The Firm

Power can build an empire — but chaos can destroy it.

In Episode 6 of The Krays Web, the Kray organisation expands across London, but behind the scenes, cracks are beginning to show.

With Ronnie increasingly volatile and Reggie trying to regain control, the twins’ empire grows through fraud, intimidation, and ambition — but at a dangerous cost.

In this episode:
• Ronnie’s reckless behaviour and its impact on the business
• The intimidation of landlord Peter Rachman
• The takeover of Esmeralda’s Barn and its rapid success
• Credit scams, fraud schemes, and “long firm” cons
• The rebuilding of “The Firm” with new recruits
• Expansion into clubs, protection rackets, and wider operations
• Early moves toward international crime and smuggling

Why it matters:
This is the Krays at their peak — and the beginning of their instability. As their power spreads, so does the risk, setting the stage for the violence that will ultimately bring them down.

Follow the show for more deep-dive episodes into the truth behind the Kray twins.

Next episode: We look at a different side of the Krays, as they hobnob with the rich and famous – Seeing Stars

Links to Resources

Check out my website for resources used and social media links : thekraysweb.com

Contact me : wendyceepods@gmail.com

Music by Captain Fat Hands captainfathands.com

Transcript

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Wendy Cee 0:24

Welcome to the Krays Web, a podcast about the infamous Kray twins and those associated with them. I'm your host, Wendy Cee, and this is season one, The Krays, episode six, The Firm. Please note that there is some swearing in this podcast and descriptions of violence. I'll be adding specific trigger warnings where needed. The voices that you hear throughout the podcast are all my family and friends who have rallied around to help me to make this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to. I've used lots of sources when writing these episodes, far too many to list here, but details of which you'll be able to find on my website, thecrazeweb.com. It took mere months for Ronnie to destroy everything that Charlie and Reggie had built up. His reputation spread quickly, meaning that doors that had recently opened were swiftly closed again, and people that were working with the craze started to pull away. And Ronnie's spending was out of control. He was bankrupting the businesses. The regal closed down and the profits from the double R and the gambling club plummeted. Ronnie would bully people into giving him money to help fund his activities and his lifestyle. He would get loans that he never repaid, or would pawn jewellery and then go back later and demand the item back. Everyone was scared of Ronnie, and nobody would say no. Ronnie was a liability, and when Reggie got locked up in Wandsworth prison for eighteen months for getting caught over a protection racket that the twins were involved in with a man called Daniel Shay, Ronnie was back in charge. With Ronnie running the ship, the double R lost money and he grew his private army and armory. He was still convinced that the way to a good life was taking over London using violence. Nothing else mattered except the little wars. The colonel was convinced that he would soon rule London through the rattle of machine guns and the blood of rivals flowing in the streets. And then Ronnie met Peter Rackman, and things changed. Peter Rackman was a landlord owning many properties in the west of London, but not content to just charge and collect rents like normal landlords. He would extort unreasonably high rents from his tenants and threaten them if they didn't pay. Peter was rich, was driven in nice cars, through extravagant parties, and was a ladies' man. Ronnie wanted to meet him, but Peter knew of Ronnie's reputation and wanted to stay well clear of Ronnie Kray. But Ronnie had a secret weapon. Dickie Morgan, one of the men who he absconded from the army with, worked for Peter Rackman. Ronnie