great britain - Blog - Gangsters Inc. - www.gangstersinc.org
2024-03-29T07:39:53Z
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/feed/tag/great+britain
Meet the men who supplied fraudulent passports to Britain's top mob bosses
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/increased-prison-terms-for-british-crime-bosses-who-supplied-frau
2023-08-31T08:38:45.000Z
2023-08-31T08:38:45.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12214371069?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=380"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Two members of an organized crime group who supplied fraudulently-obtained genuine passports (FOGs) to the criminal underworld have had their sentences increased. The passports, which were issued authentically but applied for using false information, were sold to criminal clients for up to £20,000 by Christopher Zietek, 67, Anthony Beard, 61, and Alan Thompson, 73.</p>
<p>Among their customers were Glasgow murderers Jordan Owens and Christopher Hughes, Liverpool drug trafficker Michael Moogan, and Manchester fugitive David Walley.</p>
<p>The three were originally sentenced in May 2023 at Reading Crown Court, but at a hearing on August 25, the Court of Appeal ruled that Zietek and Beard’s previous sentences were unduly lenient and the judge increased them to a total of 22 years.</p>
<p>Zietek’s prison term was raised from eight years to 12 years and Beard’s from six years to 10 years and two months. Thompson’s three-year sentence was not increased.</p>
<p>Jacqueline Beer, NCA Regional Head of Investigations, said: “These men ran a lucrative illegal enterprise that enabled some of the UK’s most heinous criminals to evade justice in the UK and cross international borders undetected. The increase in their prison sentences adequately reflects the severity of their offending and the harm it did in the UK and beyond.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}12214371074,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="12214371074?profile=RESIZE_400x" width="380" /></a><strong><em>Photo: Anthony Beard (left) & Christopher Zietek (right)</em></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Investigation</strong></span></p>
<p>The NCA’s investigation began in 2017 – it ran in partnership with the Dutch National Police and HM Passport Office, and has been one of the most significant undertaken by the Agency in recent times.</p>
<p>Beard and Zietek, both from Sydenham, would exploit vulnerable people – often with drink or drug problems – who were around the same age as their clients and with similar facial features.</p>
<p>They were paid for providing their expired passports, and their details were used to apply for new ones but with photographs of the criminals. The crime group also paid others to countersign passport applications.</p>
<p>Beard was an expert in FOGs, and NCA officers believe he had been procuring them for 20 years.</p>
<p>He was involved in every aspect of organizing and applying for the passports, including collecting application forms and planning the details to be provided by the applicant and the counter-signatory.</p>
<p>His fingerprints were found on many of the forms, and contact numbers he included were for numerous ‘burner’ phones he operated.</p>
<p>Handwriting experts established he completed most of the application forms, and a voice recognition specialist determined Beard called HM Passport Office to chase up applications pretending to be the people named on the forms.</p>
<p>Beard, who pleaded guilty to fraud offences, also admitted supplying over 70 FOGs used by other criminals, including Jamie Acourt, Christy Kinahan, and firearms trafficker Richard Burdett.</p>
<p>Zietek, who was formerly known as Christopher McCormack and was believed to be an enforcer for the Adams crime family in London, split his time between Sydenham, Ireland and Spain.</p>
<p>He acted as the FOG broker and exploited his criminal connections to obtain clients for the crime group.</p>
<p>The NCA captured audio recordings in Zietek’s house of incriminating conversations with Beard and others about the application processes and their customers.</p>
<p>Officers also observed meetings with identity donors or counter-signatories, analyzed reams of mobile phone and cell site data, and deployed undercover officers to deliver some of the passports.</p>
<p>Zietek and Beard were arrested during coordinated NCA raids in October 2021.</p>
<p>Between them charges were brought for offences of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, conspiracy to make a false instrument with intent (passports and ID documents), and money laundering.</p>
<p>Beard changed his plea to guilty on 3 January 2023, the first day of a nine-week trial, and Zietek was found guilty on 17 March.</p>
<p>Thompson, from Sutton, Surrey, was also found guilty on 17 March. He worked for Zietek doing everything from chauffeuring him to criminal meetings to performing necessary tasks for the brokering of FOG passports, including meeting Beard when Zietek was abroad. A FOG passport and several photographs of FOG customers were located at his home.</p>
<ul>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Two British drug bosses sentenced after their text messages were decrypted, revealed drug and gun deals
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/two-british-drug-bosses-sentenced-after-their-text-messages-were
2023-04-30T07:53:21.000Z
2023-04-30T07:53:21.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/11038012070?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Two British crime bosses who conspired to buy and supply drugs and guns on the encrypted communications platform EncroChat have been imprisoned. Raj Singh, 45, and Waqas Iqbal, 41, plotted multi-kilo consignments of cocaine and heroin between March and May 2020. Singh was sentenced in February, Iqbal on Friday.</p>
<p>National Crime Agency officers proved Singh and Iqbal ran an organized crime group and regularly worked together to buy and sell drugs and firearms. They also planned to launder money and send ketamine to Canada.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-gangsters-try-and-fail-to-evade-government-surveillance" target="_blank"><strong>How gangsters try (and fail) to evade government surveillance</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>“Though Iqbal and Singh operated within the London area they had criminal connections in multiple countries within mainland Europe and further afield,” Dean Wallbank, NCA operations manager, said. “Like other high end dealers, Iqbal and Singh are toxic and responsible for causing very serious levels of harm to society. They didn’t care what bloodshed the guns and drugs led to, just as long as they made money.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Coke, heroin, and guns</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11038012475,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="232" alt="11038012475?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>They were not known by their real names <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-gangsters-try-and-fail-to-evade-government-surveillance" target="_blank">EncroChat</a> but by ‘handles’. Singh was called Salmonagent and Iqbal (left) was Ghostshooter. The National Crime Agency led Operation Venetic, which was the British side of the international takedown of EncroChat in 2020. The platform was used by countless criminals – from Mafiosi to drug bosses – around the globe.</p>
<p>In one EncroChat exchange, Iqbal told a criminal contact that his OCG had its name on 150 kilos of cocaine and 100 kilos of heroin.</p>
<p>The crucial phone evidence also showed the pair conspiring on firearms details. At the end of March 2020 Iqbal supplied a contact with ammunition for a 7.65 Browning at a meeting on Acacia Road, in London E17.</p>
<p>A week later Singh and Iqbal discussed a firearm that Iqbal had hidden in a wall.</p>
<p>Over the next few days between 8 and 10 April the men discussed buying another firearm from a contact on EncroChat for £8,000.</p>
<p>On April 24, Iqbal told a criminal contact that he had bought a Walther Creed semi-automatic handgun with 50 bullets for £6,000.</p>
<p>A conversation four weeks later between Iqbal and Singh revealed the bullets weren’t delivered on that deal, but they had also agreed to buy a Skorpion machine pistol for £6,000.</p>
<p>The messages between Singh and Iqbal revealed how significant their offending was. The men had not only been involved in many multiple kilo deals to buy and supply drugs, the decrypted messages revealed that in April 2020 Iqbal was in the process of repaying £385,000 for drugs he had taken on credit.</p>
<p>Decrypted messages between April and May 2020 also showed the OCG in conversations about laundering 151,500 euros from the UK to the Netherlands. Singh also plotted to send ketamine to Canada.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Pub fight with a female cop</strong></span></p>
<p>Iqbal admitted conspiracy to import 10 kilos of cocaine, conspiracy to transfer a prohibited weapon and money laundering.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11038012098,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="295" alt="11038012098?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>Singh (right) admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, conspiracy to supply ketamine and money laundering. He also admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm upon police on a separate matter.</p>
<p>In February this year Singh – also known as Rajinder Singh Bassi – was sentenced to eight years and 10 months at Guildford Crown Court.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/they-whacked-the-payphone-the-american-mafia-bids-it-farewell-wit" target="_blank"><strong>They whacked the payphone! The American Mafia bids it farewell with tears in its eyes</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The sentence also included 16 months for assault occasioning actual bodily harm upon a female police officer. Singh was involved in a pub fight in which he kicked the police officer’s leg as she tried to restrain him. The officer required significant rehabilitation upon her knee and cannot return to front line policing due to the injuries.</p>
