Posted May 2020.

I will be forever indebted to Graham for saving my valued reputation as an intrepid investigative reporter on the Daily Mirror. At the height of a Hue and Cry for Britain’s Most Wanted man in 1989, a £2.50 an hour Heathrow security guard nick-named “Florida Phil” - who had managed to nick nearly £1 million in foreign currency and disappear - a man telephone the news desk. The caller spun a sensational yarn to news editor Tom Hendry that he was on the wrong side of the law in Portugal and had agreed to supply Floirda Phil with a false passport in return for several hundred pounds in cash. 
The man said he was agrieved because fugitive Phil had taken the phoney passport, as arranged, from a railway luggage locker but when this man then went to collect his cash, the box was empty. Convncingly the victim, who had an English accent, told Hendry that he was not looking for payment for his story. He was out of pocket and merely wanted a paltry £300 to make up for what he had lost in return for telloing his exclusive story. When he was transfered over talk to me, I asked what proof he had, if any, that this really was the fugitive security guard. The man, who called himself Joe, said he had a written request by hotel faxes from two countries from “Phil Wells” asking him for a false passport with various ID details. 
Myslef and a photographer were assigned to fly to Oporto the following day to meet this man. However, Scotland Yard had dozens of conflicting reports of sighings of Florida Phil all over the world - especially in Florida - which, of course, they could never afford to investigate. I recruited the Mirror’s crime reporter Sylvia Jones, who had the best cpntaxcts among the Yard’s top brass, to help me. Sylvia talked the Yard into faxing over Phil Wells’ job application form from his employer, which I took woth me as proof.
When I met “victim” Joe Flynn in Oporto the followoing afternoon, we sat outside at a bar and enjoyed. beer together woth the photographer. I said I was authorised to pay him cash by the Mirror for his out-of-pocket if his story checked out. He identified images I had of Florida Phil and we got the pictures of Joe out of the way before it went dark. Joe was an affable well-dressed middle-aged chubby man in a dark blue blazer and grey trousers and looked more like a retired businessman than a shady crook. I took the precaution of secretly tape recording our conversation. Before I paid him any money, I invited Joe up to my hotel room and asked hm to produce the hand written faxes allegedly sent to him by Florida Phil. To his surprise, I then produced the real Phil Wells’s job application to compare the handwriting. Joe remained as cool as a cucumber while I carefully check the handwriting. It was not identical, but there were eniough similalrities for me to shake Joe’s hand and pay him the 300 quid in Portugese currency. Job done. Or was it?
However, the image of Joe walking along the street in Oporto was nagging away at the back of my mind. I’d seen something like them before but couldn’t figure out where. I was up all night and pacing my room. Then the penny dropped - Graham Ball had been hoodwinked a few years before in Rome by a mystery man claiming to be a Mafia hit man who had murdered over 200 men. The hit man was so convincing that he had worked for the Mafisa and terorist organisations, both Graham and photographer Ian Spratt were in fear of their lives. However, after the story made the Sunday People, with disguised profile and back shots of the so-called professional assassin, Graham received a call from a police sergeant at Wansworth nick who recognised the M.O. , telling him he had been conned by a professional fraudster wanted by UK police. At the time, Graham was ashen-faced in the Sunday People office and very upset, so I offered to drive him to Wansworth to see the sergeant and help him produce a damage limitation story of his own expose before any embarrassment could be caused by any of our rivals. It turned out the mystery “killer” was a serial fraudster called Barry Gray who had about half a dozen aliases including Joe Flynn, who specialised in stinging newspapers for cash. Australian Flynn’s biggest claim to notoriety as the “King of Sting” was taking publisher Rupert Murdoch peresonally for 56,000 US dollars for what he claimed was a pair of assinated New York Teamsters' Union boss Jimmy Hoffa two-tone brown brogues to prove to Murdoch he had been the hitman. It turnedd out Hoffa NEVER owned a pair of brown shoes. I was in good company, Flynn’s other victims included the CIA and the KGB
Back with me in Portugal the penny finally dropped in the middle of the night. By the time 8 a.m. dawned, I was able to phone Graham at his home in Buckhurst Hill. When I outlined what had happened to me and played the tape of Joe to Graham, he agreed it sounded like the same man who had conned him. By the time we faxed a photograph over to Graham a little later that morning, he confirmed that Joe Flynn WAS his mystery Maffia hit man. 
When I called this week to talk to Ian Spratt, following Graham’s sad death, he readily admitted that their "hit man" had led them around Rome talking about working for Yasser Arafat, the Mafia and hair-raising killings which gave both Graham and himself the shakes, fearing they were risking their lives with all this man’s cloak and dagger tales of assassination: “Yes, we thought we might get shot at any time, he was so convincing."
Thanks to Graham, my reputation was saved - and the 300 quid in lost expenses seemed like a small price to pay to save editor Rochard Stott and the Mirror’s blushes. On my return to London, I bought Graham several large glasses of red. Cheers to you, Graham. RIP old friend.