National Crime Agency (NCA)

Home News Disgraced Russian banker hands over Mayfair property Return to News 28 April 2016 A former high profile Russian banker has been ordered by the court to hand over her prestigious London apartment to the National Crime Agency. The apartment in Upper Grosvenor Street valued at over £1.5 million. Elena Kotova was a former Executive Director of a European Bank. In its civil recovery application, the NCA submitted that Ms Kotova had used her position to make substantial personal profit through bribery and corruption. The NCA alleged that between 2005 and 2011, Ms Kotova was engaged in soliciting corrupt payments from her clients in return for assistance in sec…

Return to NewsPhone evidence snares money laundering and drugs gang 27 April 2015 Three members of an organised crime network have been given prison sentences totalling more than 27 years after being found guilty of laundering over £2 million and conspiring to supply cocaine. Enton Feta (35) and Kastriot Shemaj (42), both Albanian nationals living in Enfield, and Muhammad Asim (50) of Belvedere Road, London, were arrested by officers from the NCA and Metropolitan Police’s Organised Crime Partnership (OCP). (Left to right) Enton Feta, Muhammad Asim, Kastriot Shemaj Feta and Asim were under surveillance when they met Shemaj, who was carrying a black rucksack, on …

Return to News25 April 2016 A 25 year old man with links to an organised crime network has been sentenced to 16 years in prison after conspiring to supply almost £2 million of class A drugs. Anxelo Shahu, an Albanian national living in Slough, was arrested on 27 February 2016 when officers from the Organised Crime Partnership (OCP) observed him picking up a shopping bag from another male on Cell Barnes Lane, St. Albans. The bag was found to contain six individually wrapped packages that were later confirmed to be 6kg of cocaine. A third man, Besnik Zefi, aged 32, also an Albanian national living in Ilford, fled the scene but was stopped on the M1. He was arrested by …

Home News Three arrested over helicopter drug smuggling attempt Return to News 22 April 2016 Three people have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to smuggle millions of pounds worth of cocaine and heroin into the UK by helicopter. The arrests follow a joint operation involving the National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service which saw MPS officers seize around 40 kilos of cocaine and 60 kilos of heroin from a car on the M26 in Kent on Thursday 21 April. A 38-year-old man from the North Kensington area of London was arrested. A short time later NCA officers moved in to arrest two Dutch nationals aged 26 and 27 at Redhill Aerodrome in Surre…

Return to News19 April 2016 A man who admitted possessing 51 extreme pornographic images following an investigation by the National Crime Agency has today (19 April) been sentenced to nine months in prison at Caernarvon Crown Court. Roger Griffiths, 77, a former teacher from Wrexham, North Wales, pleaded guilty at the start of his trial last month and the case was adjourned for pre-sentence reports. He was arrested by officers from Operation Pallial, an independent NCA investigation into recent allegations of past abuse in the care system in North Wales. Operation Pallial Senior Investigating Officer Ian Mulcahey said: “I am delighted that Roger Griffiths has been br…

Return to News18 April 2016 Two men who bragged that they were “officially gangsters” after smuggling assault rifles and submachine guns to the UK have been convicted by a jury at the Old Bailey. Harry Shilling and Michael Defraine exchanged messages stating that they were “armed to the teeth” after hearing that the boat they used to bring the weapons to the UK had arrived in Kent. They did not know that the cache had been under surveillance for days and was about to be seized by armed officers from the NCA and Kent Police. The haul of guns included 22 Czech VZ-58 assault rifles, similar in type to the AK-47, and nine Skorpion machine pistols, along with 58 magazines a…

Home News Wife of Essex drug smuggler laundered his dirty cash Return to News 15 April 2016 The wife and sister of a prolific drug smuggler, who was responsible for importing 4.5 tonnes of cannabis resin into the UK, have been convicted of laundering more than £300,000 proceeds of crime. Mandy Ashman (49) from Rainham in Essex and Mary Dunn (54) from Rochester in Kent were found guilty of money laundering at the Old Bailey in March 2016 and were today sentenced to two years and nine months – both suspended for two years – respectively. Over a two-year period, National Crime Agency officers followed the activities of Joseph Ashman and his associates as he attempt…

