SERIOUS OGANISED
CRIME AGENCY News Release issued by COI News Distribution Service
on 13 May 2009
The Serious
Organised Crime Agency today published its annual report for the
year 2008-09.
The highlights this year include:
* £175m assets denied to UK criminals through a combination of
cash seizure, cash forfeiture, civil recovery, restraint orders,
and confiscation orders
* £88m assets denied to criminals overseas
* A conviction rate in the courts of 93%
* 71 alerts issued to industry to enable business to protect
itself more effectively against potential crime
* Increased use of 'lifetime management' tools,
including 16 new Financial Reporting Orders, 12 exclusion orders
to prevent overseas criminals returning to the UK, and 13 Serious
Crime Prevention Orders
* Over 85 tonnes of cocaine seized
* New forensic evidence on the drop in street level purity of cocaine
The case studies on the following pages provide a snapshot of the
range and impact, breadth and complexity of SOCA's work over
the past year.
Notes to Editors
SOCA is an intelligence-led agency formed in April 2006 to tackle
Class A drugs and organised immigration crime as top priorities.
Other priorities are fraud against individuals and the private
sector, high tech crime, counterfeiting, firearms, serious robbery
and recovery of the proceeds of crime.
SOCA is an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body sponsored by,
but operationally independent from, the Home Office.
E-Crime
SOCA led the UK end of a long-term FBI undercover operation
against the online criminal forum DarkMarket. Before the forum
was closed down in October 2008, it had been regarded as one of
the most significant internet sites dedicated to the theft and
sale of compromised personal information. It dealt in large
quantities of stolen payment card and online banking data, and the
tools and techniques needed for criminals to commit offences using them.
Alongside two SOCA operations against DarkMarket subjects, SOCA
provided intelligence and forensic support in this work to the
City of London, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and Humberside Police.
Follow up work continued, and to date nearly 60 suspects had been
arrested in Turkey, Germany, the US and the UK, of whom 12 were
arrested here. Behind these headlines, coordinated international
operations saved $70 million in potential losses. As part of that
effort, SOCA had so far recovered over 16,000 compromised cards,
with forensic work still underway.
Adewale Taiwo, a Nigerian national known as "fredbb" in
DarkMarket, was arrested by Humberside Police and sentenced to
five years imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud at Hull Crown
Court. He admitted to causing £600,000 of fraud although £240,000
had been successfully frozen by the banking sector.
"fredbb" will be deported on completion of his sentence.
Mass Market Fraud
The Office of Fair Trading estimates that UK victims lose around
£3.5 billion every year to Mass Marketing Fraud (MMF) - the fake
lotteries, dating scams and advance fee frauds which rely on
contacting and tricking a mass audience via the post, internet or telephone.
SOCA worked with partners during the year to develop a
co-ordinated national and international strategy to disrupt and
dismantle the crime groups responsible for these despicable
crimes. In conjunction with the Office of Fair Trading, and in
consultation with over 40 public and private sector stakeholders,
a strategy for the UK to tackle the harm caused was prepared.
Given the global nature of the crime, an international working
group, chaired jointly by SOCA and the US Department of Justice,
was established. This group not only increased international
understanding of the threat posed but also encouraged innovation
in tackling it, on which significant progress in the year ahead is anticipated.
One strand of related SOCA activity aimed to reduce the estimated
£340 million lost every year by victims in the UK to criminal
frauds originating in West Africa. To this end a strong
partnership was formed with the Nigerian Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC). The EFCC were thus an active member of
the international working group and partners with the UK in a
project to target the communication infrastructure criminals use
to make and maintain contact with victims. A subsequent successful
programme to intercept fraudulent mail in Lagos resulted in
Nigerian criminals being displaced to other West African
countries, where SOCA and local law enforcement pursued them.
SOCA's main contribution was to provide intelligence and
tools to assist the authorities identify and prosecute offenders.
Finally, following the interdiction of over 20,000 mass market
fraud responses, the arrest of the UK group member and the
disruption in a neighbouring European country of the gang who had
been propagating the scams, SOCA intended, as a means of
forewarning victims, to return their money with a letter to all
those who had been tricked into responding. This exercise was in
final preparation at the end of the year.
Cocaine - Upstream
Two men who masterminded an attempt to smuggle hundreds of kilos
of cocaine into the UK were sentenced in September 2008 to 18 and
28 years imprisonment. In an elaborate concealment, Paul Clough
and Paul Stromberg had hidden 337 kilos of almost pure cocaine
within the fibreglass hull of a boat which was due to be shipped
from Venezuela to the UK. Its street value here would have been
around £40 million.
