To his criminal allies and rivals, John Haase was a fearsome gangland villain with international links dubbed "the real-life scarface" by a Turkish crook he worked with.
But in 1995, Haase was also secretly considered a "supergrass" by the police and Customs officials, who believed they had an informant of the highest quality.
Haase, then of Anfield, and his nephew, Paul Bennett, had been swept up when an international heroin racket responsible for smuggling at least 60kg of Turkish heroin was dismantled. Things looked bleak for the life-long criminal when he was handed an 18 year jail sentence as a result of that conviction.
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But the two men managed to turn the tables on their captors with one of the most extraordinary and cunning criminal conspiracies ever seen in the British legal system. While they were serving time on remand awaiting sentence for the heroin charges, Haase and Bennett hatched a plot that would seen their 18 year sentence whittled down to just 11 months.
After a piquing the interest of customs officers, the two men began drip-feeding their handlers with the locations of an "awesome array" of guns, explosives, ammunition, stolen property and drugs.
The crooks gave up the locations of guns stashed in unoccupied flats and in unlocked vehicles across the country, told their handlers were blocks of heroin were stashed, and even claimed a Turkish drug lord was plotting to murder a customs officer.
The only problem was every weapons dump the pair exposed had, in reality, been planted by their criminal allies on the outside, in a wide-ranging conspiracy arranged with mobile phones smuggled into prison.
By all accounts, even when the police began to express suspicion about some of the "finds", Haase's Customs and Excise "handler" remained convinced their assistance was genuine.
One notorious "tip-off" involved an associate planting an array of weapons in a car which Haase and Bennett claimed were linked to the IRA. To lend the scam plausibility, an associate had travelled to Ireland and collected matchbooks and other items and left them in the vehicle.
In 1996, the very judge who had sent them down for 18 years, His Honour David Lynch, wrote a secret letter to Michael Howard, the then Tory Home Secretary, recommending the granting of Royal Prerogatives of Mercy. Judge Lynch said he had been influenced by Customs officer Paul Cook, who said: "It is highly unlikely that they would revert to a life of crime upon their release."
Howard agreed, and their sentences were slashed to five years – which meant when time-served on remand was taken into account the men were free within 11 months of Howard's approval.
Haase did not remain free for long. In 1999, while the boss of a supposed Liverpool security firm, he was arrested for drug trafficking and later sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 2004, then Walton MP, Peter Kilfoyle, visited Haase in prison and persuaded him to make a sworn statement in which he admitted planting the guns.
That statement led to an investigation, launched by Scotland Yard, dubbed Operation Ainstable. Haase was charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice, as was Bennett after he was extradited from Portugal.
The pair stood trial in 2008, when a court heard their "tip offs" had been responsible for the seizure of an "awesome array" of 150 handguns, rifles and machine guns, along with grenades, masses of ammunition, fake Semtex, drugs and stolen property.
Haase claimed the tip-offs had been genuine, and the statement he gave to Mr Kilfoyle was part of a "cover-story" to protect him from accusations of "being a grass" by underworld figures. However he was convicted after a six week trial.
Haase was jailed for 22 years, while Bennett was jailed for 20 years. Mr Justice Cooke, sentencing the pair, said at the time: "You have all been convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice in a unique and sophisticated way. It is a very serious offence.
"It strikes at the basis of our whole system of justice by seeking to subvert it. In this case, you conspired together to deceive the judge by arranging for the placement of drugs, ammunition and guns and the giving of information about them to the authorities as if it was information on the criminal activities of others."
Haase, now an elderly man, was eventually released on licence in June, 2019. Despite his advanced years, Haase appears to have fallen almost immediately back into old habits. The notorious former drug baron is back behind bars after torching a house as part of "terror tactics" after the owners refused to pay an alleged debt.
From evidence that emerged during a trial this year, Haase was reportedly recruited as an "enforcer" by a group of criminals, and charged with recovering a debt of around £280,000.
After the fire at a property in the Whirlow area of Sheffield on March 14, 2020, South Yorkshire Police launched an investigation and discovered Haase had attended the property on March 9 that year. On that day, he demanded £280,000 from the owner of the property, apparently related to a debt owed by her ex-partner who was not in the country. When she failed to hand over any cash, Haase hatched a plan to instil "terror".
Haase was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court of setting a Range Rover alight on the driveway of a property, which spread to the house causing "extensive damage", although no-one was home and no injuries were reported.
Judge Jeremy Richardson, KC, told Haase: "When you could not enforce payment of a debt you resorted to what can only be described as a form of terror tactics of committing arson at the home of the family of the person who apparently owed the debt.
"There was significant risk of serious harm and substantial damage by what you did. This was plainly a planned and premeditated attack with fire."
Detective Constable Gareth Rees, who led the investigation for South Yorkshire Police, said: “Haase set fire to a vehicle and caused a significant fire at a family home, putting the lives of those who lived there at significant risk. The repercussions of what may have happened if the family had been home that evening are unthinkable.
"During the sentencing the judge declared Haase to be a dangerous offender, and I am pleased that he is now off the streets where he can cause no further harm. I am also pleased that the length of the sentence handed to Haase shows the severity of his crimes.”
Three other men charged in connection with the incident are due to stand trial in July.
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