<p>On Friday, at the same court, Iqbal was sentenced to 12 years in prison.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
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</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p></div>
“I normally get arrested for drugs” - Pilot joked after arrest over botched people smuggling attempt
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/i-normally-get-arrested-for-drugs-pilot-joked-after-arrest-over-b
2023-04-29T15:28:09.000Z
2023-04-29T15:28:09.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/11037792459?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=380"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>A British pilot and career criminal was imprisoned on Friday alongside two other men in connection with a plot to fly four Albanian illegal immigrants into the United Kingdom. As the pilot was arrested he joked: “I normally get arrested for drugs, so it’s a bit strange.”</p>
<p>As part of a National Crime Agency investigation, 53-year-old Richard Styles was arrested at Deenethorpe Airfield near Corby, Northamptonshire, in March 2022. He had just flown his twin-engine plane to the airfield from Belgium, carrying with him three men and a woman who were all attempting to evade immigration checks.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11037792099,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="11037792099?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><strong><em>Photo (left to right): Richard Styles, Silvano Turchet and Vijayakumar Sivakumar</em></strong></p>
<p>NCA investigators found that Styles had worked with former pilot and fellow aviation buff Silvano Turchet, aged 68, to rent the six-seater Piper Seneca for £1,500 from an airfield in Lincolnshire.</p>
<p>Styles flew it down to Deenethorpe, where Turchet had paid for it to be stored in a hangar before flying to Belgium on March 23.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/buccaneer-the-story-of-drug-smuggling-pilot-jack-reed" target="_blank"><strong>Buccaneer: The Story of Drug Smuggling Pilot Jack Reed</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Investigators believe the men were in contact with an Albanian known as ‘Tim K’ who arranged for Styles’ illegal passengers to meet him in Belgium. When the plane returned to the UK the next day, an NCA surveillance team was waiting.</p>
<p>As Styles was arrested he joked: “I normally get arrested for drugs, so it’s a bit strange.”</p>
<p>Shortly after Styles’ arrest the Albanian group were detained by Northants Police officers, who were working with the NCA, in a Mercedes taxi driven by Vijayakumar Sivakumar. The migrants were handed to the immigration authorities.</p>
<p>Sivakumar, 43, who was previously convicted for trying to smuggle someone into the UK in the boot of his car, was also arrested. Phone records showed he had been in contact with Tim K in the run up to the flight.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Smuggling ecstasy and cannabis</strong></span></p>
<p>Styles had previous convictions for using a plane to smuggle ecstasy tablets out of Belgium in 2003, and drop cannabis into Jersey the same year while he was on the run from the Belgian authorities. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2006, where he is believed to have met Turchet.</p>
<p>The pair were arrested by the Dutch authorities in 2017 in connection with another people smuggling enterprise. Styles would later be convicted in his absence – he was already in custody in the UK by the time the case came to trial.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-pilot-for-juarez-drug-cartel-gets-14-years-in-prison" target="_blank"><strong>American pilot for Juarez drug cartel gets 14 years in prison</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Turchet was arrested at his home in Nottingham in July 2022 after NCA investigators identified him as the organizer. He initially denied knowledge of the plot, even though phone data put him near Deenethorpe airfield on 24 March and showed he’d called Styles nine times.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:14pt;">Guilt and punishment</span> </strong></p>
<p>All three men were charged with facilitating a breach of immigration law, a charge Styles admitted at a hearing on August 8, 2022.</p>
<p>Turchet pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial, while Sivakumar was found guilty by a jury after a five day trial at Leicester Crown Court in February 2023.</p>
<p>On April 28, a judge at the same court sentenced Styles to seven years in prison, Turchet to seven-and-a-half years, and Sivakumar to four-and-a-half years.</p>
<p>“Styles was a career criminal who previously used his piloting skills to move consignments of drugs around Europe,” NCA Regional Head of Investigations Jacque Beer said. “On this occasion he was offering a luxury end to end service, bringing people into the UK using a private plane. His comments to my officers show that he considered getting arrested nothing more than an occupational hazard.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
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</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
£100 million smuggled in suitcases by money laundering cash couriers
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/100-million-smuggled-in-suitcases-by-money-laundering-cash-courie
2023-04-27T08:17:08.000Z
2023-04-27T08:17:08.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/11036856499?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>British authorities dismantled a network of criminal cash couriers that laundered over £100 million by smuggling it out of the United Kingdom (UK) to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The investigation was led by the National Crime Agency (NCA).</p>
<p>Eleven of the couriers have now been convicted, following Tuesday’s guilty verdicts returned in the trial of Beatrice Auty, 26, from London; Jonathan Johnson, 55, and Jo Emma Larvin, 44, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire, and Amy Harrison, 27, from Worcester Park in Surrey, at Isleworth Crown Court.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11036856671,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="11036856671?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em><strong>Photo: Custody images of (from left to right) Beatrice Auty, Jonathan Johnson and Jo Emma Larvin</strong></em></p>
<p>Their network smuggled more than £104 million from the UK to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalsi, 47, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/british-boss-brian-wright" target="_blank"><strong>The Milkman always delivers - Profile of British drug boss Brian Wright</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>“The laundering of such vast quantities of cash around the globe enables organized criminals and corrupt elites to clean or hide their ill-gotten gains,” Adrian Searle, Director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, said. “Cash smugglers typically work on behalf of International Controller Networks, who move the finances of the international drug trade, people traffickers, fraudsters and other criminal groups, making the source of the money difficult to trace.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Sunshine and lollipops</strong></span></p>
<p>The couriers, who were paid around £3,000 for each trip and would be booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance, communicated on a Whatsapp group entitled ‘Sunshine and lollipops’.</p>
<p>Investigators established that courier Tara Hanlon, who was convicted in June 2021, had briefed another courier about the operation. The courier had travelled from Heathrow to Dubai on three occasions in August and September 2020, checking in 18 suitcases which contained £6.8 million.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/irish-mob-boss-daniel-kinahan-hires-a-special-forces-instructor-t" target="_blank"><strong>Irish mob boss Daniel Kinahan hires a Special Forces instructor to teach his crew evasive maneuvers and shooting skills</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Auty, who was arrested following NCA raids in May 2021, travelled the same route twice in July and August of that year, checking in seven suitcases containing £3.4 million. Czech national Zdenek Kamaryt, who was convicted of money laundering in March 2021, joined her on the second trip.</p>
<p>Auty was involved in the logistical arrangements for another 16 trips, helping to pack cash into suitcases, accompanying travellers to Heathrow and collecting empty suitcases when they returned so they could be used again.</p>
<p>Larvin made two trips to Dubai in August and September 2020; one with Amy Harrison when they took seven cases between them containing £2.2 million and another with her partner Jonathan Johnson, when they took eight suitcases containing £2.8 million.</p>
<p>Larvin and Johnson were arrested at Manchester Airport in March 2022.</p>
<p>Harrison made three trips between July and September 2020, taking 15 suitcases containing around £6m.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Drug profits</strong></span></p>
<p>The network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which was believed to be the profits of drug dealing, and took it to counting houses, usually rented apartments in Central London.</p>
