Britains Underworld

How HMRC finally caught Nasir Khan

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 03:51:36 PST

Nasir Khan had a successful accessories business, a jet-set lifestyle and reputation as a pillar of the community. But all that vanished in December when he was jailed for his part in a £250m VAT fraud. Jasper Jackson discovers how a 10-year investigation by HMRC led to his downfall At the start of 2001, Nasir Khan was the owner and managing director of a moderately successful accessories business called The Accessory People, which had an annual turnover of £13 million. By the end of that year, however, he was knee-deep in a £250 million VAT fraud involving the import and export of mobile phones. Khan’s journey from businessman to criminal finally ended at Southwark Crown Court fi ve days before Christmas last year, when he became the 15th member of a pan European criminal gang to be jailed for the fraud. Khan got nine years behind bars for money laundering in the last of six trials that resulted in the 14 other defendants being convicted of defrauding the public purse. The gang was sentenced to a total of almost 100 years in prison. The convictions were the culmination of a 10-year investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) into a complex web of criminal activity linked to Khan and his associates that encompassed more than 200 companies in the UK, Spain and Holland and bank accounts holding millions of pounds tucked away in Hong Kong, Dubai and Pakistan. Among those convicted for their role in the scam were a drug smuggler, a former used car salesman and a fish and chip shop owner. According to HMRC, Khan and his 14 associates launched their fraudulent operation in June 2001 as the market for mobile accessories went into decline. The fraudsters embarked on a complex version of ‘missing trader’ VAT fraud known as ‘carousel fraud’ because it involves goods passing into and out of a country through a string of companies. The fraudsters would set up a UK company to import goods from the EU, on which it didn’t pay VAT. It would then sell them on to another company in the UK, charging VAT on the sale that should have been paid to HMRC. The second company would in turn sell on the goods to an intermediary controlled by the gang, in order to put distance between the original company and the end of the chain. This process would be repeated a number of times through so-called ‘buffer’ companies in order to disguise the fraud. Eventually, a UK-based firm in the chain would sell the goods to another EU firm outside the UK without charging VAT. Because the fi rm exporting the handsets had paid VAT when buying from firms further back in the chain, it was entitled to collect a refund from HMRC. However, the UK company at the very beginning of the chain would disappear without ever paying the VAT it had made on the first sale and other firms along the chain would also, covering the tracks of the fraudsters in the process. In some cases, the goods themselves would only notionally have the value that was being paid for them, with freight companies brought into the fold to provide seemingly legitimate records of transportation. The process would carry on indefinitely, with the goods that left the country later being reintroduced to the UK. Khan’s firm, The Accessory People (TAP), was one of the buffer firms involved in the scam, and he made huge sums of money helping to launder the proceeds of the carousel fraud. In the space of just two years, between 2001 and 2003, TAP’s turnover rose from £13 million to £219 million. Khan became hugely rich as a result, buying luxury apartments in the Putney Wharf and Chelsea Harbour developments on the Thames in London, as well as properties in Spain and Gibraltar. He also bought a luxury boat. Khan even donated £34,000 to Crimestoppers under the name Nasa Khan. Khan has now had £15 million of his assets frozen as HMRC tries to recoup some of the money lost to the fraud.

Private security firms could investigate some crimes and patrol neighbourhoods under plans being drawn up for police in England and Wales.

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:45:20 PST

The West Midlands and Surrey forces - two of England's largest - have invited bids for contracts from security companies, on behalf of all forces. Other services provided privately could include supporting victims and managing high-risk individuals. The Home Office stressed private firms would not be able to arrest suspects. Critics have warned that privatising police services will mean that forces will be less accountable to the public. BBC political correspondent Louise Stewart said the West Midlands and Surrey forces had been working together since early last year. This is the first time the extent of their plans to involve the private sector in "middle and back office functions" have become clear. They emerge at a time of 20% cuts to police budgets over four years, with Home Secretary Theresa May suggesting forces could protect "front-line policing" by delegating some work to the private sector. Police station Our correspondent says the two forces have invited bids from firms including G4S, the world's largest security firm, to deliver a number of services currently undertaken by the police. They include responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals and patrolling neighbourhoods. In a statement, the Home Office said of the plans: "Private companies will not be able to arrest suspects, and they will not be solely responsible for investigating crime." The contract has a potential value of £1.5bn over seven years but could rise to a £3.5bn, depending on how many other forces signed up, our correspondent adds. That would make it the largest contract to date for a private company to provide police services. Last month Lincolnshire Police and G4S agreed a £200m contract. Under that agreement, thought to be the first of its kind in the UK, half the force's civilian staff will join the private company, which will also build and run a police station. The Guardian reported it had seen a briefing note sent to companies on the West Midlands-Surrey plans, which said that all services that "can be legally delegated to the private sector" are potentially up for contract. 'Dangerous experiment' A West Midlands police authority spokesman told the newspaper that combining with the business sector was aimed at transforming the way the force worked. "The areas of service listed in this notice are deliberately broad to allow the force to explore the skills, expertise and solutions a partnership could bring," he said. But Ben Priestley, Unison's national officer for police and justice, told the Guardian: "Bringing the private sector into policing is a dangerous experiment with local safety and taxpayers' money. "We are urging police authorities not to fall into the trap of thinking the private sector is the answer to the coalition's cuts." He added: "Privatisation means that the police will be less accountable to the public. And people will no longer be able to go to the Independent Police Complaints Commission if they have a problem."

