Tory MP linked to top crime family

A Conservative MP has come under scrutiny from detectives and MI5 officers trying to break London's most powerful underworld family.

The Tory backbencher's name is known to the Independent on Sunday. He has close links with the north London-based Adams family. Police suspect that one of his private companies has supplied the gang with an arsenal of surplus former Eastern bloc weapons, including sub-machine guns.

In an echo of the scandal surrounding the late Lord Boothby's close friendship with the Krays, police think that the MP is a member of the close circle around the family, who base their empire on a string of nightclubs in north London. Police describe the Adams family "firm" as "worse than the Krays".

The brothers' main business is drug-running and dealing - police suspect they are responsible for manufacturing large amounts of ecstasy and other drugs overseas and bringing them into Britain. They are thought to be behind the explosive spread of ecstasy in nightclubs in London and major regional centres.

The Adamses do not lead especially flamboyant lifestyles and do not draw attention to themselves in the way the Krays once did. They tend to shun the West End of London and the ever-present paparazzi, preferring to stay in their haunts in north London. Included in their drinking circle are several top-flight footballers, boxers and other minor celebrities.

So far, despite their notoriety, nobody has spoken out against the Adams family. They have established a name, bar none, for ferocity and violence in the capital's underworld. At least 10 cold-blooded gangland "hits" have been ascribed to them over the years. Most involved the execution of would-be informers or rival drug barons.

Police have been trying for more than a decade to bring the brothers to heel. But they have been forced to watch the empire blossom because the family inspires such fear.

Amid suspicions that the family has kept one step ahead by keeping corrupt police officers on its payroll, a special squad has been established, working from an office in central London headed by specially vetted officers from the South-East Area Regional Crime Squad.

In one of the first moves of its kind since Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, gave it a new, wider role, MI5 has been drafted in for its undercover expertise and electronic-bugging skills.