The Sterling Brothers
The Sterling brothers are a pair of British siblings from London, England. The eldest brother, Anthony ‘Tony’ Sterling owned a mechanics garage, the younger brother Daniel ‘Danny’ Sterling owned a pub. These businesses were the duo’s main source of income for most of their early business life.
Tony had a real fascination for cars, specifically classics. His fascination for such cars molded his career choice. This eventually led to Tony making trips to mainland Europe to buy unique, salvageable cars or parts for cars he was working on. This was a nice little setup Tony had, he got to work on cars he liked, enjoyed them for a little while afterwards and then sold them on for huge profit. It even became known throughout their local community. It wouldn’t be an uncommon question to ask what car Tony was currently fixing up on the side when visiting the garage as it was always something interesting and unique.
Knowledge of Tony’s visits to mainland Europe spread among the area and eventually to a local drug dealing organisation. One day while working late, Tony was approached by an unknown man. The man gave Tony a bag full of cash, totalling £25,000. “I know you drive through France a lot picking up those cars of yours, pick something else up on the way and that’s yours”. Tony, confused, looked inside and saw the most cash he had ever seen, stacks and stacks of fresh £50 notes. He looked at the unknown man and muttered, “I’m listening”.
From here began the start of the brother’s unknowing gun running empire. Tony and Danny drove back and forth the English channel 9 times over 2 years, each time picking up a sealed package from a farmhouse an hour outside of Calais, France, in exchange for a backpack. Instructed to not look inside the bag, the pair didn’t until one day Danny just had to know what was inside. He checked and eventually counted out over £50,000 in cash. From here the pair knew they were doing something seriously illegal, but continued nevertheless. Over £10,000 each to make a small detour on a trip they would otherwise be making was too much to turn down. Despite looking inside the backpacks, they never once looked inside the sealed packages they got in return for them. Little did they know they were running guns which would be spread across the country and into the hands of all sorts of criminal organisations up and down the UK.
On their 10th run, they met at the usual drop off spot back in London to find it empty. They waited for 30 minutes and decided to call, no answer. Another 30 minutes go by, nothing. After a total of 2 hours, they left for the night. Over a week went by and no one had come to collect the packages. Danny urged his brother to open the packages and see what was inside, but Tony wouldn’t have it. After another week went by, Danny finally convinced his brother to open then. Inside were a total of 14 handguns of various models along with magazines and many rounds of ammunition. The brothers were in complete shock, they didn’t know how to react. Unknowingly to the brothers, many of the drug dealing organisation had either been arrested or fled the country, leaving their weapons unclaimed.
From here Tony tasked Danny with trying to find potential buyers, he would jokingly discuss the topic of guns in his pub's backroom poker games until one day a player mentioned a local firearm seizure of a local crime organisation. Danny dug deeper and eventually reached out to this organization, building a connection and allowing the brothers to offload their guns. Once the deal was done, the duo were relieved, a weight had been lifted from their shoulders. They had sat on the guns for months and now they were gone, and also a £150,000 richer between the 2 of them. This was until the same connection visited Daniel’s pub, asking if there were more. Daniel said he would ask but couldn’t assure anything. This led to the brothers leaving for France, to visit that same farmhouse they had 10 times with a bag full of cash. The two didn’t know what to expect when arriving, they knocked on the door and saw a familiar face. “You no order, you go now, no order” said the man in broken English, “we want to buy this time”, replied Tony. Confused, the French man tilt his head, deep in thought before nodding profusely, ushering the duo inside.
Tony and Danny resumed their handful of trips to France each year, offloading the weapons to their existing contact and later onto new ones, eventually fulfilling larger orders and even onto higher calibre and automatic weapons. The brothers continued operating their legitimate businesses, laundering money where they could and enlisting the help of friends and family. As gun crime in Britain slowly rose, and seizures became more commonplace, the group had doubts of how long they could continue. After a buyer had been hit hard by authorities, word got out that they were willing to give up their connection for lesser sentences.
When the brothers caught wind of their potential downfall, they quickly started throwing ideas around of what to do. Tony suggested leaving the UK altogether and starting somewhere new, somewhere fresh. The two had visited Los Santos before and loved the place, after some digging they acquired false identities to travel under and booked their flights for LSX. When they settled in Los Santos, Tony booked a flight home knowing it could be a one way trip. Once back in London, he kept a low profile and prepared a shipping container to be sent to the port of Los Santos from Portsmouth, England. It contained any of the brother’s prized possessions, including some art, one of Tony’s cars, some dismantled weapons from their remaining stock, and any cash they were sitting on and waiting to launder. The guns had no value back in London, at least they could try to shift them in Los Santos, and the cash had no use sitting in the attic of Daniel’s pub, despite being in pounds it was more useful to them now in Los Santos than back home in England.
Fast forward 6 months and the brothers have settled into Los Santos. They have yet to unload their weapons, but have mostly transferred their remaining pounds into dollars under the guise of tourists. They are now living somewhat comfortably, even opening a casino together, and Danny working on an art gallery/lounge. The brothers also have aims of returning to the family business after getting to grips with the underworld of Los Santos.
Hi, I'm looking to hire a lawyer that is familiar with contracts and business ownership. I own a number of businesses and I'm looking to sub-lease them in different ways. You can contact me on 20002 or more preferably via email (( forum PM or discord - Rory#7519 )). Kind regards, Tony