SOCA intelligence about their plans was passed to the Venezuelan
authorities, who X-rayed the boat while it was still in a Puerto
Cabello warehouse and seized the drugs. The UK masterminds were
subsequently arrested here by SOCA and prosecuted.
Alison Saunders, Director of the CPS Organised Crime Division
commented: "The charge of conspiracy to commit an offence
outside the United Kingdom is rarely used in this country other
than in terrorism cases and reflected an innovative approach to
this type of criminality."
Cocaine in the UK
An investigation by SOCA led to the arrest and conviction of a
senior supervisor in a major courier company. Andrew Burns had
been attempting to pass packages containing cocaine to organised
crime groups, using legitimate company names as a front.
A parcel containing 35 kilos of cocaine was intercepted at
Gatwick and was substituted in order to effect a controlled delivery.
Burns was found guilty on 9 September 2008 for his part in the
importation and was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. However an
Unduly Lenient Sentence application was heard in February 2009.
Lady Justice Hallett found that the manager's role was
essential to the commission of the offence and increased his
sentence to 14 years.
Cocaine - A New Route Disrupted
SOCA responded to increased activity of Colombian drug
traffickers seeking new routes into Europe.
A successful operation with the authorities in Sierra Leone led
to the extended disruption of cocaine flights from South America
to West Africa. In summer 2008, SOCA intelligence prompted the
seizure of over 600 kilos of cocaine when a light aircraft was
detained at Sierra Leone's main international airport. Sierra
Leone Police made the seizure following close collaborative work
between a Sierra Leone intelligence unit and SOCA. The crew of the
light aircraft, together with members of a Colombian organised
crime group who had based their drug trafficking operations in
Sierra Leone, were detained attempting to flee over the border to
Guinea. Fifteen people were charged in December 2008 and are now
serving prison sentences.
At the request of the local authorities, a team of SOCA officers
was deployed to Freetown to help the Sierra Leone Police with the
collection of forensic evidence, its investigation and its
presentation in court. In addition, SOCA's Forensic Science
Group assisted with the examination of technical equipment,
fingerprints and drug samples in the UK. This was the first major
drug case the Sierra Leone police had ever investigated and was a
notable success for them as well as for SOCA.
Innovation in forensic drug analysis
A SOCA initiative, known as Project Endorse, began in October
2008 to subject to full forensic examination all UK seizures of
heroin, cocaine (including crack) and amphetamine above 25g.
This was the first time that the comprehensive testing of UK drug
seizures had been attempted and the project was supported by all
UK law enforcement agencies and forensic providers. It examined
and compared physical appearance, chemical profiles and chemical
composition (the latter showing all the significant materials
added to the drugs since their production) and recorded the
details in a searchable database.
The results were of direct operational value, identifying links
between over 170 law enforcement seizures that were not otherwise
known to be connected. They also provided factual information
about the current nature of the UK drugs markets, showing:
* that contrary to the widely held view that heroin is not
normally adulterated ('cut') in the UK, cutting with
paracetamol was common-place, especially at the wholesale
level;
* that the purity of street-level cocaine was typically
less than 20%, and in some cases as low as 5%, raising questions
about its alleged ready availability;
* that crack was heavily
adulterated, most commonly with phenacetin, a known carcinogen;
and
* that the purity of most street-level amphetamine was
below 5% and sometimes as low as 1%.
As well as assisting SOCA and other UK agencies, the results were
shared with international partners via Europol to support
SOCA's operational efforts upstream.
Human Trafficking
During a lengthy joint operation with Lithuanian Police to
investigate a group involved in the trafficking of women to the UK
from Lithuania for sexual exploitation, SOCA officers escorted a
serving prisoner to Lithuania in May 2008 under powers in Section
74 of SOCPA. The prisoner - an Albanian national - agreed to
travel to Lithuania to give evidence in the trials of two
individuals responsible for supplying the women to traffickers.
This unusual intervention proved particularly successful. It
resulted in extensive press interest in Lithuania which provided a
warning to those young women who might be tricked into travelling
with the traffickers and led to a SOCA officer being commended at
a ceremony in Vilnius. More importantly, it led to six
trafficking groups being identified in the UK, intelligence being
passed to police colleagues, the arrest and conviction of 18
individuals here, who received a total of 145 years imprisonment,
and to the rescue of a further 16 victims.
Finally, the Lithuanian Police announced that, as a result of the
new UK powers being publicised widely in Lithuania, there had been
no new reported cases there of trafficking women to the UK.
Sharing intelligence
SOCA's international network of Liaison Officers (SLOs)
worked closely with authorities in countries all over the world.
