Product Description

"Grafters" deals with true crime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #272920 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 308 pages

From the Back Cover
Colin Blaney made small time crime big business. Growing up in Manchester in an Irish Catholic family, he set out on a mission - to burn his way through a world of easy money, scams and good times.
As a child he burgled warehouses and factories before joining Manchester United's Red Army, a hooligan mob rampaging across the country, stealing as he went. As an adult he learned to dip with pickpocket gangs, sell dope, and sneak-thieve from shop tills with his own gang of criminals, without a care for the law.
Europe offered the greatest lure, where serious money could be made, or stolen. From their base in Amsterdam, Blaney's gang, the Wide Awake Firm, spread across the continent, doing anything and everything to make some easy money. From stealing Rolex watches in Switzerland, to selling Ecstasy in Spain, to using dodgy credit cards in Belgium, they enjoyed a prolific twenty-year crime spree that fuelled their hell-raiser lifestyles.
Blaney and his gang served time in half the jails in Europe, bided their time, and then went back for more. They simply didn't care. They were on a riotuous,
non-stop, rollercoaster ride - until they finally came off the tracks. They never saw that the end was in sight, because as any grafter will tell you:
Some people live for the day, a grafter lives for the minute.

About the Author
Colin Blaney made small time crime big business. Growing up in Manchester in an Irish Catholic family, he set out on a mission - to burn his way through a world of easy money, scams and good times.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
BANG AT IT. That's what we were, for more than twenty years. We hit every town and village in Northern Europe, and plenty of others beyond. We did tills, sneaks, jewellery, watches, hi-fis and stereos, furs and Capo di Monti china and designer clothes. I once read a book about the Italian who pulled off the Knightsbridge safe deposit job, the biggest of its kind. When he got home with the swag he filled his bath with wads of £50 notes, bags of pure coke and all the gold and diamonds, the jackpot. Well, the amount we had in those twenty years I'd never be able to fit into any bath I've ever seen; it would have to be a twin jacuzzi. I swear if you went into Watches of Switzerland and bought every Rolex it would not match the amount we had off.
And it all started in a rundown Manchester slum called Collyhurst.

Customer Reviews

easy pickings in europe
Great book,it shows either how naive the europeans were or what a horrible bunch us brits are or were.

The book also goes into detail about the start of the football hooligan,life growing up in an inner city with the ravages of poverty & drugs.

For myself who unfortunately have spent some of my life in foreign prisons i can relate to it but for someone who hasnt it is a real eye opener(my girlfriend read it & was horrified.

I started the book on a long haul flight & had almost finished it when coming in to land so i would say it is a fantastic read.

BUY IT YOU WONT BE DISAPPOINTED

spectacular read!
I like to read true crime books in my spare time, I am a Home Office employee and deal with issues in the book! I really enjoyed this book and could not put it down, it genuinely is the best book I have ever read. I do hope the Author writes some more. The author paint some priceless pictures, any one who enjoys their crime books just order it!

Raffles Goes to Lidl
Blaney has written a book about his meaningless life of petty theft. He spends the meagre gains on drink and drugs.
The tone suggests derring-do but there is little of that. Blaney admits that the best places to steal money were in supermarkets. The best targets ? Harried young mothers. Sweet.
There's no thought to the harm that's done by taking money/valuables from the poor or those on holiday, Blaney needs that money to drink and buy drugs: what fools we have all been.
Hilariously, later he claims his firm were running like a military operation, before revaling that the military operation spent all day (they did get up early, mind) getting drunk and smoking high strength marijuana. And then mugging and pickpocketing people.
It's also suggested that these snide weasels were somehow 'professional'. Not very professional if you spend 2/3 of your life in jail, is it ?
It goes on like this. He steals. He gets drunk/takes drugs. He has sex with prostitutes. He gets arrested.
I won't spoil the ending for those thrilled by such a squalid, risible existence but suffice to say that he does not end up as a billionaire living on a yacht.