Shivangi Sinha
Netflix’s ‘Legends’ is inspired by the true story of a group of workers from the Customs Office. It mainly focuses on Guy Stanton, one of the workers who is trained to join a secret group tasked with infiltrating large drug empires. Stanton has to build a new persona and keep himself safe while helping to bust the illegal smuggling of two tonnes of heroin in the UK. He gets close to Turkish and Kurdish gangs and takes huge risks to make it all successful. The character is brought to life by Tom Burke, who portrays a surly and arrogant undercover agent deeply affected by the world he is witnessing.
Guy Stanton’s Book Inspired the Series That Showcases His Life as an Undercover Agent
In the series, Guy Stanton is at a stage in his life where not much feels exciting to him. He has been working for the Customs Office for years, and that is what the rest of his life seems to look like. That is why, when he gets a chance to be part of the team being organized, he jumps at the opportunity to do his best. He builds an alternate persona, and his job is to infiltrate Turkish and Kurdish drug gangs and bust them. What follows is a high-stakes journey as he devises a plan to organize the shipment of two tonnes of heroin and prepare for its seizure and arrests once it reaches the UK from Afghanistan. As he works toward his objective, he comes close to danger and even death, but it keeps him going.
The series has been inspired by real events, and creator and writer Neil Forsyth has spoken at length about the research he did into the real Beta Team. It was used by Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the “war on drugs,” as declared by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Forsyth has stated that he had to simplify some stories and merge certain characters to make the series more cohesive. However, the character of Stanton is based on a real person, who is also the author of ‘The Betrayer: How an Undercover Unit Infiltrated the Global Drug Trade,’ released in 2022. While Stanton is the name he adopted while working undercover, it is not his real name, and he has not shared it for security reasons.
Forsyth detailed how he had several interviews with Stanton during the course of making the series. He said that what he took away most was how this big event in Stanton’s life changed him both positively and negatively. Stanton was just 17 when he joined Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, and he worked his way up. By 1984, he was employed as an officer. In the late 1980s or early 1990s, he was recruited as part of the Beta Project and spent about 11 years as an undercover agent. He described the alter ego he built as someone “nasty, rude, and arrogant.” He dressed well and paid attention to small details, like wearing Rolex watches that had previously been confiscated by the Customs department.
Guy Stanton’s Work Led to Major Drug Busts and Arrests in the 1990s
One of Guy Stanton’s first tasks was to infiltrate Turkish, Kurdish, and Cypriot drug groups who were smuggling huge amounts of drugs, specifically heroin, into the UK from Afghanistan. He was paired with a Greek Cypriot casino owner named Keravnos, also known as Thunderbolt, who helped him get access to the leaders. The challenges he faced were immense. He was even taken to South America, where he met Pablo Escobar’s cousin, and also went to Curaçao. His other life was based in South London, where his wife, Jo, and his daughter lived. Stanton has shared how no one in his family knew what he was really doing, other than his wife. Jo would pack his bags before a mission and even check his pockets and remove papers or anything else that could blow his cover.
Stanton has shared how he had a gun held to his head so many times that he cannot remember. In due course, he even testified against some of the gangsters in disguise, as they knew him. He was also central to the capture of convicted drug smuggler David Huck. It was a long investigative enterprise in 1996, dubbed The Long Job. The secret department came to an end sometime in the late 1990s, and by 2005, Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise merged with Inland Revenue to form HM Revenue and Customs. This was also the year when Stanton left the Customs Department and started working as a private investigator.
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Guy Stanton is Not Afraid to Speak His Truth in Public Today
Throughout the series, Guy Stanton is portrayed with great attention to detail. The rawness peaks especially in the smaller aspects of his character, which makes it feel very real. The character of his wife, Sophie, is shown removing items from his pockets when he returns. She is also a Customs Officer, as was the real-life Jo. Similarly, the decision to give him a Rolex watch is exactly as described in the book. The ethical dilemmas that he faces and the sense of getting lost in a world he spends so much time in are incorporated into the series through dialogue and his conversations with colleagues. Aspects like the names of the criminals he associated with have been changed or amalgamated. This has been done to make the narrative more cohesive and simplistic.
As per news reports, in the 2000s, police investigated Stanton for alleged bribery, an accusation he vehemently denied. The investigation was eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence. Stanton released his book in 2022, and that was the first time he spoke in public. When asked if he feared for his safety, he said that it was always there. He added that it had been a couple of decades, and many of the people he had worked against had either passed away or were very old, and their power had diminished. During the book’s promotion, he also gave several interviews, all under pseudonyms. According to some reports, he was also diagnosed with leukemia, but has not shared any more updates about his health. Thus, from what we can tell, Guy Stanton currently lives at a secret location and has worked closely with Neil Forsyth in bringing the series to its full potential.
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