found out where Peter's next party was going to be and turned up at the club with trusted members of the firm all dressed in dinner jackets. They sat at a table facing Peter and his friends and just stared at Peter. No drinking, no speaking, just silence, and a fixed gaze on Peter. Unnerved, Peter tried to leave. As he went downstairs he ran into a few of the firm. Once the noise of the interaction stopped, Dickie Morgan approached Ronnie and with a big smile on his face whispered into his ear. Ronnie nodded, stood up, pushed his chair back, straightened his jacket, and made his way downstairs. Outside a Rolls Royce was waiting. Ronnie told the man holding the door open for him to take him to Valance Road, which the man duly did. The man who held the door open and drove Ronnie to Valance Road that night was Peter Rackman. Whatever the firm had said or done to Peter Rackman as he tried to leave the club had worked. Ronnie finally had his meeting with Peter. When they arrived at Valance Road, Ronnie introduced Peter to his mother Violet. He then took Peter upstairs to his boardroom, a bedroom that had been turned into Ronnie's personal sitting room. As Violet provided tea and biscuits, Ronnie spelled out what he wanted from Peter. Five thousand pounds immediately. And if Peter didn't agree, the firm would be out in the Notting Hill area every night until Peter's rent enforcers were all off the streets. To put this in context, five thousand pounds then would be around one hundred and fifty thousand pounds or just over two hundred thousand US dollars today, and Ronnie wanted payment immediately. Even the most successful gangsters would likely have struggled to have this amount of cash available there and then, and all that Peter could muster up was two hundred and fifty pounds in cash and a check for a further thousand pounds. Ronnie accepted this for now, and they parted on amicable terms. The next morning the thousand pound check bounced, and Ronnie, enraged, grabbed a Luger pistol from his personal collection and went hunting for Peter. But Peter was nowhere to be found. He had completely vanished. Ronnie was furious. He didn't like to be made a fool of, and his revenge started immediately. Peter's rent collectors were beaten up one by one, and his business empire started to crumble. He had messed with the wrong person, and Ronnie wasn't into playing games. Peter needed this to stop, and to stop now. But he knew that Ronnie would just demand more and more, so he needed to offer him the right deal to back off. Stefan DeFay headed towards the Royal Albert Hall. It was a mild, dry autumn evening. The leaves shone golden on the trees, the air was cold but not bitter, but he was shivering a little. Not from the cold air, but due to nerves. He was off to meet a retired naval commander at a nearby address to discuss the future of his club, and this one meeting was going to change his life forever. Stefan was as honest as the day was long, he was smart and had enough money for a comfortable living. In his younger years he had written a book called Profitable Bar Management, and had recently acquired control of an up and coming gaming club in London. He had tried so hard to keep the acquisition quiet. He didn't need any trouble, and he knew that protection rackets would swoop as soon as they were aware. But the news had been leaked. There had been threats, and now Stefan was off to meet with this retired naval commander who he knew was the frontman for some of the most notorious figures in the underworld. And he knew that if he refused to meet, the threats would increase. After double checking the address, Stefan took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. An elderly man with false teeth and a beaming smile answered the door and beckoned him in. They made their way into the living room where Stefan was introduced to Leslie Payne, who turned to the other two men in the room and said And these are the Kray twins, Reginald and Ronald.