<p>The money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases which would typically each contain around £500,000, weighing around 40 kilos. They were sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in an effort to prevent them being found by Border Force detection dogs.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/one-of-britain-s-most-wanted-drug-traffickers-caught-in-dubai" target="_blank"><strong>One of Britain’s most wanted drug traffickers caught in Dubai</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Five other couriers have pleaded guilty at previous hearings and will be sentenced at a later date, along with those convicted yesterday. They are:</p>
<ul>
<li> Nicola Esson, 56, from Leeds, and Stacey Borg, 41, of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, who were arrested in May 2021. Esson travelled from Heathrow to Dubai on three occasions in August and September 2020, checking in 19 suitcases with a combined weight of almost half a tonne. Borg made three trips to Dubai during the same period, on one occasion travelling with Esson. She declared £1.8 million in cash to Dubai customs in September 2020 and £2.5 million the following month.</li>
<li> Paige Henry, 25, from Birmingham, made four trips to Dubai in August and September 2020, one alone and three with other couriers, carrying a total of 24 suitcases containing £8.25 million.</li>
<li> Megan Reeves, 30, from Doncaster, was arrested alongside Hanlon in October 2020, with five suitcases between them containing £2 million. Messages showed the pair had known each other since 2017. At the time Reeves claimed they were going on a ‘girly holiday’ to Dubai but communications showed she intended to make 13 trips to clear debts of £39,000.</li>
<li> Muhammad Ilyas, 30, from Slough, was arrested by NCA officers at Heathrow Airport after in February 2020 after arriving on a flight from Dubai. He had checked in four suitcases at the airport ten days earlier, one of which had gone missing, and declared almost £1.5 million in cash to Dubai Customs. The missing suitcase was subsequently found by Border Force officers, and contained £431,360 in cash.</li>
</ul>
<p>Other couriers remain under investigation.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Members of crime group sentenced for running industrial scale amphetamine factory in Scotland
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/members-of-crime-group-sentenced-for-running-industrial-scale-amp
2023-04-19T16:12:41.000Z
2023-04-19T16:12:41.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/11030228070?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Four members of an organized crime group that ran an industrial scale amphetamine lab in Scotland, and trafficked heroin and cocaine, have been sentenced yesterday. A National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation dismantled the crew which was based in Merseyside and run by 49-year-old kingpin Terence Earle.</p>
<p>Earle used the encrypted communications platform EncroChat to organise his criminality and enlisted the help of subordinates Stanley Feerick, 68, and Stephen Singleton, 36, from Liverpool, and Stephen King, 49, from Dumbarton, Scotland.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11030227476,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="11030227476?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em><strong>Pictured (left to right): Terence Earle, Stephen Singleton, Lee Baxter and Stephen King</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Seizures</strong></span></p>
<p>In December 2020 Lancashire Police, acting on NCA intelligence, seized more than 560 kilos of alpha-phenylacetoacetamide (APAA) - a chemical used in the production of amphetamine - from the group, which Singleton had supplied. This would have been capable of producing around £1.1m worth of amphetamine at the lab in Scotland.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/the-10-best-gangster-tv-series-made-outside-the-usa" target="_blank"><strong>The 10 best gangster TV series made outside the USA</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The substance was found in a lorry which had been loaded from a warehouse on an industrial estate near a caravan park in Weeton, Lancashire, on the orders of Feerick.</p>
<p>The previous month, at the request of the NCA, Feerick had been arrested by Lancashire Police as he drove a lorry southbound on the M6 motorway. Officers discovered a hold all containing 2.9 kilos of heroin worth £300,000, and £20,000 in cash.</p>
<p>A search of Feerick’s home led to the recovery of another £9,370 in cash.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>EncroChat</strong></span></p>
<p>NCA inquiries found that Earle had also used EncroChat to oversee the trafficking of heroin and cocaine from Scotland to Merseyside, and in the opposite direction, with the assistance of Lee Baxter, 48, of Huyton, Liverpool.</p>
<p>All of the group members were arrested by the NCA in March 2021.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-of-british-drug-boss-robert-the-voice-dawes-he-was-prepar" target="_blank"><strong>Profile of British drug boss Robert “The Voice” Dawes - “He was prepared to use extreme levels of violence”</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Earle and Baxter pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court on October 3 last year, with Feerick changing his plea to guilty on the day he was due to stand trial. King was convicted by a jury on December 15, following an eight-day trial. Singleton pleaded guilty on February 9 this year.</p>
<p>Yesterday, at the same court, Earle was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years imprisonment, Singleton to three years and four months , Baxter to 22 months (suspended for 18 months) and King to 18 months (suspended for 18 months). Feerick is due to be sentenced on May 3.</p>
<p>The NCA’s investigation formed part of Operation Venetic, the UK NCA-led law enforcement response to the takedown of the EncroChat service in July 2020. It was supported by the Scottish Organised Crime Partnership (OCP) – a joint NCA and Police Scotland unit – and the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
One of Britain’s most wanted drug bosses gets 12 years in prison
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/one-of-britain-s-most-wanted-drug-bosses-gets-12-years-in-prison
2023-03-19T13:58:51.000Z
2023-03-19T13:58:51.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10999862463?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>A British drug boss who went on the run for 8 years over his role in a large-scale international drug trafficking plot has been jailed for 12 years. 37-year-old Michael Paul Moogan, who was one of the UK’s most wanted men, fled in October 2013 after a raid on a cafe suspected of being a front for meetings between drug traffickers and <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-cartels" target="_blank">cartels</a>.</p>
<p>The Café de Ketel in Rotterdam was a business not open to the public. It could only be entered via a security system and was strictly for known faces.</p>
<p>Working with the Dutch National Crime Squad, the National Crime Agency became aware of information that linked Moogan and two other British men to the venue which was the hub for Moogan’s conspiracy to bring hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the UK every month.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/the-real-peaky-blinders-attacking-coppers-gambling-on-horses-figh" target="_blank"><strong>The Real Peaky Blinders: Attacking coppers, gambling on horses, fighting with fists and guns</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>At the time of the raid, only one of the men, Robert Hamilton, 71, from Hale, Greater Manchester, could be found. He was jailed for 8 years in 2014 after pleading guilty to drug charges.</p>
<p>The other man, Robert Gerard, 57, from Liverpool, handed himself in to the NCA after three years on the run claiming the pressure was too much. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was jailed in 2017 for 14 years.</p>
<p>Moogan and his associates were involved in plans to import drugs from Latin America to <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview" target="_blank">Europe</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-untouchables-how-britain-s-top-gangsters-rich-off-armed-robbe" target="_blank"><strong>The Untouchables: How Britain’s top gangsters got rich off armed robberies and smuggling tons of drugs</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He had the ability to obtain as much as €500,000 at a time to fund his cocaine deals from South American suppliers who would ship the drug to Belgium. He did not need to pay for deals in instalments as is common in large scale drugs supply. Instead, he could pay in lump sums via Iraqi nationals based in the UK.</p>
<p>Moogan told criminal contacts that he brought cocaine into the UK concealed in meat from Argentina. Evidence also showed he had the ability to bribe port officials to help ensure his drugs were not stopped.</p>
<p>As well as shipping from South America, Moogan used road transport networks stretching from Bulgaria to Latvia, Spain and Belgium to facilitate the movement of cocaine to the UK.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Hiding in Dubai</strong></span></p>
<p>Moogan remained in hiding until April 2021 when he was <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/one-of-britain-s-most-wanted-drug-traffickers-caught-in-dubai" target="_blank">arrested by Dubai Police</a>. NCA officers established Moogan was using numerous false identities to avoid capture.</p>
<p>Dubai Police believe that after entering the UAE using a different identity, he tried to avoid CCTV in an attempt to elude detectives who used their latest capabilities to track him down.</p>
<p>He had a German passport, and also a driver’s license and citizen card in the name of Michael Dier but displaying his own image.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-boys-from-bethnal-green-how-the-infamous-kray-twins-ruled-the" target="_blank"><strong>The Boys from Bethnal Green: How the infamous Kray Twins ruled the London underworld</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Moogan was the 86th person arrested under Operation Captura – an NCA fugitive campaign run in conjunction with Crimestoppers.</p>
