IT’S a story of drugs and a gangmaster on the banks of the Mersey – not a present-day one, but a true story from the early 1900s.

And it’s told in the new book Empire of Crime: Organised Crime in the British Empire, by Tim Newark – which has been described as “Agatha Christie meets The Godfather”.

Crime historian and author Newark – the author of Lucky Luciano and The Mafia at War – documents the rise and fall of Won Tip, who recruited Chinese crewmen for Liverpool shipping companies and put them up in his boarding houses.

And it was in the basements of these boarding houses in Birkenhead and Liverpool that Tip built furnaces for the production of opium.

The following is an extract from the book . . .

Won Tip first sailed into Liverpool around 1897, working as a fireman on a steamer ship, keeping the boiler loaded with coal. It was a tough, horrible job and, as soon as he could, he decided to stay in England.

From 1904, he served in a shop selling groceries to the Chinese immigrant population in Birkenhead. He was 32, ambitious and hard-working and soon took over the management of the shop, plus a boarding house nearby.

Won Tip specialised in recruiting Chinese crewmen for Liverpool shipping companies, putting them up at his boarding house and he was so successful that he opened up a second lodging house for Chinese sailors.

In 1907 Won Tip moved from Birkenhead to Liverpool where he managed a Chinese grocery store and boarding house at 1 Pitt Street. He then opened a second boarding house at 14 Pitt Street. Later, around 1916, he sold his grocery business and boarding houses in Pitt Street and opened a new boarding house at 6 Upper Surrey Street (which no longer exists), where he stayed until he moved abroad.

Whether it was the influence of alcohol or the necessity of handling tough people in a tough community, Won Tip started to fall out with the law in 1907. On several occasions, he was arrested for threatening behaviour and grievous bodily harm, but on almost all occasions he was discharged.

In 1915, he was convicted for helping his wife give false information on one of their boarding houses. Facing three months hard labour and a recommendation for deportation, he appealed against the conviction and had it quashed. Just two months later, he was arrested for threatening to kill someone, but again got off. He appeared to have a surprising ability to avoid punishment.

Up to 1915, Won Tip had told the authorities he came from China, but with the threat of deportation hanging over him, he changed his family history to say he came from Hong Kong and so qualified as a British subject.

As with many Chinese living in England, he had made a lucrative sideline out of processing opium for his fellow Asian smokers. Until the Defence of the Realm Act in 1916, this had not been illegal and was carried on quite openly by the Chinese communities in Liverpool and London. Won Tip had built three furnaces and had Chinese men busy producing opium in small six ounce copper tins that could be hermetically-sealed – the purpose being that they could be thrown into the sea if needs be and later retrieved.

It was at this stage that Chief Inspector H. Burgess of the Liverpool City Police became involved.