Leslie Payne 7:23

You'll find them very useful friends to have.

Wendy Cee 7:26

Ronnie and Reggie, who had not been long released from prison awaiting an appeal, said nothing. They just sat silently smoking their cigarettes. As the commander left the room, Leslie Payne began talking. He told Stefan everything the twins knew about his club, his financial situation, and his business structure. And then he offered him a thousand pounds for his share of the business. Stefan's request of what happens if I say no was met with silence, though he decided to take the money. And that is how Ronnie and Reggie Kray acquired Esmeralda's Barn, and how Leslie Payne became a key person in the Kray's rise to power. And giving him Esmeralda's Bonn is how Peter Rackman repaid Ronnie Kray. The club was successful, it continued to run just as before. It made the twins money without extortion or illegal ways. In fact, it would make them about forty thousand pounds a year, which is around one point two million pounds or just over one point six million dollars today. And for that, they had to do nothing other than keep it running exactly as it was, turn up in their dinner jackets, greet people, be polite, and keep their noses clean. The manager who also owned a share in the club was not happy. He didn't like or trust Ronnie and Reggie, and he didn't want to be involved with these gangsters. The success, however, was short lived. Reggie lost his appeal and went back to prison for a further six months, and Ronnie, well he wasn't happy with earning money in a perfectly legal, nonviolent way, and he was soon bored. So he found new ways to fleece people. He would give credit to everyone and anyone, knowing that when they couldn't repay a debt, they would owe him as he had done them a favour. With checks bouncing all over the place, the manager of the club spoke to Ronnie and explained that they couldn't afford these losses. But Ronnie wasn't listening, he wasn't going to be told what to do. Cutting his losses, the manager quit. He couldn't continue to work with Ronnie. He moved a few streets away, set up another club, took a lot of the rich patrons with him. In his new club, the checks stopped bouncing. The twins didn't care. With the manager gone, they were getting more of the profits, so they got in a new manager who had no vested interest in the business and no say over credit. Ronnie despised the rich. He hated everything about them, especially the way they looked down at those in the lower classes, and therefore he hated most of the clientele at Esmeralda's barn. Ronnie would leverage power over those that owed the club money. The way he saw it was that they all personally owed him favours for the credit lines he had given them, and he would call them in whenever he felt like it. These men weren't the serious gamblers as they had moved away with the old manager. They were posh rich boys who had money to burn, probably from their inheritance. And Ronnie was needling his way into their world, and he started to like the lifestyle, his access to the magnificent homes, the extravagant dinners, and their introductions to celebrities. He started to dress even snappier than before, more expensive overcoats, sharper suits, and heavier gold jewellery. He moved out of the East End and leased a beautiful top floor apartment in Chelsea and the West End, which he acquired in lieu of a gambling debt. The apartment came fully furnished with everything, from crockery and cutlery to furniture, pictures, and even the previous occupant's boyfriend. Ronnie could certainly get used to this. He loved the notoriety. There was something about being a known gangster in such an affluent area of London, and he played up to his image. At his core he was a showman, and while sometimes he would play the intimidating gangster, other times he just loved being the centre of attention. Reggie was released from Wandsworth, but just eight weeks later he was in trouble again along with Ronnie and their elder brother Charlie. Reggie was charged with breaking into a house which fell apart in court when the witness was unable to identify him. Ronnie and Charlie were accused of intent to commit a felony as they were allegedly seen walking down the street trying car door handles. Ronnie was sick of the police picking on them and thought the charges were absurd. Did the police not understand who they were and how much money they had? Why would they lower themselves to steal from parked cars? Ronnie hired a private detective who found eight witnesses to verify his alibi. He went to the papers and ensured stories about them being victimized were picked up. The charges were dismissed in court, and Ronnie threw a huge press party at Esmeralda's barn to celebrate. He made sure all the press knew that these hard working East End men were being persecuted by the police. The resulting headlines meant it would be a brave policeman that would approach the craze in the future. The pictures from that night of the twins show them both grinning from ear to ear, and not long afterwards they appeared on the BBC. With Reggie out of prison, he turned his mind back to the growing businesses, and with new energy and ideas he started to make headway. He smartened himself up, started to make serious plans for the future, and met with new acquaintances. And everything was going really well until Ronnie's old jealousy came back. Reggie was boring, Reggie wasn't doing what Ronnie wanted. Reggie was getting distracted by women, Reggie was wet, and Ronnie's destructive streak kicked in. One night him and Reggie had a huge argument in Esmeralda's barn, and Ronnie left and spent the night at an old caravan on a bomb site near Valance Road that he would sometimes use. The next day he woke up and arranged for all of his belongings to be collected from the flat in Chelsea. His life in the West End was over. He wasn't interested in Esmeralda's barn anymore. He still dreamed money, but he would spend his days planning weird and wonderful new business ventures. Depending on his mood on the day, Ronnie's ideas would flip. He would go from wanting to hunt treasure buried by mercenaries in the jungle in the Congo, to setting up an English branch of Murder Incorporated, to religious ponderings where he once announced that he was done with possessions, money and hurting people, and he was going to leave to work in a leper colony. John Dixon, Ronnie's driver, speaks about an opportunity in Tangiers in his book. These quotes have not aged well, and for that reason some of the words that John used have been updated.