<p>NCA Senior Investigating Officer Ben Rutter said: “Moogan did everything he could to avoid this day but justice has finally caught up with him. He was a major figure in international drug dealing. His consignments of Class A drugs undoubtedly brought misery and real harm to the UK communities they reached.”</p>
<p>After being extradited to the UK, he told the NCA arresting officer: “You’re not going to have any trouble from me. I’m tired now. Get me up to Manny and get me in Cat A. I’m done now.”</p>
<p>Moogan was transported to police custody in Greater Manchester. In November last year he appeared at Manchester Crown Court and admitted conspiring to import drugs.</p>
<p>He returned to court on Friday and was jailed.</p>
<p>Without his guilty plea and mitigation he would have been sentenced to 20 years.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
“I just need 2 bullets in a gun” - Prolific drugs and gun trafficker jailed for supplying crime groups throughout Britain
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/i-just-need-2-bullets-in-a-gun-prolific-drugs-and-gun-trafficker
2023-03-02T05:55:41.000Z
2023-03-02T05:55:41.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10978634868?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>A man who supplied firearms to organized crime groups across the United Kingdom was imprisoned Wednesday for over 19 years after law enforcement cracked the encrypted communications platform EncroChat. 50-year-old Michael Derrane orchestrated, supplied and transferred firearms and multiple kilos of narcotics wholesale, selling them on to criminals for a profit.</p>
<p>Evidence from <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/how-gangsters-try-and-fail-to-evade-government-surveillance" target="_blank">encrypted messages</a> showed Derrane, from Morpeth, was well known to serious organised crime groups in Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, the Midlands, and London and would travel up to 700 miles to exchange illicit goods.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/tip-of-the-spear-european-drug-cartel-uses-special-forces-command" target="_blank"><strong>Tip of the Spear: European drug cartel uses Special Forces commandos in its violent activities</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>In one series of messages he discussed the sale of 30 kilos of heroin split between locations in London, Leicester and Oxford.</p>
<p>Wednesday, at Leeds Crown Court, he was sentenced to 19 years and two months imprisonment after he had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transfer prohibited weapons (firearms) and conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine and cannabis.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Operation Venetic </strong></span></p>
<p>The National Crime Agency (NCA) launched its investigation in 2020 as part of Operation Venetic – the UK law enforcement response to the takedown of encrypted global communications service <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/how-gangsters-try-and-fail-to-evade-government-surveillance" target="_blank">EncroChat</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-untouchables-how-britain-s-top-gangsters-rich-off-armed-robbe" target="_blank"><strong>The Untouchables: How Britain’s top gangsters got rich off armed robberies and smuggling tons of drugs</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>On 22 April 2020, Derrane was arrested in his van in the Tingley area of Leeds by NCA armed officers on suspicion of firearms and drugs offences. During a search of the van officers recovered a firearm that had been converted to fire fully automatic, as well as ammunition, class B drugs and £6000 cash.</p>
<p>On 2 July 2020, Alsi Vata, 26, who had conspired with Derrane to buy this firearm and other firearms was detained by NCA officers in the presence of the former Home Secretary as he left an apartment in Soho.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“I just need 2 bullets in a gun”</strong></span></p>
<p>Messages analysed in April 2020 as part of Operation Venetic provided evidence of their plans. Using the handle ‘Budplug’, Vata sent a message to Derrane in April 2020 requesting firearms.</p>
<p>Derrane, who used the handle ‘Big Corey’, responded, saying:</p>
<p>“They in Spain until we start sending again I can’t get em you got enough kill someone only need one in right place.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10978635263,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10978635263?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><em><strong>Photo: Michael Derrane (left) and Alsi Vata (right)</strong></em></p>
<p>In another message, Derrane references a dispute he has over drugs and money with another man, saying:</p>
<p>“‘That’s all they have to wait and I just need 2 bullets in a gun.”</p>
<p>Vata, from London, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transfer prohibited weapons (firearms), possession of a prohibited weapon (firearm) and conspiracy to supply cocaine and cannabis.</p>
<p>He was sentenced to 14 years and three months alongside Derrane Wednesday.</p>
<p>Adrian Barnard, the NCA SIO, said: “Messages clearly showed that Derrane was a dangerous person, whose access to weaponry gave him status among organized crime groups on a national scale. The levels of violence and exploitation that are linked to illegal drugs and firearms in the UK is undeniable and, not only are we going after the criminal kingpins, we’re disrupting those middle-tier criminals before they can make their way up the chain and cause even greater harm.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
“I’m tired now” – One of Britain’s biggest drug smugglers guilty over international cocaine trafficking plot
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/i-m-tired-now-one-of-britain-s-most-wanted-fugitives-guilty-over
2022-11-10T11:48:43.000Z
2022-11-10T11:48:43.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10878963058?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>One of Great Britain’s biggest drug smugglers last week admitted his part in a large-scale international cocaine trafficking plot. 36-year-old Michael Paul Moogan, from Croxteth, Liverpool, went on the run in October 2013 and remained a fugitive for 8 years.</p>
<p>Moogan went into hiding after a raid on a Dutch cafe suspected of being a front for meetings between drug traffickers and cartels. The café, Café de Ketel in the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, was a business not open to the public. It could only be entered via a security system and was strictly for known faces.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Hundreds of kilos of cocaine a month</strong></span></p>
<p>Once inside, mountains of cocaine were just a call away. Moogan and his associates were involved in plans to import hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Latin America to Europe every month.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-of-british-drug-boss-robert-the-voice-dawes-he-was-prepar" target="_blank"><strong>Profile of British drug boss Robert “The Voice” Dawes - “He was prepared to use extreme levels of violence”</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He had the ability to obtain as much as €500,000 euros at a time to fund his cocaine deals from South American suppliers who would ship the coke to Belgium. He did not need to pay for deals in instalments as is common in large scale drugs supply. Instead, he could pay in lump sums via Iraqi nationals based in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Moogan told criminal contacts that he brought cocaine into Britain concealed in meat from Argentina. Evidence also showed he had the ability to bribe port officials to help ensure his drugs were not stopped.</p>
<p>As well as shipping from South America, Moogan used road transport networks stretching from Bulgaria to Latvia, Spain and Belgium to facilitate the movement of cocaine to the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Moogan worked with 71-year-old Robert Hamilton, from Hale, Greater Manchester, and 57-year-old <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/fugitive-liverpool-drug-boss-robert-gerrard-turns-himself-in" target="_blank">Robert Gerard</a>, from Liverpool. Gerard is the second cousin of star football player Steven Gerard. He handed himself in to police after spending 3 years on the run. He claimed the pressure was too much. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was jailed in 2017 for 14 years.</p>
<p>Hamilton was arrested during the raid on Café de Ketel and imprisoned for 8 years in 2014 after pleading guilty to drug charges.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>False identities in Dubai</strong></span></p>
<p>Moogan remained in hiding until April last year when he was arrested by police in Dubai. He was using numerous false identities to avoid capture. Dubai Police believe that after entering the United Arab Emirates using a different identity, he tried to avoid CCTV in an attempt to elude detectives who used their latest capabilities to track him down.</p>
<p>He had a German passport, and also a driver’s license and citizen card in the name of Michael Dier but displaying his own image.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gangster-turned-cage-fighter-lee-murray" target="_blank"><strong>Profile of Gangster-turned-Cage Fighter Lee Murray</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>After being extradited to the United Kingdom, Moogan told the arresting officer: “You’re not going to have any trouble from me. I’m tired now. Get me up to Manny and get me in Cat A. I’m done now.”</p>
<p>Moogan was transported to police custody in Greater Manchester and on November 4 admitted conspiring to import Class A drugs. He will return to court to be sentenced at a date to be fixed.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Moogan was a major figure in international drug dealing”</strong></span></p>
