CHRISTOPHER Coke is not your ordinary criminal, some of the men who were instrumental in his capture believe.
Coke, who ran an alternative government within a government in the West Kingston enclave of Tivoli Gardens, operated his empire with precision and tact and was highly organised, senior officers who have studied his modus operandi have stated.
“He is a brilliant mind and not the average Jamaican criminal,” deputy superintendent of police assigned to the constabulary’s National Intelligence Centre Kevin Blake told the Sunday Observer last week.
“He reads a lot and reads things [about] the Mafia and other things. He is highly sophisticated and is not a man of many words,” DSP Blake said.
Blake’s superior officer, Acting Deputy Commissioner in charge of operations Glenmore Hinds agreed with Blake’s assessment of the man called ‘Dudus’, ‘Shortman’, ‘The President’ or ‘Prezie’.
“He also knows how to win hearts and minds,” Hinds added. Coke, 42, pleaded not guilty to cocaine-trafficking and gun-running charges when he appeared before a judge in a Manhattan, New York court last Friday.
He had been on the run for. a month from Jamaican police, who went after him to serve a warrant for his arrest, after United States authorities requested that he be sent to that country to answer the charges. “He is someone who you would never hear say me or I when he is dealing with something that involves himself,” DSP Blake said.
“He would always say the president in reference to himself, or he would say the system, not Tivoli Gardens. “He is not a very brave man, always timid and concerned about his safety,” Blake added. Coke was so well advanced, the officers said, that he became the standard by which other gangs were measured.
“Other gangs sought to model his gang and the way that it functioned,” DCP Hinds said. Coke was said to have headed the notorious Shower Posse, which has its roots in the US. Coke is a former student of Ardenne High School, one of Jamaica’s top 10 academic institutions, located in St Andrew.
Those who went to school in his time during the 1980s described him as one who did well academically, with a bias for Mathematics, and gave little trouble. “This man is no fool. He is bright and keeps in touch with what is happening around him,” DSP Blake said.
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