John Dickson 14:07

The general idea was that he, the American that they were meeting, would go to Tangiers to have a meeting with three important Africans from the Congo. They would part with a large sum of money as a down payment to the firm to supply men and arms needed in order to get a high-ranking official freed from detention. The American then opened his briefcase and showed us various sketches of the different types of armory they required. And he said very convincingly that he could pull off a big con and earn a lot of money. All he wanted to do was use the firm's name and take a cut of the down payment.

Wendy Cee 14:46

John goes on to say that the American was a good talker, but there was no way Ronnie trusted him to go to Tangiers alone, and told him that John would be accompanying him. And John did accompany the American to Tangiers, where John believes he managed to con the African gentleman that he met, but decided to pretend like nothing happened when he got home, because he knew Ronnie would go mad if he said anything.

John Dickson 15:08

Well, said Reggie, how did you get on? Did that American get any money? I had to tell him that nothing had been handed over, and he was never out of my sight. Are you sure? They said. Yes, I replied. Nothing was handed over. Reggie started shouting. I told you that fucking American was no good. He had never done a good deal for us yet. I don't know why the fuck you trust him. It was now my turn to be nervous. If they ever found out that the American was on his own for a few hours, things would be very bad for me. But that was the end, as far as I was concerned. The big con that never came off. Whether or not the American completed the con, we never found out.

Wendy Cee 15:54

As well as crazy business ideas, Ronnie was on a holistic journey personally and visited a Claire Voyant, who told him in his previous reincarnations, he had been both a Tiller the Hun and a samurai warrior, and that he would achieve greatness through violence and then die young. Ronnie spent a few weeks living in that old caravan on the bomb site in Valance Road before renting a luxury flat in Walthamstow. His decor was Moroccan inspired with a Cockney influence. During a recent trip to North Africa he had purchased rugs, silk hangings, brass trays, and leather craft. Then in the living room there was a completely different vibe with a large screen TV, a range of large brightly coloured vases, gilt framed mirrors, and meter long plaster statue of an Alsatian and an oil painting of a naked boy in a gold Victorian frame. He was ready to start again. The colonel began to build his army from scratch. This time he was more picky, of course, he could amass a huge number of people very quickly, but he wanted to select the right people to surround himself with. And this time he wasn't just looking at East Enders or even Londoners. Amongst others there was Ian Barry and Scotch Jack Dixon, former Glaswegian safe blowers. Another Scot, Big Pat Connolly, so called because he weighed eighteen stone and was a force to be reckoned with, was already in the firm. John Dixon remembers not long after arriving in London from Scotland, having met Ronnie briefly in a pub, being summoned by Ronnie to another pub with Ian Barry. Ronnie asked them if they knew any villains in Scotland, which they didn't, and he wanted to know what they did for a living.

John Dickson 17:37

I work for an Irish family, I told him. They have a place in Stoke, Newington, and I do a lot of driving for them. They are very good to us. Ian works at window cleaning and sometimes does a bit of work on their cars for them. It suits us because they let us live there and they don't take any dig money from us. That all sounds fucking boring, Ronnie said. How would you both like to be with the firm? We stared at him in amazement. This was the last thing we expected.

Wendy Cee 18:08

Once the pair got over their shock, Ian asked what they would be doing.

John Dickson 18:12

Just what you're doing now, Ronnie replied. Drinking and going with me wherever I have to go. I need men who can handle themselves. We have a lot of interests in clubs all over London, and sometimes we run into a bit of bother. You both look like you can handle a bit of aggro. Things were starting to look interesting, so we agreed.

Wendy Cee 18:35

Ian quickly became Ronnie's right-hand man, and John became Ronnie's driver. John went with Reggie to pick up two brand new cars that have just arrived from Canada. The manager of the showroom greeted Reggie at the door.