<p>“Moogan’s long overdue conviction is the result of years of investigation by the NCA and law enforcement partners in the UK, Europe and Middle East,” NCA Senior Investigating Officer Ben Rutter said. “We are particularly thankful to the Dubai Police for their hard work in tracking Moogan down and ensuring his return to the UK where he has admitted his guilt. Moogan was a major figure in international drug dealing.”</p>
<p>Moogan was the 86th person arrested under Operation Captura – an National Crime Agency (NCA) fugitive campaign run in conjunction with Crimestoppers.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Most Wanted British fugitive arrested in Marbella, Spain
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/most-wanted-british-fugitive-arrested-in-marbella-spain
2022-10-27T07:48:51.000Z
2022-10-27T07:48:51.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10856070655?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>An alleged drugs and firearms supplier and one of the Britain’s most wanted men has been arrested in Marbella, Spain. 29-year-old Dean Garforth was riding an e-bike on a street in Nueva Andalucia, Marbella, when he was arrested on Monday afternoon in a pre-planned law enforcement operation.</p>
<p>He was located and arrested after an operation by the National Crime Agency (NCA), Spanish National Police and Cheshire Police. When he realized plain-clothed officers were closing in, Garforth, who was wearing sports clothes, sunglasses and a cap, rode the bike into an officer and resisted arrest.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Crimestoppers & campaign</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10856070290,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="300" alt="10856070290?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>A public appeal to help trace Garforth (right) was made in January this year when the NCA and Crimestoppers launched a new Most Wanted campaign featuring 12 fugitives who were believed to be hiding in Spain.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-untouchables-how-britain-s-top-gangsters-rich-off-armed-robbe" target="_blank"><strong>The Untouchables: How Britain’s top gangsters got rich off armed robberies and smuggling tons of drugs</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He is wanted by Cheshire Police for alleged involvement in a well-established organized crime group, supplying significant quantities of cocaine and cannabis, and being involved in trading firearms and ammunition between March 2020 and July 2020.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>EncroChat</strong></span></p>
<p>It is alleged he used the now defunct encrypted comms platform <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/how-gangsters-try-and-fail-to-evade-government-surveillance" target="_blank">EncroChat</a> to facilitate these offences in and around the North West of England and that his crime group also adulterated the drugs before moving them on.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/how-gangsters-try-and-fail-to-evade-government-surveillance" target="_blank"><strong>How gangsters try (and fail) to evade government surveillance</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Garforth, whose last known address was South Hill Road, Dingle, Liverpool, is the sixth fugitive from the list to be arrested since the Most Wanted campaign was launched in January.</p>
<p>He is in custody awaiting the beginning of extradition proceedings.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
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</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Gang who ran firearms conversion workshop sentenced to prison
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gang-who-ran-firearms-conversion-workshop-sentenced-to-prison
2022-10-16T07:08:01.000Z
2022-10-16T07:08:01.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10842999696?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Members of a British organized crime group who bought scores of blank firing handguns to convert into live weapons have been jailed on Tuesday for a total of almost 14 years. National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators established that 31-year-old Perhys Neale bought around 45 legal blank firing Turkish Retay 84FS pistols from gun stores in the Midlands area, including shops in Birmingham and Tamworth.</p>
<p>With original lethal purpose guns being illegal and relatively difficult to obtain, criminals wanting firearms often seek converted blank firing weapons. Each of the weapons bought by Neale cost around £100, but would have been worth at least £2,500 on the criminal market once converted to fire live ammunition.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/the-real-peaky-blinders-attacking-coppers-gambling-on-horses-figh"><strong>The Real Peaky Blinders: Attacking coppers, gambling on horses, fighting with fists and guns</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Neale was driven by accomplice Shaun Williams, 33, on multiple occasions to buy the weapons using cash, which were then passed to 31-year-old Christopher Watson, who himself bought one pistol.</p>
<p>The barrels were drilled into to enable them to fire live rounds, using a drill and fittings, before the weapons were coated in heat resistant black paint to make the blue side of the pistols appear more authentic.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Text message</strong></span></p>
<p>In one text message to his girlfriend, Neale said that he was getting four pistols converted, which would potentially make him around £9,000.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/manchester-drug-gang-planned-to-torture-and-rob-82-year-old-busin" target="_blank"><strong>Manchester drug gang planned to torture and rob 82-year-old businessman at his family home</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Watson and Williams were arrested on November 5 last year, after armed West Midlands Police officers – acting at the request of the NCA - descended on a white transit van travelling near ‘Spaghetti Junction’ in Birmingham. Watson was driving the vehicle at the time.</p>
<p>Two firearms which had been broken down into their constituent parts were found in the passenger foot well, along with a pack of 9mm ammunition.</p>
<p>NCA officers searched the three men’s homes in Birmingham. They found a Clarke Metal Worker drill and fittings in Watson’s house along with debris from the base of the drill, and a small cannabis farm at Neale’s flat.</p>
<p>The trio pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court on June 8, and were sentenced at the same court on October 11. Watson was jailed five years and three months, Williams to four-and-a-half years and Neale to four years.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Illegal firearms feed serious violence”</strong></span></p>
<p>NCA Branch Commander Mick Pope said: “Illegal firearms feed serious violence, intimidation and coercion in our communities. It is chilling to think that the dozens of blank firing weapons this gang bought could have been destined for organized criminals as viable handguns. Seizing such weapons, with the help of our partners at West Midlands Police, protects the public from this serious threat. I’ve no doubt more handguns would have been produced had we not intervened.”</p>
<p>It is illegal to modify or adapt top or side venting blank-firing firearms into viable weapons. The NCA works closely with industry, trade groups and retailers to prevent their availability and use by UK criminals, as well as with multiple partners overseas to prevent them from entering the UK supply chain, either through lawful or unlawful channels.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Foxtrot One One is Down: The Braybrook Street Massacre
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/foxtrot-one-one-is-down-the-braybrook-street-massacre
2022-01-02T12:06:03.000Z
2022-01-02T12:06:03.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9975541466?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>Formed in 1829, the London Metropolitan Police Service (universally known simply as The Met,) whose mantra has always been policing by consent rather than force, has known the horror of multiple police officers killed in the line of duty at the same time on four occasions in its history.</p>
<p>On a balmy August afternoon in 1966, the third such atrocity will take place on a quiet North London street far from the madding crowds that fill the city’s numerous boroughs.</p>
<p>East Acton is to the north and west of the famous Notting Hill area and just a few miles from Wembley Stadium, where on July 31, England will win its first, and so far, only Fifa World Cup football match, beating Germany 4-2.</p>
<p>The area is also home to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, one of Britain's most notorious penal institutions. And Braybrook Street, which fronts the southern boundary of the Scrubs, 200 acres of free common land which was then, used as it is to-day, by the children who attended the nearby Old Oak Primary School to enjoy as a play space and above all, use it to play football.</p>
<p>The street is about to become famous, for all the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>The swinging sixties in England is a period filled with not just pop groups like The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals and dozens more. In London, Carnaby street fashions, some outrageous and extreme, are generating their own world of excitement. Mary Quant emerges as a revolutionary clothing designers for the young, changing the way women will dress for ever. James Bond has appeared on movie screens world-wide, generating four box-office smash hits by 1966. (1)</p>
