National Crime Agency (NCA)

Home News Teenager attempted to buy explosives from dark web Return to News 8 November 2017 A 19 year-old man from Wolverhampton has been found guilty of attempting to import explosives from the dark web with intent to endanger life after an investigation led by the National Crime Agency’s Armed Operations Unit (AOU). Gurtej Randhawa of Grove Lane, Wightwick was arrested in May 2017 after he took delivery of a package he thought was a remote-detonated explosive device. Intelligence indicated Randhawa had attempted to purchase a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) from the dark web. NCA officers replaced the package with an inert dummy device, before…

Home News Operation brings down Athens-based people smuggling gang targeting the UK Return to News 6 November 2017 An Athens-based criminal network which smuggled migrants to the UK has been dismantled following an operation involving the UK’s organised immigration crime taskforce. The NCA-led taskforce, Project Invigor, provided significant support and intelligence to Hellenic Police ahead of a series of raids across the Greek capital on 31 October and 1 November. Greek officers arrested 20 people and closed down four suspected forgery laboratories being used to manufacture identity documents (picture below). They recovered hundreds of passports and ID documents…

Return to News 3 November 2017 The father of a convicted money launderer bought a £412,000 house with money he claimed he won with 123 prize-winning tickets in the Pakistan lottery. Malik Abdullah Farooq, 81, said he enjoyed the incredible run of fortune on the Pakistan Prize Bond Draw between July 2012 and February 2013. The National Crime Agency employed an expert statistician who said Farooq’s good luck was as likely as winning the UK National Lottery jackpot 40 weeks running. Farooq and his son Kashaf Ali Khan, 44, both made the claims when they were arrested in September and October 2014. Khan, of Prospect Lane, Birmingham, has since admitted money laundering by…

Home News Gun dealers jailed for more than 50 years as criminal network is cracked Return to News 2 November 2017 Two men from Birmingham who were responsible for supplying sawn-off shotguns to organised crime groups have been jailed for more than 55 years, after a joint investigation by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) and the National Crime Agency (NCA). Mohammed Rafiq Khan, aged 29 from Bordesley Green and Michael Harkin, 54, from Yardley were sourcing the weapons and distributing them to criminal associates across the West Midlands. Khan was also the head of a drug dealing network which distributed class A drugs across the region and…

Return to News1 November 2017 A construction engineer has been sentenced after repeatedly watching the rape and sexual abuse of children in an online chat room. Michael Sheehan, aged 54, possessed 981 illegal images of child abuse including 253 category A stills (the most serious) and nine category A videos. He employed the usernames Maxx, New and Chaz to enter the chat-room 88 times between 22 July 2015 and 17 February 2016. Every time he entered, pre-recorded abuse was shown. Sheehan, of Luton, Bedfordshire, committed the offences between 2014 and August 2016 when he was arrested. Today, at Luton Crown Court, he was sentenced to two years in jail suspended for two…

Home News Six years for man who supplied 16-year-old with sawn-off shotgun Return to News 31 October 2017 A man who handed a 16-year-old boy a sawn-off shotgun has been jailed for six years following an investigation by the joint National Crime Agency (NCA) and Metropolitan Police Organised Crime Partnership (OCP). OCP officers watched Kenneth Lee, 47, leave his house with the boy, who was later found to have a shotgun in his rucksack and a knife. The shotgun is believed to have been destined for use by organised criminals in London. Lee, who was banned from possessing a gun after a previous conviction for shotgun possession, was sentenced to a concurrent four-…

Return to News27 October 2017 Three men have been jailed after an undercover National Crime Agency investigation into people smuggling. The trio plotted to move up to 20 Albanian migrants a month from Europe to the UK. But their conspiracy was cracked by the NCA after an undercover operation against the organised crime group (OCG). The undercover infiltration of the OCG meant that instead of passing the migrants to someone who was going to transport them to the UK, they delivered six illegal migrants into the arms of waiting Belgian law enforcement officers. In March this year Scott Downie, 31, of Seedley Park Road and Anthony Corkovic, 28, of Murray Street, both Sal…

