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The informant

we were first tipped off about Ted Ming's activities months before the eventual arrests.  The first attempt to raid a premises, seize narcotics and make arrests was named 'operation flogger' and followed Moby Pett (then Detective Sergeant) receiving information  from an informant (dealt with at 'flogger').

Police sergeant Edward Coggy Gibbons was passed the information and asked to liaise with the informant.  By the time the search of the suspects premises was conducted, everyone had gone.  There were no drugs and no evidence except for some torn pieces of paper.  The suggestion, given the speed with which people had left and the lack of evidence left behind, was that someone had tipped them off.  The suspicion was that the tip-off came from within the narcotics office.

The torn pieces of paper found at the location were subsequently passed to me and these, when reconstructed, read in a straightforward fashion; they dealt with the funds / cocaine being handled by each of our suspects.  Ted Ming was referred to as 'nail' (extra long finger nail) and all of the transactions detailed in the papers were in $10,000 quantities.  The suspects were handling 100's of thousands of dollars.

It was not until some months had elapsed that we were to be given further information and surveillance and observations commenced.  The case is dealt with on this site under MIRANDA.  

There was much debate about the informant within the office; who had tipped us off?  As arrests were made and we began speaking with people such as Angela Trappasso, it was evident the US side of the investigation was particularly concerned about the demise of their highly profitable drug-dealing network in Bermuda.

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