<p>And the criminal gangs of London are also on a roller. They were big and small, scattered across many of the boroughs. To the north of The River Thames they are dominated by the <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-boys-from-bethnal-green-how-the-infamous-kray-twins-ruled-the" target="_blank">Krays</a>. and to the south, by the Richardson brothers.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-boys-from-bethnal-green-how-the-infamous-kray-twins-ruled-the" target="_blank"><strong>The Boys From Bethnal Green</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>One of the smallest, will do the biggest damage. In human terms at least. Midafternoon on Friday, August 12, three unarmed police officers will confront their worst nightmare when a routine traffic stop turns into a fire-storm with them as the victims.</p>
<p>Since their inception, the police in Britain have gone about their job unarmed, with guns, at least. The first armoured vests were not issued until 1980, and even today, the street patrol officer does not carry lethal weapons. Although they are trained in their use and there are multiple armed-offenders squads on standby in all major cities across the United Kingdom. In 2016 The Met although 90% of its officers go unarmed, carried out 3,300 deployments using firearms but didn’t fire a single shot at a suspect. In America during the same period, 1092 people died by gunshot wounds involving the police (2)</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>The Criminals</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9975532454,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="145" alt="9975532454?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>On this August day of mayhem, Harry Roberts (right) is a month into his thirtieth year, Five-ten, medium build, his hair is thick and black and always tousled in the pictures of that time. Arching eyebrows, a smirking face displaying an arrogance of self-belief and eyes that look beyond the uncertainty of life. Born and raised in Wanstead, Essex, his parents ran a public house called <em>The George</em> before moving to North London and buying a cafe. Apart from two years serving in the British Army, in The Rifle Brigade, fighting in Kenya and Malaya, he has been a criminal most of his adult life. He spent time in Borstal (young offenders detention) and in prison for attacking and almost killing a seventy-eight year old man in the 1950s.</p>
<p>After his release in November, 1963, although he had tried to go straight, starting up a small, construction company, it all fell to pieces and he was back into robbing and thieving to pay the bills.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/a-death-in-london" target="_blank"><strong>A Death in London</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He and his new partner, Lillian Perry, live in a flat in Wymering Road, in Maida Vale that belonged to one of Robert’s few friends, a man called Colin Howard (who had been a witness at Robert’s only marriage in 1958, subsequently dissolved by divorce,) who was then serving time in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. His wife, June, welcomed Perry and Roberts who could help support her until her husband was released. </p>
<p>Sometime in 1965, Roberts meets up with a Greek-Cypriot somewhere near Shaftesbury Avenue in London’s West End, and buys three handguns and ammunition from him for ninety pounds.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9975532478,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="140" alt="9975532478?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>Then he meets Jack Witney (right) in a pub on the Portobello Road in Notting Hill.</p>
<p>Seven years older that Roberts, he was a poor excuse for a gangster. His criminal record was for multiple counts of dishonesty. He lived in a ground-floor flat at 10 Fernhead Road in Maida Hill, just to the north of Notting Hill, with his wife, another Lillian. Ironically, he had also served, years before Roberts in the British Army, but had gone absent without leave in 1951. At the time of his arrest in 1966, he was still listed as a deserter, although it seems to have given up on him.</p>
<p>Roberts will later claim that Witney is the alpha in their relationship, setting up the scores, organizing the operations, the muggings, robberies, the planner to his muscle. Which seems disingenuous to say the least. Roberts was a lot smarter than Witney and a lot more dangerous in a physical sense. He had soldiered in Malaya, fighting the communist insurgency, and had risen to the rank of corporal, leading men in action, organizing ambushes, controlling fire-fights, maybe killing people.</p>
<p>If anyone was picking targets to rob, it was Harry Roberts.</p>
<p>His landlady, June Howards, introduces Roberts and Witney to the man who will become gang member number three, in a night club called Le Monde. <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9975532694,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="145" alt="9975532694?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>His name is John Duddy (left).</p>
<p>A small, tubby man with a drinking problem, he was born in Glasgow, the son of a policeman, in December 1928. From school he drifted into dead-end jobs and was in and out of prison until 1948, when he reformed, joined the British Army, and like Roberts, served in Malaya. A professional soldier he spent seven years in service, mostly overseas. Marries in 1949 to Teresa Ann, their have four daughters over the years, moving back and forward between London and Glasgow before settling in a council flat in Ladbroke Grove, in Kensington. When he meets up with his two new friends in crime, he is out of work, broke and desperate for money.</p>
<p>The three thugs who make up this disparate gang, sailing their own river of no return, had at least two thing in common: They’d all served in the British Army, and they were unquestionably a bunch of also-rans in life’s grand parade.</p>
<p>Considering they had only been working together over a relatively short period of time, it was interesting that they lived so close to each other, From Roberts place in Maida Vale, through Maida Hill where Witney lived to Ladbroke Grove the home of Duddy was less than two miles by the quickest route. </p>
<p>If it’s true that no one is as dangerous as a man who has nothing to lose, Harry Roberts was abut to confirm that as a given as the day unfolded. In a way, Duddy and Witney will be victims of circumstances, drawn into a whirlpool of violence beyond their control.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>The Police Officers</strong></span></p>
<p>Christopher Head, born in Devon in 1935, joined the police as a cadet at the age of seventeen. In 1952 he entered the Royal Air Force to serve his two years mandatory national service and in June 1958 he joined The Met and was based at Fulham Police Station, one of the three that made up F-Division. He transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 1964 and by 1966 was a sergeant assigned to Shepherd’s Bush station. He was a single man whose only interest outside the job, seemed to be supporting Chelsea Football Club.</p>
<p>Born in Hertfordshire in 1941, David Wombwell joined the Met in 1963, the year after he married his sweetheart, Gillian Hague. They had two young children, a boy and a girl. As a temporary Detective-Constable, he was assigned to work Q-cars to gain experience.</p>
<p>Geoffrey Fox grew up in Surrey, in South London, where he was born in 1924. Joining the London police in 1950, he had been based at Shepherd’s Bush for most of his career. He knew the area, literary like the back of his hand having worked it first as a foot-patrol man, then a Q-car driver. (3)</p>
<p>The Met rated him a Class-1 driver, the only ones allowed to drive Q-cars, He was married and had three children.</p>
<p>The three officers based at the 253 Uxbridge Road police station in Shepherds Bush worked as a team manning a Q-car covering F-Division. Sometimes referred to within the force as “The Murder Area,” it covers an area enclosing the boroughs of Hammersmith, Fulham and Shepherds Bush which in 1966 had a population of about 100,000. (4)</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9975534089,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="9975534089?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em><strong>Photo: Officers Fox, Wombwell and Head</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>August 12, 1966</strong></span></p>
<p>Tango One-One is the call sign for Q-car, plate number GGW876. It’s a blue Triumph 2000 based at Shepherd’s Bush. It’s crew log onto duty at 9am. They know they are taking their “governor,” Detective Inspector Kenneth Cook, to Marylebone Magistrates Court, about four miles to the east of their station, and have to drop him off there along with a small pile of evidence boxes he needs to present as evidence in a case to be tried, by 10 am. The rest of the morning is routine surveillance work, cruising their area. The three men return to the station about one for their lunch break, which they take most days at a pub a few hundred yards down the road.</p>
<p>This same day, the three villains are trawling the streets of North London looking to steal a car. They intended to carry out a robbery at an engineering works in Northolt, a few miles north-west of Acton, on the outskirts of London. Whitney is driving his beat-up Vauxhall Standard Estate, also a shade of blue, plate number PGT726.</p>
<p>Robert sits next to him, Duddy in the back. Between the front seats is a holdall containing the three guns that belong to Roberts. They are a .38 Enfield service revolver, a .38 Colt Special and a German 9mm Luger P08 semi-automatic, that had been made in 1918. They are all loaded.</p>
