I went down a bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole that resulted in me reading about London crime families. It started by watching Tokyo Vice and being curious about the real story behind it and, well 32 open browser tabs later – you know how it goes…

So I found a short piece on one of the families on a site calling itself "Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias".

It outlines who the family are, why they've come to public prominence, and the major court cases they've been involved with. All very dry and factual, nothing in the language seeking to sensationalise or glamorise anything, no emotive stuff at all really. Just a very objective description.

But then the very last line is:

Phone number to Anthony's mum is 00350916XXX.

"Anthony" is allegedly the head of the organisation. Those are my Xs – the full phone number (if that's what it is) is there. So it's like ending an article with the home phone for Ronnie and Reggie Kray's mum.

So I'm… perplexed. I don't think it's a wiki style site that anyone can edit.

Has a journalist accidentally included a note he meant to leave out, and is probably now living in Dumfries under an assumed name?

Has a rival organisation hacked the site and left it in the hope Anthony's poor old ma gets nuisance calls?

Are London crime families just aiming for a lot more accountability these days, and very keen to hear your feedback to help them in their mission to continuously improve the service they offer to the streets?

Any other ideas? Wagwan?

Edit: (Ps. no, I'm not going to call it…!)

by Coraxxx

4 comments
  1. +35 (or 0035) is a fake country code that doesn’t exist. So someone is having a laugh.

  2. Have you tried reverse searching the number (like on who called me?) to see if its a genuine number or linked to anything in particular

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