People might have personal reasons not to throw someone's real name around. Anyways it's THEIR choice not to name someone and their choice should be respected.
Ok, I am not saying that I don't respect it. They don't want to tell, that fine with me. It's just that my curiosity is overwhelming: there are those 2 books by Graham Johnson about organized crime in Liverpool but almost everybody is covered by a pseudonym. I was only told that "The Banker" is Philip Glennon, "Kallas" is James Taylor and "Fred the rat" is Tommy Comerford.
Yeah Graham Johnson always uses synonyms. He's a native of Liverpool himself, but currently lives somewhere else. Chances they would whack him probably are nil, yet it still seems as if he feels there is some threat of violence which must be why he refrains from using the proper names. Glennon, Taylor, Comerford, Fitzgibbon, Ungi, Bromley, Gee,...are examples of names of notorious criminal families or local hardmen who have had major cases against them and who in turn have been named openly in the media. So that's why they're referred to by their proper names. But there are other who -despite local people knowing who they are- have not yet been busted. So when journalists or newspapers openly connect their proper names to criminal activities, they would probably sue them for defamation (which happened before). That's why they use aliases. The threat of having a libel case nailed to your ass is currently far more real than the threat of violence