<p>Some time earlier, the gang had paid for a set of plates, JJJ285D. and intended to fit these to the car they steal in order to confuse the police if they investigate. They are looking for a Ford Cortina, one of the most popular makes in Britain at this time. They find one, late in the morning but can’t force it. They take a break for lunch also in a pub, The Clay Pigeon in Eastcote, about ten miles to the north and west of their final destination, and then continue their search for the car they need to steal. </p>
<p>Their journey takes them along The Harrow Road, then south on the A4000 through Willsden Junction, down Old Oak Lane, then making a left onto Oak Common Road, heading towards East Acton Underground Station, where they hope a commuter may have left what they are looking for, parked for the day by the roadside. As they drive down Erconwald Street, they overtake a vehicle parked near the station. It is Foxtrot One One.</p>
<p>Everyone is five minutes and less than three hundred yards from their own Armageddon.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-untouchables-how-britain-s-top-gangsters-rich-off-armed-robbe" target="_blank">The Untouchables</a>: How Britain’s top gangsters got rich off armed robberies and smuggling tons of drugs</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Detective Sergeant Head is making a telephone call at 3:10 pm from a police box outside the station to confirm with his boss DI Cook that they will pick him up at the courthouse in less than thirty minutes. Perhaps he notices the battered Vauxhall drive by with three men. One man okay. Two maybe. Three cause for suspicion. It’s been suggested that the Q-car driver, Fox, may have recognized Whitney, They had lived in the same neighborhood some years before. Good cops spot villains like hawks see trout swimming underwater.</p>
<p>“Give them a tug,” says Head getting back into the car, meaning pull them over.</p>
<p>The police car follows the Vauxhall as it turns left into Braybrook Street and they flag it down outside house number 61. Fox pulls his Triumph forward and stops in the middle of the road. Children playing on the field stop their games and watch, wondering. What’s going on?</p>
<p>In the Vauxhall, Roberts looks at his mates and says, “It’s The Old Bill.” (5)</p>
<p>It is all over in seconds.</p>
<p>Wombwell and Head get out of the Q-car and walk back to the vehicle they have stopped, the young constable moving to the driver’s side and the sergeant over to the passenger side. David has his notebook and pencil in hand ready to note anything that might be relevant. He asks Whitney about the expired tax disc on the windshield, checking insurance, stuff like that. The sergeant moving to the back of car points to the bag between the seats asking what the contents are. Nothing, he is told, just towels, overalls, stuff like that. Show me what’s under that, he orders. Both officers start shouting at the car occupants to comply with their requests.</p>
<p>Roberts was already holding the Luger on his lap, under his jacket. From the back seat, Duddy shouts out “Let the slag have it.” Roberts leans across Whitney, shouts “Fuck it,” and shoots Wombwell in the face, under the left eye, killing him instantly. The officer falls back onto the road, the notebook fluttering in the wind like a downed pigeon, his death grip tight on the pencil. And there he lies there in a casual repose, his ankles crossed, his eyes staring forever at the confusion of sudden and unexpected end of life.</p>
<p>Christopher Head shouting “No!” “No!” starts back towards the Q-car as Roberts leaps out leveling the Luger and firing at the officer. The gun jambs, and Roberts frantically slides the toggle bar back to release the blockage and then fires again towards the sergeant.</p>
<p>Roberts is shouting. “Come on. Come on.”</p>
<p>Duddy leaps from the rear of the Vauxhall pulling out a revolver, the .38 Enfield and running forward, starts shooting at the police car. His first shot dissolves the nearside rear window. The second goes into the Triumph and out the windscreen, The third, smashes into the left side of Constable Fox’s head, killing him instantly. As he slumps forward his last convulsions rams the car over the body of Sergeant Head, who had collapsed in front, already gone from the last shot from Roberts. The Q-car sits there, lodged over the body, its rear wheels spinning madly.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Smirking and laughing as his victims died violent deaths - Profile: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/smirking-and-laughing-as-his-victims-died-violent-deaths-profile" target="_blank"><strong>Irish mob hitman “Fat Freddie” Thompson</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The children on the Scrubs stare at the panorama of chaos, open-mouthed, disbelieving. One of them, James Newman, aged 9, will be a star witness for the police and the media. Standing on the corner of Braybrook Street, he thought he was watching a film being made</p>
<p>The two gunmen rush back to the Vauxhall, and the driver, in panic, reverses madly back down Braybrook Street, careering into Erconwold Street, almost smashing into a car turning left. The driver, Bryan Deacon, rushes to a nearby butcher shop and dials 999, the emergency number, informing them of what has happened and giving a full description of the killer's car and the plate number.</p>
<p>The law descended on Braybrook Street in their dozens. Ironically, the first police officer to arrive on the scene is Constable Sidney Seager, He was a friend of Geoffrey Fox. Had been his best-man at his wedding twenty years before. History has not recorded his reaction, and he was himself, killed two days later in a traffic accident while on duty.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9975535292,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="647" alt="9975535292?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em><strong>Photo: Braybrook Street.</strong></em></p>
<p>A special investigation squad code-named, “Operation Shepherd,” is set up under Detective Superintendent Richard Chitty, and soon 60 detectives are scouring London for the killers.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, the Vauxhall Estate car at the center of the inquiry, is found in garage 103 Railway Arch, behind Tinworth Street, in of all places, the borough of Vauxhall, South London. A witness, William Keeley identified Whitney as the man who had rented the garage from him.</p>
<p>Whitney is arrested and taken to Holloway Road Police Station and questioned through the day and into the night. As the only one that afternoon who had not fired a gun, it dawns on him that his only salvation might be to cooperate. So he does. In the early hours of August 14 he makes a full confession of what happened. The net goes out for the other two.</p>
<p>Their addresses are established and police officers move in to arrest them.</p>
<p>Duddy has fled London on the Sunday after the shootings, and moved back to Glasgow, holing up in a tatty apartment above a shop at 257 Stevenson Street in the district of Calton. He is dobbed in by his brother, arrested and returned to London. He had been on the run for five days. There is no sign of Harry Roberts.</p>
<p>Catching a Greenline Bus and equipped with survival gear, stashed in a rucksack, he disappears into London’s greater metropolitan area. He becomes the subject of the biggest manhunt ever mounted by the Met.</p>
<p>After a three-month chase, he is found, hiding under a straw-pile in a barn on a farm near Bishop Stortford, north of Epping Forest, (20 miles east of Braybrook Street,) where he had first vanished, living off the land, hiding like a ferret in his hole among the 6000 acres of trees and shrubs..</p>
<p>The three men go on trial for the multiple murders at the Old Bailey in London on December 6 and are found guilty. They are sentenced to life with a minimum non-parole period of 30 years. </p>
<p>John Duddy dies of natural causes in 1981 while serving his sentence at Parkhurst Prison, on The Isle of Wight. We don’t know what they are because they are never disclosed.</p>
<p>Jack Witney is released in 1991 after serving 29 years and in 1999 is battered to death by his flat-mate, Nigel Evans, during an argument over who washes the dirty dishes.</p>
<p>Roberts stays in prison, year after year. Decade after decade, living out his life in a seven by eleven cell in different prisons across England. He tries to escape over twenty times before resigning himself in 1976, to a lifetime of incarceration.</p>
<p>His chance of parole is scuppered in 2001 when he is involved in a scandal connected to a work release program he attends. Although the details are never officially revealed, a woman running the scheme is terrorized by Roberts, and shades of <em>The Godfather</em>, an animal is beheaded!</p>
<p>He is serving time in Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire when his discharge is finally approved by the British Home Office. In another great irony, this was a correction center built in 1988 on the site of the old Gaynes Hall Borstal, where Roberts served his first sentence, for criminal assault.</p>
<p>Going around and coming around works a charm in the circus of criminality.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9975538265,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="258" alt="9975538265?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a>He (right) finally leaves his prison life behind in November 2014, released on license and was last heard of living in Peterborough, a small, country town, about 100 miles north of London. (6)</p>
<p>“We shot them because they were going to nick us and we didn’t want to go to jail for 15 years,” Roberts told the Guardian’s Nick Davies in a prison interview in 1993. “We were professional criminals. We don’t react the same way as ordinary people. The police aren’t like real people to us. They’re strangers. They’re the enemy. And you don’t feel remorse for killing a stranger.</p>
<p>“I do feel sorry for what we did to their families. I do. But it’s like people I killed in Malaya when I was in the army. You don’t feel remorse.”</p>