The SLOs in Barbados and St Lucia played a key role in developing
and evaluating intelligence which led to action in April 2008
against property linked to the major regional drug trafficker
Antonio Gellizeau, who was suspected of having been involved in
importing bulk quantities of cocaine from Venezuela to the
Grenadines and then selling it to the numerous air courier
networks targeting the UK, European and US markets. The St
Vincent & Grenadine and Bermudian authorities carried out a
co-ordinated strike against the yachts 'Jo Tobin' and
'Orion' in Bequia island as well as several properties
on St Vincent linked to Gellizeau. An estimated $1.76 million in
cash was found in a well constructed deep concealment on the yacht
'Jo Tobin'. The yacht's crew, Winston Robinson and
Kent Andrews, were subsequently charged with money laundering offences.
This ground-breaking operation was the first of its kind in the
region. It involved the use of multiple police, Coast Guard and
military assets supporting the St Vincent Financial Intelligence
Unit (FIU) investigators, as well as the use of the Regional
Security System Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
Both SOCA and the regional UK Security Advisory Team were
integrally involved in mentoring the planning and execution of the
operation, as well as the lengthy investigation by the St Vincent
FIU. This resulted in Antonio Gellizeau being arrested on 19
December 2008 and charged with the illegal importation and
concealment of the cash seized.
Denying criminals their profits
A helicopter, a luxury villa and a Bentley were among the assets
recovered by SOCA in civil proceedings against a businessman in
County Armagh. Other assets recovered under the consent order,
granted by the High Court, included the contents of a number of
bank accounts, residential and commercial property, prestige cars
including a Humvee and personalised number plates and a caravan.
In all, assets with a minimum value of £3m were involved.
In its civil recovery application, SOCA had submitted that Mark
Niall McKinney and his wife Beverley had derived the majority of
their assets through illegal activities including money laundering
and fraud. SOCA also alleged that Mr McKinney, who owns MMK
International Transport, was involved in illegal trading and
income tax and VAT evasion.
A 21st Century Bank Robbery
A European crime gang attempted to pull off the biggest bank
theft the UK had ever seen. It was an audacious and sophisticated
attempted theft of more than £229 million from Sumitomo Matsui
Banking Corporation in London.
Through an insider, members of the gang gained access to the
bank's computer network. They completed 21 electronic
"Swift" money transfer applications to move the money to
a number of recipient accounts based in Turkey, the United Arab
Emirates, Israel, Hong Kong and Singapore. Due to a mistake in the
messages the transactions were unsuccessful and no money was transferred.
SOCA used its technical expertise and international reach to
investigate. A complex web of companies and accounts had been set
up globally to launder the money. The insider and two other
members of the gang were identified through circulation across
Europe of the bank's CCTV footage. Three people were
extradited to the UK under European Arrest Warrants from Belgium
and Spain. Further investigative work resulted in the
identification of the supporting money laundering cell.
The gang was sentenced in March 2009. Approximately £1.5 million
in assets was restrained and will be the subject of further action
under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The investigation by SOCA's
E-Crime department was praised by the Judge, who said it had been
an "outstanding, professional, first class investigation all round."
Heroin
The US Drugs Enforcement Agency praised the assistance of SOCA in
a joint operation which saw the arrest in October 2008 of Haji
Juma Khan, suspected of being a major Afghanistan-based heroin trafficker.
Khan was arrested by the authorities in Indonesia and deported to
the US the following day. He was charged in a New York court with
conspiracy to distribute narcotics with intent to support a
terrorist organisation.
Intelligence suggested his organisation had been responsible for
supplying significant quantities of heroin from Afghanistan to
Europe and the UK over a number of years and providing funding and
support to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Another major blow to the heroin trade was dealt early in
February 2009, when an Afghan Unit mentored by SOCA arrested the
leader of a narcotic trafficking network in Farah Province. The
Afghan Unit, supported by the military, conducted a series of
raids against the networks of Haji Abdullah and his associates and
detained several of its key members. Abdullah himself was arrested
at Herat Airport attempting to leave the country.
On 31 March 2009 at the Central Primary Court in Kabul, members
of the network were convicted in the first such case to be brought
before the nascent Afghan judicial system. SOCA's mentoring
of the in-country unit was a critical part of achieving an
Afghan-led outcome.
Firearms
SOCA worked closely with Greater Manchester Police to investigate
the importation of illegal firearms from Eastern Europe and their
distribution within the UK.
The operation recovered a total of 21 illegal weapons including
handguns, rifles and a sawn off shotgun, together with over 7,000
rounds of ammunition. Quantities of illegal drugs and cash were
also seized.
As well as resulting in prison sentences for those involved, the
investigation delivered a wealth of intelligence on the movement
of illicit firearms and on threats to cause injury or kill. This
was shared with law enforcement partners, and resulted in arrests
by both West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester Police, with
significant impacts on the gang culture in each area.