Home News Ecstasy tablets posted to the UK in Lego boxes Return to News 14 April 2016 A man from Edinburgh has been jailed after more than a thousand ecstasy tablets were seized hidden in a Lego box. The pills, which were the shape of the Rolling Stones “Lick” logo, were discovered by Border Force officers carrying out checks on incoming mail at Coventry International Parcel Hub in January 2015. The package had been sent from Belgium to David Liddle at his girlfriend’s address in Southhouse Broadway. When National Crime Agency investigators raided the property a few days later they found a handful of LSD tablets, a small quantity of cocaine and around £2500 in …

Return to News12 April 2016 A six month review of the warrants and orders used by the NCA to seize and retain evidence in its investigations is published today. The review began in August 2015 after two NCA cases failed, one because warrants were challenged successfully by defendants at trial and one because the NCA determined itself that there were deficiencies with the warrants. The review looked for potential deficiencies in the warrants and orders in every live pre-conviction criminal NCA case. This covered 326 cases and around 3,000 documents. The review was carried out by a Review Panel made up of experts in the legal requirements for warrants and orders, and was…

Return to News8 April 2016 A Yorkshire-based organised criminal, who tried to leave the UK hidden in a lorry to avoid being arrested for supplying class A drugs, has been sentenced to eight years in prison. Tahir Mahmood, aged 30 from Parkinson Lane, Halifax was found hiding in the cab of a Hungarian lorry at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Folkestone in October 2015, after being circulated as ‘wanted’ by officers from the National Crime Agency. His co-conspirator Ajmal Aziz aged 34 from Stanley Road, Halifax was arrested by the NCA’s Armed Operations Unit a month earlier and it was this arrest that spooked Mahmood into fleeing. The men, who both have previous convict…

Return to News23 March 2016 Norman McNestrie, aged 50, of Romany Drive, Consett, County Durham, and his right-hand man, Paul Robson, aged 54, of Broomfield Avenue, Newcastle upon Tyne, collected customers’ orders from bogus paramedics who used a fleet of fake ambulances to smuggle up to £1.6 billion worth of drugs into the UK. They received 19 years and 3 months and 15 years respectively. Three Dutch men were sentenced last year for their roles in supplying the drugs in the ambulances following a separate investigation by the National Crime Agency. A dummy ambulance company was set up in the Netherlands for running the operation which involved the men using bogus patien…

Return to News17 March 2016 A man convicted of an offence of child cruelty at a North Wales care home following an investigation by the National Crime Agency, Operation Pallial, has been sentenced to eights months in prison, suspended for a year. A jury at Mold Crown Court, sitting at Chester, found Keith Evans guilty of child cruelty against a boy aged 13 or 14, following a four-week trial in February. Evans was also ordered to pay a £500 fine and £500 compensation to his victim. The jury heard how Evans, aged 71, from the Rhosrobin area of Wrexham, forced a boy in care at Bryn Alyn Hall, part of a group of privately owned care homes in Wrexham, North Wales, to stri…

Return to News 15 March 2016 An IT engineer who downloaded thousands of indecent images of children from the dark web has been jailed for ten years after he also admitted taking hundreds of pictures using a hidden camera. National Crime Agency investigators arrested Daniel Praid, 40, outside his home in Biggleswade on 27 March 2015. On a computer inside the property they found more than 300,000 indecent images and around 15,000 indecent films. Many of the files had been downloaded, but in a set of files marked ‘personal’ and ‘peep’ they found a series of images taken by Praid himself using a hidden camera. The pictures were taken in a variety of places but included im…

Home News Ninth member of Makayabella drugs crime group sentenced Return to News 15 March 2016 A Hull man has been jailed for an additional six years after admitting his part in a conspiracy to sail more than a tonne of cocaine into the UK on a yacht. Wayne Bush, 45, is the ninth person to be convicted over the plot, which centred on the yacht Makayabella, intercepted by the Irish Navy of the south-west coast of Ireland in September 2014. Cocaine found on board would have had a potential likely street value in excess of £160 million had it been cut and sold in the UK, where the vessel was headed. National Crime Agency investigators found that Bush was part of …

Return to News11 March 2016 The last man wanted in connection with a plot to import 400 kilos of cocaine into the United Kingdom was captured this morning in Ghana. David McDermott, aged 42, from Ormskirk, who featured in the Operation Captura fugitive campaign, was arrested during a joint operation involving officers from the NCA and the Ghanaian Bureau of National Investigations. McDermott is suspected of being a member of a Liverpool-based organised crime group involved in a conspiracy to import and supply cocaine which was seized from a container of frozen Argentinian beef in May 2013 at Tilbury Docks. He is also wanted for conspiracy to blackmail. Officers detain…