DAVE Tomkins has spent more than four decades negotiating illegal arms deals and fighting wars around the world – in exchange for vast sums of cash. 

But when he was offered $1million to assassinate notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, he was ensnared by an elaborate sting which would ultimately lead to his downfall. 

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Now a new BBC documentary reveals the untold story of the former safe cracker from Basingstoke who took cash from bloodthirsty warmongers in the world’s deadliest conflicts, despite no military training.

“War is addictive, chaos is addictive,” he recalls in the film, Dogs Of War. “It was like a drug and I loved it.

“I could feel ashamed about it, I have obviously contributed to the deaths of people who shouldn’t have died, but if you sell weapons, weapons kill.

“I am a criminal and I make no f***ing bones about it.”

Now 84 and suffering from bladder cancer, Tomkins looks back on an extraordinary career of cold-blooded killing, which followed a deeply troubled childhood. 

After being forced to watch his beloved mother attempt suicide as a young boy, Tomkins ended up in a psychiatric hospital, before being expelled from school at 13 for being “unmanageable”.

As a teenager, following a short stint in the merchant navy, he punched a police officer in the face and was sent to prison where, he says, “I decided to become a criminal.”

Back on the streets, he learnt how to make terrifyingly dangerous explosives and soon made murky contacts in the criminal underworld. 

“You can’t buy nitroglycerine, you can’t steal it, so you have to make it,” he said.

“And you need big balls to make it because it’s dangerous.” 

In 1976, with civil war raging in Angola, Tomkins was recruited to join a gang of former cops and professional soldiers claiming to be fighting the spread of communism.

They were led by bloodthirsty ex-para Costas ‘Colonel Callan’ Georgiou, who had been booted out of the Army for stealing a machine gun and robbing a Post Office.

He went rogue again in Angola – gunning down anyone who dared to challenge his authority, before being captured and killed by a firing squad.

You need big balls because it is dangerous

Dave Tomkins

Former BBC reporter Martin Bell, who appears on the documentary, said: “I was unimpressed with the military qualities of the ragtag mercenaries.”

Tomkins was sent back to Britain after a landmine he was burying exploded.

He explains: “The blast of it and the shrapnel blew a hole in my a*se.

“Angola was a rite of passage. A lot of people died. I went for the money.”

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Before long Tomkins was hired to plan the assassination of the President of Togo, Etienne Gnassingbe Eyadema.

He leapt at the opportunity.

“My morality only stretches so far I’m afraid,” he admitted. “He had shot the previous president.

“I did the research and knew Togo better than I knew Basingstoke.”

But Tomkins spotted an opportunity to make more money by debriefing his target on the plot – and sold his detailed information to the West African regime.

Foiling the plot earnt him £250,000. “The moral compass might be a bit off,” he added.

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World of opportunity

Dave plunged himself into the world of espionage, setting up mercenary operations, assassinations and huge arms deals. 

His exploits became legendary as he accumulated huge wealth and lived a lavish jet-setting lifestyle.

“For the first time in my life I felt rich and I became a broker of weapons,” he says.

“Where there’s war and chaos there’s billions and billions of dollars to be made, and I just wanted a little piece of the action.

“I saw the weaknesses in the system and exploited them.

“There was a whole myriad of criminal activity going on behind the scenes – corrupting pilots of planes and ship’s skippers. 

“Money is king.

I’m as guilty as sin but I wasn’t responsible for the wars. I assisted in them, yes, but the world is what it is

Dave Tomkins

“It was all kinds of crazy things like overthrowing a country or assassinating a president. 

“It was a time of conflict everywhere, the whole world was looking for weapons. 

“If I didn’t sell them somebody else would, and I wanted it to be me.

“It was a bad time for the world but a good time for me.

“My passport shows me having been in all the hotspots. 

“I shipped weapons all over the world, bombs and missiles, in their millions of dollars worth. 

“Whatever the customer wanted I would provide.

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“I’m as guilty as sin but I was wasn’t responsible for the wars.

“I assisted in them, yes, but I can’t be sorry for everybody in the world.

“The world is what it is. I was rolling in clover but it was too good to be true and it all went wrong.”

Luck runs out

Dave had travelled to Kuwait in 1981, Nigeria in 1982, Lebanon in 1983, Iraq, Iran, Syria and beyond.

But his luck began to run out in 1991, when an attempt to buy a fighter jet in Miami set off a chain of events that would ultimately culminate in his downfall. 

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Colombia was being ravaged by a vicious war between two drug cartels – Medellin, which was led by Escobar, and their feared rivals the Cali Cartel.

Worth more than £40billion, Escobar was the wealthiest criminal in history.

At the height of his powers he was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine per DAY. Rival cartels were kept at bay with bullets and bombs.

The Cali cartel hired Tomkins to find a fighter-bomber jet to drop 500lb of explosives onto Escobar’s prison cell from the air.

Tomkins, who handpicked a Dirty Dozen of ex-special forces men for the mission, said: “I was very excited.

“It was a fabulous opportunity, financially interesting.”

He was charging $1,000 a day. 

But the Miami crooks who contacted him claiming to be selling an A-37B Dragonfly attack plane turned out to be undercover US government agents.

Although Tomkins fled the country he was charged in his absence with conspiracy to violate arms export laws by attempting to buy the plane.

When he returned to the US in 2003 to take part in a chemical weapons survival course so that he could work in Iraq, he was arrested, and in 2004 he was jailed in the US for 33 months.

By then he was far too late to kill Escobar anyway.

In 1993, a day after his 44th birthday, the drug baron was gunned down after escaping prison — not by hired British assassins, but by Colombian cops.

Dogs of War is available on iPlayer now