John Dickson 18:47

Hello, Reggie. What can I do for you? I've been told that you two have new cars from Canada, Reggie answered. That's right, the man replied. But they are sold. They're being picked up tomorrow. Too fucking bad, said Reggie. We want them and we want them now. It's about time you did us a favour. You've done nothing for us for a long time. The man was starting to look worried. They have cost me a lot of money, he complained. If you take them, I will be out of pocket. Can't you take one of the cars that are on the front? No, snapped Reggie. I want the ones I came for.

Wendy Cee 19:25

And Reggie took that poor man into the office and shut the door. There was a heated exchange and then Reggie appeared with two sets of car keys, and the new Canadian cars went back to Valence Road with them.

John Dickson 19:36

Ronnie was waiting for them, and after inspecting them said to John, You'd better keep the one you're driving and take me and Ian round in it. I thought to myself, Great, a brand new car just to drive him about in. But from that moment on, I was like doctor on call, twenty four hours a day. For although Ronnie had picked Ian as his right hand man of the moment, Ian could not drive.

Wendy Cee 20:00

Neither car lasted long. Reggie wrapped the first one round a lamppost within a few days of getting it after drinking too much, and the other one succumbed to the same fate just a few weeks later. John and Ian were in, and they were in deep. It was too late to change their minds now. They were part of the firm, and there was no escape. And then there was Albert Donahue, who had had his fair share of runnings with the twins in the past. In fact, he'd been shot in the leg by Reggie Kray, which had left him in plaster for weeks, but he hadn't run when faced with Reggie with a gun, and the twins admired him for that and put him on a pension until he was fit, and that was it. He was now in the firm.

Albert Donahue 20:39

When my leg was out of plaster and fully recovered, I took my place among the chaps. Soon got to know the firm's exact strength. At the top, of course, were the three crays. I soon became known as Reggie's man, Big Elbert. Whenever he wanted a henchman, bodyguard, or just company, I'd go with him. Then there was Scotch Ian Barry. He was known as Ronnie's man. Then both Ian and I were partnered off again. My partner was Ronnie Arp, a distant cousin of the twins. Ian's partner was Scotch Jack Dixon. Then we had a few loose muscle guys like Ronnie Bender and Big Tommy Brown. We were all thugs with scarcely an education and only some of us had any common sense. Consequently, there had to be an executive side to the organization, consisting of little Tommy Cowley, and above all, a very bright, educated and funny man called Leslie Payne, who, to my regret, fell out of favour at the court of the twins not long after I joined.

Wendy Cee 21:37

Everyone in the firm were given legitimate jobs from minders to managers of the clubs, but they were all on call for Ronnie and Reggie whenever they were needed. They were earning money, ruling the East End, and Ronnie was back. And he was using violence and intimidation to get them what they wanted.

Albert Donahue 21:54

The firm was run a bit like uh conventional business. Every morning at nine o'clock we used to have a meeting at Valence. Road to discuss what we were going to do for the rest of the day. Who to visit, who to use, who to take, who was going to drive. And when we would pick up all these friends and put them to work.

Wendy Cee 22:11

In his book, The Brotherhood, the craze manager Leslie Plain, describes the type of frauds that the firm did.

Leslie Payne 22:17

The aim of crime as a business is to acquire wealth. There are broadly two ways of doing this. By taking it without the owner's consent, or by persuading him to part with it voluntarily, even if afterwards he does not want you to keep it. The first kind accounts for what most people think of as crime, the violent robbery or the safe blowing. But though this is spectacular, it is a self-limiting business. It cannot be disguised.

Wendy Cee 22:40

It was the second way that the Krays concentrated on the cons and the frauds. The way that for all intents and purposes just looked like normal business operations, but the behind the scenes the con was in progress.

Leslie Payne 22:53

It would usually be impossible, even for an omniscient observer, to tell that such a crime had been committed until long after the event, when the criminals' intentions have become apparent.

