British Cocaine Dealers Lived the “James Bond Lifestyle”

It’s hard to believe, but the flashy, trashy lifestyle of 80s cocaine dealers lived on in Britain until recently, when police broke up a high-flying drug smuggling gang that took their style cues from James Bond. Timothy Eastgate and Paul Flisher, the gang leaders, did their best to simulate that 007 cool, driving around in Ferraris, jetting off to Spain’s Costa del Sol for breaks, and cruising around in a yacht named “Shaken not Stirred.” (We’re still not clear on the difference). Clearly, the James Bond bit took on the trappings of an obsession among the coke-obsessed gang: The BBC reported that soon Eastgate and Flisher were sporting cell phones with “007” as the last digits, and adding Lamborghinis to the mix. But all was not fun and games, of course: When police raided Eastgate’s home in Norfolk, they found a handgun with silencer, and a sawed-off shotgun. Also in the home was an X-ray machine for testing the vulnerability of packages of cocaine before shipment. Police discovered a spreadsheet on a USB stick containing records of over £3 million worth of cocaine transactions.