Book excerpt: When best friends become arch enemies - it's murder ... In March 2000 Gardai raided a central Dublin hotel and uncovered a 1.7 million drug-mixing factory. Three men were arrested at the scene, but just two were charged. The third, Declan Gavin, was labelled a 'rat'. Within eighteen months he was dead and the Crumlin/Drimnagh feud was born. Childhood friends and neighbours were forced to take sides. One faction supported Gavin's successor, 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, and the other sided with his arch enemy, Brian Rattigan. War was declared, and over the course of eleven years, sixteen young men have been brutally murdered in tit-for-tat killings. Cocaine Wars chronicles the shocking story behind Ireland's deadliest gangland feud: from the growth of the gang under the tutelage of notorious criminals John Gilligan and Martin 'The Viper' Foley, to the brutal way in which they established themselves as Dublin's most feared drugs mob. For the first time, the stories behind the feud are revealed: the mother who has lost two sons to the relentless violence, the criminal who orchestrates murders from the prison cell he shares with his beloved pet budgie, and the women who remain loyal to the ruthless gangsters.