A “significant number of UK residents”, he said, were training with the Somali Islamists, al-Shabaab.

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:41:48 PST

We cannot say we weren’t warned. On September 16 2010, Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, addressed an audience of security professionals in London. A “significant number of UK residents”, he said, were training with the Somali Islamists, al-Shabaab. “It’s only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-Shabaab.” Before that threat is fully realised, the people of East Africa are having to deal with vacationing British Islamists. MI5 say that around 60 British jihadis are fighting or training in Somalia, their costs defrayed by sympathisers in Britain. Until they have the resources to target the infidels back home, these extremists are causing mayhem in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya. Jermaine Grant, lately of Newham, east London, has gone on trial in Mombasa, after police found ammunition and bomb-making chemicals – ammonium nitrate, acetone and lead nitrate – in his flat in a seedy suburb of the city. It is highly likely, as Kenyan police suspect, that his targets were Western tourists. Except there aren’t many tourists since al-Shabaab kidnapped and killed the 66-year-old French tetraplegic Marie Dedieu in the exotic resort of Lamu in October last year, then killed a British man and abducted his wife. Five months on, Judith Tebbutt from Aylesbury is still missing. This week we learnt that Kenyan police hunting al-Shabaab terrorists are desperately seeking Samantha Lewthwaite, a 28-year-old from Buckinghamshire. Ms Lewthwaite, who converted to Islam when she was 15, is the widow of the 7/7 King’s Cross bomber, Jermaine Lindsay. According to Kenyan police sources, Lewthwaite and her friend Habib Ghani, of Hounslow, are connected to Jermaine Grant. Ghani, who calls himself “Osama”, is said to be carrying more than 500 bomb fuses and bundles of US dollars. Following the London atrocities in July 2005, Lewthwaite claimed to find her late husband’s actions “abhorrent”. It seems strange, then, that she is allegedly using (three) false passports and associating with a terrorist suspect, in a region that is currently regarded as the most dangerous front in the fight against international terrorism. Reports claim she is “no small fish” in terrorist circles, describing her role as a “financier”. British or American recruits have many advantages – one of which is that they are largely self-financing. For example, earlier this year, Shabaaz Hussein, 28, was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court of sending £10,000 to three Anglo-Somali terrorists. His family home in Stepney was awash with al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab materials. More advantages come with the fact that Anglo-Somali jihadis are generally relatively well-educated, able to drive and are familiar with IT; they also use the world’s lingua franca. Should al-Shabaab wish to extend its activities beyond revenge attacks on Burundi, Kenya or Uganda (which all have troops operating in Somalia), these British recruits would be well-placed to carry them out. As African forces put the squeeze on al-Shabaab, it may well make compensatory trouble elsewhere. A week ago it made formal homage to the global al-Qaeda franchise and was publicly welcomed by terror chief Ayman al-Zawahiri – a grouping that could escalate into operations further afield, as we saw with Anglo-Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan. This merger of terror sects happened in the same week that Somali delegates came to London, with much accompanying fanfare. Nearly two years after Mr Evans’s warning, the Coalition government hosted an international conference on Somalia. It was a Blairite exercise in nation-building, stage-managed by his understudies. The gist was that it is better and cheaper to tackle such problems as maritime piracy and terrorism at source, rather than having to cope with such consequences as car bombs during the London Olympics. As usual, where there was talk of “breaking the cycle of instability” in “the world’s most dysfunctional state”, our money was pledged: £20 million for markets, hospitals and schools in Somalia, plus £51 million more for the hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees languishing in Ethiopia and Kenya, driven out by their homeland’s bitter civil war. To add an air of resolution, there has been parallel talk from Whitehall generals about targeting pirate and terrorist encampments and their respective “kingpins” with air strikes. One such strike occurred in January near Mogadishu. Two US rockets hit a vehicle convoy in which Bilal al-Barjawi, a 27-year-old British citizen of Lebanese descent, was travelling. The strike took place minutes after he was stupidly brazen enough to use his mobile phone to congratulate his wife on giving birth in a London hospital. A close associate of the al-Qaeda leader who planned the 1998 East African US embassy bombings, al-Barjawi was vaporised, as one of his vehicles was laden with high explosives. However, the British authorities’ focus on the so-called Somali “fount” conveniently deflects attention from the domestic manifestations of this problem. Those pockets of the country where extremism ferments have been almost entirely caused by the lax immigration measures of successive British governments. No one has officially said that Britain has the most dysfunctional immigration laws in the Western world, but that is a very widely held view among those who live here. If we have a problem with radicalised Somalis then it surely resides here as much as in Somalia. Although Britain has only passing historical involvement with Somalia, we seem to have a remarkably large number of Somalis living in this country. Estimates of their number in Britain range from 350,000 to an extraordinary 1 million. These figures are educated guesses, since the last census in 1991 counted only 43,532 Somalis. This cannot be true, as anyone who has walked along Ealing’s “Mogadishu Mile” or around Poplar, Tower Hamlets, Woolwich and parts of west London can tell you. Some rationalise the Somalis’ failure to respond to census requests by pointing to their inherent suspicion of all authority. According to such Somali community leaders as the lawyer Omer Ahmed, refusal to be counted leads to Somalis missing out on “social provision” – though not apparently public housing, for Somalis lead the way, with 80 per cent living in council tenancies, the highest occupancy rate for any alien group. Some 65 per cent of Somali males are estimated to be unemployed and presumably on benefits. Ahmed is rightly incredulous that the British government does not know how many Somalis live here, though he is knowledgeable about the stereotyping and discrimination they face. Many young Somalis have adopted their elders’ habit of chewing the Benzedrine-like leaf qat, or have drifted into the mongrelised gangs that infest poorer parts of the capital and other cities such as Liverpool and Sheffield. Last week’s London conference on Somalia prompted the al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Dhere to warn: “Your peace depends upon us being left alone. If you do not let us live in peace, you will not live in peace.” You can read similar threats on the al-Shabaab Twitter feed, under the name HSM Press – the acronym of Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahideen, which requires no translation. Al-Shabaab’s use of Twitter is slightly odd, when you consider that they have banned the teaching and use of English, as well as the internet and television. The language of the HSM posts is colloquial, the argot of Woolwich rather than Mogadishu: “Cameron and his incompetent 'headbangers’ ought to think twice about the consequences of an endless war in Somalia. Somalia carried death.” As another British government vainly punches above its weight to set a cruel world to rights, it signally fails to enforce immigration controls at home, without foreseeing the fatal consequences of its incompetence. We may not have much of an export industry nowadays, but in one area we are world leaders: exporting dysfunctional, resentful young men – and, it seems, women – who are all too skilled in bringing murder and mayhem to friendly countries like Kenya or Uganda. That’s what we really need an international conference about. It demands some very frank exchanges, in which the British do the listening, rather than talking the leaden international conflict-resolving blather of civil servants and politicians.

