the next 14 years of my life.
Listen to Neil Woods’ True Spies podcast: Drug Wars
Within a year, Neil was traveling around the country, developing a reputation for undercover operations and building his cover as a heavy drug user. He wore a tracksuit and Nike Air Max trainers - the uniform of British thieves - and found dressing the part opened doors. Smelling the part was equally effective, so Neil got completely into character with greasy hair and dirty clothes.
Neil Woods
For each operation, he had a different backstory and a friendly, unobtrusive name. In one operation he was Paul ‘Cookie’ Cookson. “Everyone likes cookies, don't they?” he explained.
Despite the approachable names and disguises, Neil thought he was going to die on more than one occasion. One day, Neil walked up to a familiar house to buy heroin and was greeted with a samurai sword held to his throat. “And he's looking down at me, his face is blood red, and the saliva is flowing out of him as he's shouting to me: ‘You’re DS. I know you are. You’re squad. You’re squad,’” Neil recalled. “And at that moment, I thought: ‘This is how I die.’”
But then, Neil heard a woman inside laughing. And then the couple were both laughing. “They were winding me up or maybe just wanted to try out his new sword. I don't know but, joking or not, it made it very clear to me that day that this work might get me killed.”
One of the toughest parts of the job was going home to his wife, and later two young children, who had no idea the danger Neil faced every day at work. “Some weeks when I've been mingling with gangsters and buying heroin, watching people inject heroin or whatever had happened that week. And then I just felt like I needed to stare into space or just lie back and shake a little bit, but of course, you can't do that with young children. You have to pay attention to them, so sometimes that was very difficult.”
Organized crime developed in parallel to Neil’s drug work. With every passing year, Neil was feeling the pressure. He started suffering quite heavily from stress - mentally as well as physically.
Nottinghamshire Police in Old Market Square
The last straw
The last straw came at the end of an operation in Nottingham. One of the small-time criminals Neil used to get to the gangsters was arrested. The man was so distraught he was put on suicide watch, believing he’d been betrayed by his only friend. Neil knew he’d emotionally manipulated a contact to the point where the man wanted to die. It hit Neil like a ton of bricks. He resigned.
Neil was trying to live a normal life again. The streets of Britain were far from normal, however. He was asked once again to go undercover. This time, the gang was called the Burger Bar Boys, one of the most infamous mobs in the country. They used beatings, stabbings, and shootings as a method of control and intimidation. It was a case that would change Neil’s entire life, including his approach to policing and his plan to tackle the war on drugs. Find out how Neil Woods approached the Burger Bar Boys in the True Spies podcast: Drug Wars.
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Neil Woods is an ex-police undercover drugs operative and an expert on drug crimes, investigation, and entertainment. Neil uses his extraordinary experiences to teach corporations how to cultivate thriving, healthy, and efficient work environments. He can be contacted via SPYEX.
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