Notorious Reggae Yardie Killer Not Dead

Rankin Dread, the 80s Jamaican popstar turned infamous Yardie assassin, is believed to have resurfaced in the UK, some 12 years after disappearing. The ragga artist achieved a top 10 UK chart hit in 1980 with Hey Fatty Boom Boom before becoming even more recognised as one of the country's first Yardie killers. Throughout the 80s, he was linked to over 30 murders in the UK, Jamaica and Canada, then disappeared, prompting cops to believe he'd been assassinated.

"I'm sure he is back- there have been possible sightings of him in Wolverhampton and Birmingham," a West Midlands police source told the News of the World.

"Someone who says they are Errol Codling (one of Rankin's many aliases) is involved in the supply of drugs." The paper also linked him with the murder of professional soccer player Kevin Nunes, 20, who was shot dead in Wolverhampton last month.

If he is alive and well and back in the UK, he'll be fulfilling a promise he made to the Sunday Mirror in 1990, when the paper tracked him down to Jamaica.

"Former Rankin Dread pop star and Rasta drugs baron Errol Codling brazenly boasts he'll return 'to clear his name'," they reported (Ruthless: The Global Rise of the Yardies, by Geoff Small).
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