<p>In an interview with a newspaper reporter in 1993, after having served twenty-seven years, he finished off by saying, “Prison.....mentally. I mean, it’s a terrible thing they do to people. You know? I want to say to them ‘Why are you still punishing me?’ I don’t know the answer.”</p>
<p>He only needed to look into a mirror for the answer.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p><em>The following sources were used in researching this story:</em></p>
<p><em>Russell-Pavier, The Shepherds Bush Murders: Random House. London. 2016</em></p>
<p><em>Barton, Geoffrey, Harry Roberts and Foxtrot One One: Waterside Press. London. 2017</em></p>
<p><em>Guardian 2 February, 1993.</em></p>
<p><em>Independent 9 October, 2011.</em></p>
<p><em>Guardian 23 October, 2014.</em></p>
<p><em>Daily Mail 26 October, 2014.</em></p>
<p><em>BBC News 12 November, 2014.</em></p>
<p><em>Mirror Online 1 August, 2016.</em></p>
<p><em>Daily Record 12 December, 2016.</em></p>
<p><em>Roger (Jan) Meecham.html 29 January 2017.</em></p>
<p><em>(1) The term Swinging Sixties may have first appeared as part of the April 15, 1966 cover of Time Magazine, published in America.</em></p>
<p><em>(2) NBC News. March 24, 2017.</em></p>
<p><em>3) Q-cars are special police vehicles used by The Met’s CID officers. Outwardly a standard, four-door saloon, they are modified with V-8 engines, special gearing, brakes and suspension and can only be driven by highly qualified drivers. Used as roving crime seekers, they work across the entire metropolitan area of London. The term, in use since the early 1930s, refers to Q-ships employed during the First World War by Britain’s Royal Navy to counteract attacks of German submarines on merchant ships. Sailing as nondescript vessels, they were heavily armed under camouflage to entice the enemy vessel up close, to then blast them out of the water. Initially, they were mainly based in Queenstown, Ireland, hence their naming.</em></p>
<p><em>4) Between 1959 and 1965 eight women were murdered in the Hammersmith area by a serial killer who became known as “Jack the Stripper” as all of his victims were found nude. The case was closed when the two leading suspects died, one by suicide and the other either that way or murder.</em></p>
<p><em>The case was closed and there were no further murders.</em></p>
<p><em>(5) The Bill or Old Bill is a London slang expression for police. No one knows its origin, although there are dozens of attempted definitions.</em></p>
<p><em>(6) Under English Law, probation after completing a prison service is a finite period. License can and often is, issued as an infinite one. The prisoner can be recalled at any time, for any reason to continue their original term.</em></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/thom-l-jones-mob-corner">Thom L. Jones' Mob Corner</a> or the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">Organized Crime in Europe section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Thom L. Jones & Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
London-based gangsters caught with guns sentenced to prison
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/london-based-gangsters-caught-with-guns-sentenced-to-prison
2021-10-04T08:01:22.000Z
2021-10-04T08:01:22.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9640531052?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Guns are a serious business. Always, but especially in Europe where laws are much more strict. Of course, when it comes to guns and organized crime authorities around the world tend to work by a zero tolerance policy. Three members of a London-based crime organization found that out on Friday.</p>
<p>39-year-old Artem Kuts and 40-year-old Oliver Mark were arrested as part of a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into the supply of firearms. Following a seven-day trial they were found guilty. On Friday, they were sentenced to 15 years and 8 years in prison respectively.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9640531301,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="500" alt="9640531301?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Surveillance</strong></span></p>
<p>NCA surveillance teams watched as Kuts left his home carrying a brown paper bag on October 12 last year, and got into a black BMW 5 Series registered to Mark. A third man, 26-year-old Alexander Georgiev (also known as Ernis Piranej), was seen getting in and out of the same car several times carrying the brown paper bag. He pleaded guilty at an earlier date and was jailed for 6 years.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9640531869,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="508" alt="9640531869?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a><em><strong>Photo: From left to right: Kuts, Mark, Georgiev</strong></em></p>
<p>Armed officers descended on the black car and found the bag in the rear passenger footwell. It contained a Russian brand Baikal self-loading pistol and eight rounds of Makarov ammunition. Mark and Kuts were both arrested for possession of a firearm.</p>
<p>Georgiev was arrested for conspiring to supply a firearm minutes later, as he attempted to flee in a blue BMW.</p>
<p>Officers then searched Kuts’ home and found two more Baikals and 14 rounds of ammunition, which had been hidden in the garden. They had been packaged heavily and wedged in the corner between the wall and a garden storage unit.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“It is only right they should serve long jail sentences”</strong></span></p>
<p>“Illegal firearms drive serious violence, intimidation and coercion in our communities,” Jacque Beer, NCA Regional Head of Investigations, said. “Seizing handguns like the ones found [here], with the help of our partners at the Metropolitan Police Service, protects the public from this grave threat. The NCA works tirelessly to stop criminals like Kuts, Mark and Georgiev obtaining firearms and it is only right they should serve long jail sentences for their crimes.”</p>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Manchester drug gang planned to torture and rob 82-year-old businessman at his family home
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/manchester-drug-gang-planned-to-torture-and-rob-82-year-old-busin
2021-08-06T06:14:15.000Z
2021-08-06T06:14:15.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9386995661?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Six British men have been convicted after a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation uncovered their role in the supply of cocaine and a separate plot to torture and rob a Manchester man’s home and business. On Tuesday they were found guilty after a seven week trial.</p>
<p>The group, from Manchester, Warrington and Hertfordshire were all involved in supplying drugs worth almost a quarter of a million pounds. They included: William Skillen; Wayne Simmonds; Chris Sammon; Gerard Boyle; Gary Betts; John Sammon. Pictured above.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“You’ve got to give him a f****** slap”</strong></span></p>
<p>Five of the men also conspired to commit a robbery that would include threatening to tie up the victims and cut off the ear of one of them. The NCA captured covert recordings of 57-year-old Gary Betts last year as he told associates that he had a “nice job” that would be “plenty of dough”.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/one-of-britain-s-most-wanted-drug-traffickers-caught-in-dubai" target="_blank"><strong>One of Britain’s most wanted drug traffickers caught in Dubai</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He was joined by 57-year-old Gerard Boyle, brothers Chris and John Sammon, ages 32 and 35, and 39-year-old Wayne Simmonds.</p>
<p>The gang believed the victims to be holding a substantial cash sum at their home in Greater Manchester and discussed logistics of the robbery at the office of Boyle – who was the registered director of a plastics recycling firm.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-of-british-drug-boss-robert-the-voice-dawes-he-was-prepar" target="_blank"><strong>Profile of British drug boss Robert “The Voice” Dawes</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Betts was heard to say: “His dad’s an old man and there’s only one kid in the house… You’ve got to give him a f****** slap …..you know what I mean? To tell you where the dough is.”</p>
<p>Wayne Simmonds agreed to carry out the robbery and discussed having a contact who specialized in impersonating police to gain entry to people’s homes.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“I’ll blowtorch your balls”</strong></span></p>
<p>Simmonds’ contact, who used the encrypted messaging service EncroChat and referred to himself as “the old Bill”, had bragged to Simmonds about the emergency blue lights he had fitted to vehicles and was later described by Simmonds during the trial as someone “not to be messed with”.</p>
<p>Further conversations between the men indicated they were willing to torture victims to acquire the money: “I’d just walk in and I’ll just bang him and just tie him up, and cut his ear off and then tell him…I’ve been down your area and cut people up….Believe me I’ll blowtorch your balls and cut your ear off…Put it this way I know an iron hurts in your chest,” Betts said.</p>
<p>Betts, Boyle, Simmons, and the Sammons also discussed drug supply and pricing, including the purchase and sale of around five kilograms of cocaine.</p>
<p>Further searches of both the Manchester business premises where their conversations were recorded and a property on Sandgate Road, Southampton, linked to Simmonds, led to the discovery of 100 grams of cocaine, drugs paraphernalia including a drugs press and 3 kilograms of Boric acid.</p>
<p>They were arrested on May 11, 2020, along with 35-year-old William Skillen, who was also involved in the drug conspiracy.</p>
<p>They will be sentenced at the same court on August 23.</p>
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