Home News Lithuanian gun runners hid firearms in specially adapted car Return to News 27 October 2017 Two Lithuanian men have been jailed for attempting to smuggle a huge haul of guns, ammunition and silencers into the UK in a specially adapted car. Border Force officers stopped driver Aivaras Vysniauskas, 33, (above left) and his passenger Gytis Vysniauskas (above right), 46, at Dover on 6 March 2016. A search of their Peugeot car revealed a purpose built concealment around the transmission housing (below). Inside, officers discovered ten Russian-made Baikal handguns, ten silencers and around 100 rounds of 9mm ammunition. Both men were arrested and the invest…

Home News Eleven arrests as part of investigation into suspected people smuggling Return to News 26 October 2017 Eleven people have been arrested in London, Birmingham and Gateshead as part of a Europe-wide investigation into suspected people smuggling. The investigation falls under Project Invigor, the UK’s Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce. The UK element of the operation was led Home Office Immigration Enforcement (HOIE) and supported by officers from the National Crime Agency. All the individuals were arrested on suspicion of assisting illegal immigration. They are suspected of being part of an organised criminal network that transported individuals, pr…

Return to News25 October 2017 Convicted murderer Hazel Stewart has been ordered by the Court to hand over her share of her current family home which can be linked to fraudulently claimed insurance policies and police pension benefits. Following the apparent suicide of her policeman first husband Mrs Stewart claimed a number of financial benefits including claiming on an insurance policy which allowed her to settle the mortgage then outstanding on her family home. In 2006 Mrs Stewart remarried, sold the family home and used the profit to jointly build a new property with her second husband. In 2011, a jury in Coleraine Crown Court unanimously convicted Hazel Stewart of …

Return to News20 October 2017 A drug dealer jumped into a reservoir and tried to dissolve a haul of cocaine after realising he was under surveillance.

 Kerry Reed, 39, of Shepperton, London, eventually tired and waded back to dry land where officers from the joint National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service’s Organised Crime Partnership were waiting for him.

 A kilo of class A dissolved into the water but the packing was recovered which proved it was cocaine.

 Reed had earlier met with accomplices Ndrek Prenga, 33, from Ashford, Surrey, Elton Qajka, 21, from Islington, and Nikolin Dushi, 30, from Barnet who handed Reed a brown bag during a meeting at Pren…

Home News Man thanked online child abuser for images that were the “best I’ve seen” Return to News A 34-year old man from Essex has been jailed for two years after he asked a convicted child sex offender to share abuse images online. Matt Devere, from Southview Drive, Westcliffe-on Sea, Southend was identified by officers from the National Crime Agency after they recovered explicit sexual conversations on computers seized from the house of Peter Allott, a former teacher who was jailed in May 2016. In the chat, Devere had asked Allott “can u send vids” adding he wanted them to include extremely young children. A number of videos were then shared and Devere t…

Return to News19 October 2017 Four men suspected of moving Ukrainian nationals from Europe into the UK have been charged with people smuggling offences following an investigation by the National Crime Agency.
 The four were arrested by NCA officers after a yacht with 19 migrants on board arrived in Southwold on Sunday 15th October, having sailed across the North Sea from the Netherlands.
 Ukrainians Yuril Dzhuraniuk, 26, Mykhailo Riok, 27, Yevhenii Vasilikov, 30, and Yupi Karakin, 27, were all charged with facilitating illegal migration. They are due to appear at Blackfriars Crown Court on 14th November 2017.
 Border Force officers on board the coastal patrol vessel …

Home News Career drug trafficker sent back to prison Return to News 19 October 2017 A 69-year old career criminal has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after he was found guilty for a second time of conspiring to supply class A drugs. Officers from the National Crime Agency’s Armed Operations Unit arrested Guy Paget, from Sutton Coldfield in July 2015 after he was identified from supermarket CCTV. On the morning of 7 July 2015, Paget and another man, Gary Jones from Finchley Road, Kingstanding, Birmingham, went to the supermarket and bought a grey suitcase, five bags for life and some rubber gloves. Later that day, Gary Jones was seen lifting a large grey s…

Return to News18 October 2017 Two members of a smuggling conspiracy have been jailed for a total of 24 years following a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation. Gillian Weldrick, 53, ofHuddersfield , and Ortis Dexter Ollivierre, 45, of Barbados, were behind an attempt to bring cocaine through Manchester airport last year. They were each sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment at the city’s Minshull Street Crown Court today. Their conspirator, Andrew McCollin, was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison in October last year after admitting importing cocaine. The plot was detected when Border Force officers stopped McCollin at the airport in September 2016 after f…