National Crime Agency (NCA)

Return to News12 January 2017 Success over multiple legal challenges has allowed the NCA to take possession of a property worth over £650,000 to meet the tax liability on cash payments linked to a conspiracy, allegedly backed by Moammar Gaddafi, to assassinate the then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. The order for possession and sale of the house in Wembley was obtained on 23 June 2016 and related to payments received by Muhammad Al-Massari (70), a political dissident and critic of the regime in Saudi Arabia, who has been living in the UK since 1994. Al-Massari then lodged multiple legal challenges in an attempt to halt the process. The NCA’s Civil Recovery and Tax team’…

Home News Arrests after guns and drugs seized in Merseyside post Return to News 10 January 2017 A couple from St Helens have been arrested in connection with the alleged importation of firearms and drugs into the UK. Dutch customs officials discovered a parcel containing two handguns (one shown below), three rounds of ammunition, six kilos of herbal cannabis and 15 litres of GHB, more commonly known as liquid ecstasy. The package was addressed to a location in St Helens. The seizure was referred to the National Crime Agency, who began an investigation supported by TITAN, the North West Organised Crime Unit and Merseyside Police. On Tuesday 10 January officers r…

Home News Dark web gun buyer had sensitive prison information Return to News 9 January 2017 Dwain Osborne, of Avenue Road, Penge, was arrested by officers from the Organised Crime Partnership in October 2015, after he attempted to purchase a Glock 19 handgun and 100 rounds of ammunition online. In a search of his home, officers recovered a media drive, two stolen passports and a police uniform. Osborne was bailed pending further enquiries, but was re-arrested on 17 February 2016, after the media drive recovered from his home was found to contain sensitive material from HMP Brixton, where he was employed to work in the library. This information included a list o…

Return to News 6 January 2017 Fugitive Ahmed Omer, who was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced in his absence to ten years in prison, has been arrested after a year on the run. The 46-year-old Cypriot featured on the Operation Return most wanted fugitives campaign run by the NCA and Crimestoppers after he failed to answer bail and fled to the Netherlands in November 2015 before his trial concluded. Omer was apprehended last Friday at an address in Stockhill, Nottingham, following an intelligence-led operation involving the NCA, the East Midlands Special Operations Unit and Nottinghamshire Police. He appeared at Nottingham Crown Court today where he was jaile…

Home News Crime group plotted landing sites for plane drugs drop off Return to News 6 January 2017 Three men have been given prison sentences totaling almost 40 years for working together to import millions of pounds worth of drugs which were dropped from a plane into the Kent countryside. Andrew Barrett (41), Michael Mealing (41) and Jonathan Hart (50) plotted prospective landing and drop off sites in Kent on a map and carried out a recce of a location, unaware that they were under surveillance by the National Crime Agency. On 23 June 2016 investigators watched as a light aircraft flew low over one of the sites that had been researched by the group, a secluded …

Return to News21 December 2016 A County Down man is today the first person in Northern Ireland to be sentenced for possessing guides on grooming and abusing children under UK legislation introduced under the Serious Crime Act in May 2015. Gary Carruthers, aged 35, from Holywood, worked as a cleaner in a local primary school. He possessed two manuals, one of which was 170 pages long. The Judge at Newry Crown Court described the content in the manuels as "utterly shocking, vile and horrendous". Forensic examination of his computers showed Carruthers had over 28,000 indecent images of children classified from grades one to five (with five being the highest). The court h…

Home News Royal recognition for officers Return to News 31 December 2016 Two NCA officers have achieved Royal recognition for their dedication and commitment to public service with awards in the 2017 New Year Honours list. One received the British Empire Medal while the other was awarded an MBE for services to law enforcement. They have been congratulated by Director General Lynne Owens, who praised their commitment and professionalism. She said: “Any NCA officer receiving a national honour is an exceptional achievement – it recognises both the individual’s and agency’s work. “I am always proud that the breadth of our officers’ skills are recognised, and that …

Home News Shotgun seized in NCA raid on flat in north west London Return to News 23 December 2016 A man has been jailed for over 11 years following the seizure of a sawn-off shotgun and half a kilo of cocaine during a raid by National Crime Agency officers in north west London. The operation followed the detection of Class A drugs in a parcel also containing magazines by US Customs officers at a postal depot in the United States. The parcel had been shipped from St Maarten in the Caribbean and was headed to an address in London via the US. The discovery was referred to the NCA, and checks revealed the address, in Toucan Close, Stonebridge, was suspected of having …