Wendy Cee 23:02

And there were loads of different ways to defraud companies. There was long firm fraud. According to Thames Valley Police, the definition is This is when criminals hijack or set up an apparently legitimate business to defraud both its suppliers and customers. They're happy to deal in any goods or services with a market value, preferably if they're untraceable and easily disposable, such as electrical goods, toys, wine, spirits, and confectionery. An example of long firm fraud. Your business has a relationship with a company that has a good reputation and credit history. The company places lots of small orders with you, paying promptly. You trust this company as a supplier. The company changes its activity though, and makes much larger orders with you. You supply your goods, but the company disappears without paying and sells the goods on. So basically stealing goods and never paying for them. There were frauds involving dodgy cars.

Leslie Payne 24:00

The idea here was to go to Europe and buy, say, a 1950 Mercedes for £200. It would be driven with care to England and re-registered. The new logbook had £1959 stamped on it. On paper, this was a brand new car worth £2,000. Some obliging friend then agreed to buy this motor on higher purchase. The finance company saw the papers and trustingly sent the owner £2,000 cash and hired it to the ostensible buyer. Naturally, he only made a few instalment payments, depending on how many other transactions were going on with the same hire purchase company, and then lost interest. By the time the higher purchase company discovered that the hire wasn't going to pay any more instalments, he was long gone. The car often physically cut up and thrown away.

Wendy Cee 24:43

This would leave the importer with a profit, and that wasn't the only fraud that involved cars. There were crushed cars.

Leslie Payne 24:50

There was nothing to show that the hirer hadn't had a nasty accident after he'd bought them. And this offered the bonus of claiming the whole value from the insurance company.

Wendy Cee 24:58

Of course, there was only so long that the garages could get away with these types of fraud, as the finance and insurance companies would know their names. But fear not, there was always a way around that.

Leslie Payne 25:09

Then there was business for new faces, or at least new names. People the finance companies hadn't met before, who would open up a car site and sell cars for other less respectable dealers. Each time someone signed the papers, he earned £25 to £50.

Wendy Cee 25:24

And then there was the intimidation.

Leslie Payne 25:26

A couple of the gang's men were going to one of the hundreds of little drinking and gambling clubs in cellars around the centre and the east end of London and start a quarrel. This was enough to upset the patrons, who just wanted a quiet evening. The proprietor could see that if it happened again he would lose his custom, so he would ring the gang and explain. They would sympathize and promise to look after it, and he would give them fifty pounds to mark his appreciation. Thereafter, he would contribute weekly according to his means.

Wendy Cee 25:53

And different sized businesses would be taxed differently, and if people refused to engage with the weekly protection fees, the gangs would send some of their toughest looking members to sit in the clubs a few times a week, to intimidate the patrons, forcibly dancing with their wives and girlfriends, and generally acting in a threatening manner. This would soon mean that people stayed away from that particular club. Leslie Payne talks about the first fraud that he became involved in with the craze. It was 1960.

Leslie Payne 26:23

A one-time associate of mine came to me and said that the owner of a supermarket had got into trouble and wanted to hand the firm over. This was a long firm fraud that had been milked too hard at the beginning, and whose owner was now losing his nerve. He said the supermarket was a few thousand behind and wanted to hand over seventy-five percent of the profits and the aggravation at the end.

Wendy Cee 26:43

The associate knew the craze, and with Leslie's help, the twins agreed that a nominee of theirs would be appointed as a director to the board. The director's transfer forms were all signed, and after a couple of months the fraud was done and dusted. Reggie and Leslie went to visit the owner and he was delighted it was over. And then Leslie said to the owner.

Leslie Payne 27:07

I forgot to register them. This meant he was still legally responsible for the fraud.

Wendy Cee 27:12

The man proceeded to throw himself on the floor and have a proper toddler tantrum, kicking, shouting, and writhing about. Leslie asked the man if he could perform that on a whim, to which the man replied that he could.

Leslie Payne 27:24

So I suggested that he voluntarily entered a mental institution in order to avoid prosecution, because the law hates having nuts in the dock. So he did. And in fact, he wasn't prosecuted, though the fraud was squarely down to him.

