Drug godfather’s criminal career ‘more colorful than any other’

Tommy “Top Cat” Comerford went from port truck driver to international drug supplier

A crime godfather who rose from a dockside lorry driver to one of the first to set up an international drug network, Tommy Comerford flaunted his wealth at boxing dinners and the Grand National. Tommy Comerford, known as Tacker and Top Cat, was one of the first Liverpool men to recognise the international criminal opportunities that access to the docks could bring.

Born in 1933, Comerford grew up in Vauxhall during and after the Second World War. He started out as a lorry driver before becoming involved in one of the city’s most famous bank robberies. After his release from prison, he gave up robbery and became involved in drug dealing, forming the ‘Liverpool Mafia’, a group that used corrupt port officials and was protected by corrupt police.

In the 80s, he was not only one of the biggest criminals in the city, but also in the UK, leading an extravagant lifestyle thanks to his drug empire that spanned the globe. His lifestyle did not go unnoticed, however, with several investigations leading to him serving more than 30 years in prison.

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Comerford died aged 70 in 2003 after a battle with liver cancer. As part of a weekly series exploring the area’s criminal history, the ECHO has looked back at Comerford’s life, from growing up in the city’s north to expanding his business via drug-smuggling routes that stretched from South America to Asia.

A contemporary of Comerford’s told the ECHO that he began his criminal career as a lorry driver at the docks. They previously said: “Tommy used his position as a lorry driver to take risks. He would move goods and earn a few quid. But Tommy usually only came after others had organised the theft.”

There were also rumours that Comerford and his associates were involved in ousting the Krays from Liverpool in the 1960s when the twins were trying to expand. However, Comerford’s expansion from petty crime to more serious involvement came in 1969 with the Water Street bank robbery that went down in Liverpool folklore.

Like a scene from a classic British crime film, a gang of thugs from the North Side spent the August 1969 Bank Holiday weekend digging a tunnel into a bank. The experienced crew then used thermal lances to break open a safe, making off with more than £160,000. The crew might well have made off with the staggering haul had it not been for an exceptionally lucky stroke of luck.

It transpired that the police, lawyers and members of the underworld used to watch boxing matches at the Adelphi. One evening one of the most famous criminal QCs of his day spoke to a Detective Inspector and offered him a cigarette from a very smart looking suitcase. The Detective Inspector recognised the suitcase as a stolen bank suitcase. The QC had been given it as a present by his client Comerford.’

In December 1970, Comerford was convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years in prison. The judge sentencing him told him: “You were involved in a robbery of a bank in the heart of this city, so successful that over £140,000 in cash and over £20,000 in property was stolen.

“The bulk of it is still missing. This was top-level, professional, organized crime, carried out with the most modern, sophisticated equipment with all the planning and precision of a commando raid.” The court did not determine exactly what role Comerford played in the bank robbery.

After his release from prison a few years later, Comerford gave up the robbery and became involved in drug trafficking. He recruited a gang of four dock workers to collect a shipment of cannabis from North Africa. However, the Merseyside Drugs Squad and customs discovered the plot, cordoned off the port and arrested Comerford and his team.

Comerford called a daily “press conference” for reporters during each day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court. When asked what sentence he thought was likely, he said: “I’ve spoken to the judge and told him I absolutely will not accept a community service order.” He was jailed for seven years, but his sentence was reduced to four years on appeal.

After his release, Comerford continued to build international contacts. He was also a flamboyant presence on the city’s party circuit. Dressed in expensive suits and with an expensive watch on his wrist, he was a regular at boxing dinners and the Grand National, where he would casually display his wads of cash.

Despite his busy social life and penchant for expensive foreign holidays, he presented a different story to the local council and the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) office. He was allocated a council flat in Belle Vale and received regular benefits. At one point he even managed to secure a grant to renovate the flat.

At the same time he lived in an expensive bungalow in Gateacre and flew to New York with his wife on a luxury cruise costing nearly £5,000. However, this lifestyle attracted attention and Comerford and his cronies were placed under heavy police surveillance.

After a motorcycle chase, one of Comerford’s dealers was arrested and, given the choice of rotting in jail or turning informant, he decided to cooperate with the authorities. As part of an operation codenamed ‘Eagle’, the dealer led police to a telephone directory listing for ‘The Hawk’. The address was Comerford Town Hall in Lee Vale Road.

It then transpired that Comerford had been using the apartment as a drug-dealing headquarters, with the rent of £27 a week paid by the DHSS. Incredibly, it transpired that Comerford had been using the apartment to supply large quantities of drugs to American soldiers in West Germany.

The dealer told police that his boss was about to fly from Stuttgart to Heathrow Airport. After walking through “nothing to declare,” he and an accomplice were arrested and found with a suitcase containing half a kilo of heroin. Behind the facade of an unemployed middle-aged man was a flamboyant criminal in constant search of the good life.

Comerford was sentenced to the maximum term of 14 years and as he was led to the cells he told the judge: “Merry Christmas, your honour.” After his release Comerford fell back into crime and was arrested again in connection with a drugs bust in which almost 10kg of cocaine hydrochloride worth £800,000 was stolen.

Customs officers who seized the loot followed the trail from Ecuador to Felixstowe and on to Birmingham. Undercover customs officers managed to contact Comerford and arranged to meet him at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Birmingham. During the operation, in which officers posed as drug dealers, Comerford was arrested. In November 1996, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In April 2003, five months before his death, he was arrested after police stopped and searched a car he was travelling in with a group of friends. A stash of heroin, with a street value of £10,000, was found in a container under one of the seats. He was charged with intent to supply, but died before the case was concluded.

A month after his death, police recovered £25,000 seized from his home following his arrest in March 2003. However, this was disputed by relatives who requested the money be returned

After his death, the late barrister and former ECHO columnist Rex Makin, who defended Comerford, said: “He was the most charming criminal I have ever known. His career as a criminal on Merseyside was more colourful than any other in the last half century.”

Around the same time as Comerford’s prison sentence in the mid-80s, notorious drug trafficker Curtis Warren, who would later become Interpol’s “Target One”, was expanding his own empire. Peter Walsh, a leading true crime writer who would later co-write Warren’s biography, previously told the ECHO: “In a way, it started with Comerford and continued with Warren.”