Return to News22 December 2016 Two men have been convicted for attempting to smuggle millions of pounds worth of cocaine into the UK by light aircraft. The pair were arrested on 30 June 2016 by officers from the joint National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service Organised Crime Partnership (OCP), after the exchange of 22 kilos of cocaine at the Holiday Inn hotel in Rochester, Kent. The drugs, which had a potential value to organised crime of around £726,000 and a potential street value, once cut, in excess of £2.4 million, had been flown into the UK from Holland that morning by Dutch national John Buwalda. CCTV footage shows Buwalda, aged 49, landing his ligh…

Return to News 22 December 2016 Cash and property worth more than half a million pounds has been seized from an organised crime group who used a light aircraft to smuggle class A drugs into the UK. Jamie Williams and Mark Dowling were convicted and sentenced alongside pilot Andrew Wright in February, following the seizure of 34 kilos of cocaine at an airfield in Breighton, North Yorkshire, in November 2014. Wright, nicknamed Biggles by his co-conspirators, had flown the class A consignment from a private airfield in Germany. A National Crime Agency investigation showed he had made at least seven other trips previously. He had been assisted by middleman Jamie Willia…

Return to News21 December 2016 An organised crime group’s logistics man has been jailed for 13 years for his role in a plot to import 400 kilos of cocaine hidden inside a consignment of Argentinian beef. David McDermott, of Ormskirk, Lancashire, is the last of seven members of the group to be jailed over the failed bid in May 2013. McDermott, aged 43, went on the run and featured in the Operation Captura fugitive campaign.He was traced to Ghana in March 2016 and arrested in a joint operation by the NCA and Ghanaian Bureau of National Investigations before being extradited to the UK in May. He pleaded guilty on the basis that he conspired to import 50 kilos of the 400 …

Home News Two charged over cocaine in statues Return to News 21 December 2016 Two men have been charged with importing class A drugs hidden in wooden statues after an National Crime Agency operation in Edmonton, north London. The pair, Ted Dexter Frederick, 46, and Darius Atiba Williams, 33, were arrested as NCA officers raided an address on the Eley Trading Estate on the evening of Monday 19 December. The operation was supported by Border Force. The arrests followed the seizure at Gatwick Airport on 16 December of four statues (below right) which had been shipped from Trinidad. The items were x-rayed by Border Force officers, revealing an estimated 20 kilos o…

Return to News16 December 2016 A Royal Marines reservist who attempted to sell prohibited weapons and ammunition to an undercover officer in a covert NCA investigation has been sentenced to 14 and a half years in prison. He will remain on licence when he is released. Martin Shannon, aged 43 from Hythe in Southampton, admitted taking a C8 automatic assault rifle and a semi-automatic Sig sauer P226 handgun from RM Poole in Dorset, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition and a number of high-explosive hand grenades. He had buried the guns, ammunition and explosives in hides dug in the New Forest. In September 2016, he met an undercover officer who was posing as someo…

Return to News20 Dec 2016 A man who sexually abused three children and downloaded more than 3,000 images of child abuse online has been jailed for 11 years and four months following an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA). Robert Farrow, 23, from the Heworth area of Gateshead, was arrested in January 2016 after NCA officers began investigating a cache of child abuse images on a Russian file-sharing website known to be used by child sex offenders. Officers identified Farrow as the man operating the account and on searching his bedroom found items indicating a sexual interest in children. After arresting Farrow officers found he had committed three sexual as…

Home News Music promoter brought £3m cocaine back from ‘holiday of a lifetime’ Return to News 20 December 2016 A music promoter has been given a seven year prison sentence after bringing ten kilos of cocaine back from a seven-week trip to South America. Shane Delaney, 30, from Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland was stopped by Border Force officers at Belfast City Airport on 22 May 2016. He had flown from Peru, via Heathrow. In his baggage they found sealed packets containing 15 polo shirts. Wrapped inside the shirts were packages of white powder (below right), which tested positive for cocaine. The packages contained almost ten kilos of the drug, some of which…