Wendy Cee 27:36

The Kraysr got a kick out of their first encounter with Leslie and wanted to do it all over again. They knew of a long firm in Brixton that was nearly cleaned out, and the owner had asked the twins to find a mug to take it over. Ronnie and Reggie wanted Leslie to be that mug. They could then relieve the owner of the business and take the rest of the profits. The owner thought that he was fobbing Leslie off with the business, whereas in reality, they were conning the con. And of course, when the fraud was discovered, it went back to the original owner, and while he never got arrested, he did have a lot of grief with the fraud squad.

Leslie Payne 28:11

The goods bought on credit in Brixton were sold through another cray long firm in the East. The gang made a lot of money in Brixton, and the success of this fraud pumped life into the organization, and turned it from a loose collection of villains into a continuing criminal creature that was larger and more powerful than its components.

Wendy Cee 28:30

After these two long frauds with Leslie, the Krays ramped up their business interest in this, and it became a routine part of their empire. As we know, the Krays also like to get involved in clubs, and Leslie helped them with this too. They started in the billiard club, the Regal. Then they had the Double R, and with Leslie's help they had tamed Esmeralda's barn. And then there was the Kentucky Club. Even though it was packed every night, its licence was refused, so it closed just nine months later.

Leslie Payne 29:05

Not all their club ventures failed, however. They shared in the profits from a flat in Hartford Street, where gambling was conducted on the most lavish scale. The brothers also had the Greater X Club in Stepney, the Cambridge Rooms on the Kingston Bypass, Le Monde, and El Morocco.

Wendy Cee 29:21

They acquired El Morocco in an unconventional way. Well I guess they acquired them all in unconventional ways, actually. The Krays were accused of demanding money and Hugh McCowan's share of the club with menaces. They were acquitted of these charges, but then Hugh's business partner went into business with the Krays. And then there were the weekly pensions or fees for protection money that the twins' firm collected from a third to a half of all the gaming clubs in London. Still not satisfied and having milked what they could from the UK, Ronnie and Reggie started to look at options overseas. There were many more propositions overseas and law enforcement didn't speak to each other, so it made operations a lot easier. The Krays became involved in smuggling and selling securities.

Leslie Payne 30:20

The Krays and I would sit formally around a table at one end of the room, calling out the henchmen one at a time to give an account of their enterprises. It was a nervous moment. Everyone was stealing, and Ronnie and Reggie were likely to give discovered offenders a beating. That was a beating. A manager comes to the table and says, Last week we took £800. We pay bills £520. We pay wages £80. And here is the balance, £200. Putting it on the table in cash. As long as it was roughly £200 week after week, month after month, you weren't too worried if they'd had a bit for themselves. By the end of the morning, there might be two thousand pounds on the table. This would represent the profit from three long firms, four clubs, a thousand pounds worth of stolen property sold for five hundred pounds. This was all cash.

Wendy Cee 31:06

A thousand pounds in the early 1960s is the equivalent of around £30,000 today, or just over 40,000 US dollars.

Leslie Payne 31:15

On Monday evenings there was a meeting for all the muscle in some pub. The idea was to make sure no one had been nicked or run away, to discuss any new ideas over a gin and to make a show of power.

Wendy Cee 31:25

The craze had more money than they knew what to do with.

Leslie Payne 31:28

Reggie paid a deposit on a houseboat and then forgot about it. Ronnie bought a racehorse and gold wristwatches and cigarette cases for his boyfriends.

Wendy Cee 31:37

But they were never happy. There was always something new and shiny to chase after, and Ronnie's volatile temper was always just below the surface. Thank you for listening to The Krays Web. This was episode six, The Firm. Next week in episode seven, Seeing Stars, I will be discussing the Krays relationship with the famous and the infamous. Finally, I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has helped me to put this podcast together. Please check out the show notes and my website for more information on the books and reference material that I used for my research. Until next time, stay safe.