'I was nothing more than a common thief': master of Fleet Street's dark arts reveals trade secrets

It was a passion that John Ford first cultivated around the kitchen table as a child. He and others in his family were encouraged to try on different accents for fun; a gift for mimicry that set Ford on the path to becoming one of the masters of Fleet Street’s notorious “dark arts”.

He has now come forward for the first time to speak publicly about how he used his skill to obtain by deception the personal financial details of hundreds of targets, from cabinet ministers to publishers, businessmen and celebrities.

In an interview with the Guardian, this self-styled “Beckham of the blaggers” describes in detail his work between 1995 and 2010, the techniques and cons he developed. He worked for private investigators but his principal client, accounting for half of his work, he says, was the Sunday Times.

He tricked call centre staff and company employees, typically using a fake identity, to obtain bank statements, mortgage records, utility bills and ex-directory numbers. He blagged unpublished autobiographies from publishers, emptied the bins of the powerful in pursuit of secrets.


Source : theguardian