Strolling along outside the bustling Ibiza nightclubs dressed in a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and shorts, he looked like any other British holidaymaker out to have a good time.
But behind The Cockney’s laid back demeanour there was a sinister character feared for his connections with the island’s most ruthless South American cartels.
As Melissa Reid and Michaella Connolly claim in their story, his fearsome role was to use death threats and extreme violence to turn party girls into drug mules.
Each person is offered nothing but their lives in return for carrying millions of pounds worth of cocaine from South America to Europe to fuel the drug epidemic which has blighted the party island for decades.
The gangs use a series of safe houses, moving their victims around daily to ensure they are left disorientated.
As they are transferred to dimly-lit buildings, other cartel members find out about their new mules, including family members, addresses, phone numbers, plus pictures of loved ones.
Last night, two of The Cockney’s latest victims sat in a Peruvian police cell contemplating their futures as they face up to 25 years in Lima’s notorious Santa Monica prison for carrying 11kg of the class A drug destined for Spain’s Balearic islands.
Melissa and Michaella, who worked in Ibiza after flying to the party isle in June, both claim they were duped by the same man after being approached by him in busy clubs.
Speaking from their police holding cells after being arrested last week, both recounted how they were targeted by the cartels.
Melissa had been in an Ibiza nightclub when she became separated from friends.
As she searched for them, she says she was approached by a stocky, white Londoner.
“He was your typical wide-boy, London geezer,” she said. “He always had a smile on his face and a compliment in his mouth.
“I was alone when he started chatting to me. He asked my name and then offered me a drink.
"We hit it off and so I thought nothing of it when he said we should go to San Antonio.”
But within hours her new friend’s attitude had changed.
Melissa went on: “As soon as he had got me away he struck – he turned from a nice friendly guy into an aggressive freak.
“Gone was all his charm and in its place were a series of threats.
“He told me I was being taken to meet some people in a house. When he led me in, I was threatened with a gun.
"The men, all South American looking, didn’t speak English but there was no translation needed.
“I asked The Cockney what was going on but he just smirked and left. I’ll never forget the look on his face.”
Melissa had been taken to one of the gang’s safe houses on the island before being transferred to a second seedy lair in Madrid.
As she was being trafficked to the Spanish capital, 300 miles away The Cockney was back on Ibiza’s streets hunting for another victim.
Michaella had also been out with pals when she too says she was given the same patter by the mystery man.
The nightclub dancer claims she had also been promised a night out in the infamous party town of San Antonio when she was grabbed and forced into a house.
The girls say they were hauled into the same building by the cartel. But instead of being taken to Madrid like Melissa, Michaella was instead put on a ferry to Majorca.
There she was introduced to Melissa, who by this point had been moved to her third safe house in Palma.
Devoid of all make-up and looking withdrawn, Michaella told me: “It seemed so innocent.
"This guy was so full of fun and convinced me I should party with him.
"It is only now as I talk to Melissa more and more I know we were set up and handed over by the same man.
“He approached us both as we were on nights out and offered to show us a good time in San Antonio.
“Once I was there he became aggressive and began ordering me about.
"The guy was so confident about what he was doing – it can’t have been his first time. He’s the one who handed us over to the South Americans.
“There was always the threat of violence. In the house the men openly carried guns and would frequently point them at us.
“We both had a pistol put to our heads with the trigger cocked. We were crying and would of done anything they said.
“They knew everything about us – who our parents were, what they did, their phone numbers, what friends we had. They even had photos of them and threatened to harm them if we didn’t do as they ordered.”
The girls, who had each been handed BlackBerry phones, claim they were told the only contact they were allowed was with the cartel through texts.
They say they were given back their passports, frogmarched to a local travel agent, and handed cash for their flight to Peru.
“We knew at this stage we would be used to traffic something back but we were not sure what – it could be money, guns or drugs,” Melissa added.
The girls were flown from Majorca while shadowed by a cartel member and picked up in Madrid by two gangsters.
They were taken to another safe house where Melissa had been only days previously.
On August 1, Melissa was taken to Madrid’s Barajas Airport where, again under the watchful eye of the cartel, she boarded an Air Europa flight for Lima.
Michaella would make the same journey 24 hours later. Once in the Peruvian capital they were housed in a dingy building on the outskirts of the city before being sent to Cuzco to pick up the drugs – 12,000ft up in the Andes mountains.
After taking a 50-minute flight back to Lima, they then tried to check in for their flights back to Madrid.
However, police sniffer dogs locked on to their bags and armed narcotics police led the girls away to be searched and interrogated.
Melissa and Michaella say they are the latest victims in a growing trend of Western Europeans being snatched and turned into drug mules by violent South American cartels.
Vulnerable youngsters are picked out by gangsters who can earn thousands of pounds for each victim.
Michaella added: “As we sit in jail I just can’t help thinking there is some young British girl in Ibiza in the same situation we were two weeks ago.”