Hacking officers and the 'champagne links' to Wapping

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:28:48 PST

Two senior Scotland Yard officers who dismissed the true scale of phone hacking at the News of the World had a close relationship with some of its journalists who were later arrested for alleged crimes at the paper, the Leveson Inquiry heard yesterday. John Yates, the Met's former assistant commissioner, had eight meetings with Neil Wallis, the paper's deputy editor until 2009, between 2009 and 2010, six while he was looking into alleged phone hacking at Mr Wallis's former paper – none of which was declared in the Metropolitan Police's register of hospitality. Mr Yates also had several meetings with NOTW crime editor, Lucy Panton. Andy Hayman, the assistant commissioner with oversight of the hacking inquiry in 2006, Operation Caryatid, which prosecuted only the paper's royal editor and its private investigator despite much wider evidence of wrongdoing, also had evening engagements with Mr Wallis and Ms Panton. After the Met launched fresh investigations into the paper, detectives arrested Mr Wallis in July 2011 on suspicion of phone hacking and Ms Panton in December 2011 on suspicion of police corruption. In a day of evidence highlighting the intimate professional and personal connections between senior Met staff and Rupert Murdoch's tabloid, the inquiry disclosed the meetings from notes they had made in their Scotland Yard diaries. The inquiry asked Mr Yates about an email sent by the NOTW's news editor James Mellor to Ms Panton, the crime editor, on 30 October 2010, asking her to find out more from him about a bomb found in a printer cartridge on a cargo aircraft. Mr Mellor wrote: "John Yates could be crucial here. Have you spoken to him? Really need an excl [exclusive] splash [front page] line so time to call in all those bottles of champagne..." Robert Jay, QC, the Leveson Inquiry's counsel, was particularly interested in meetings between Mr Wallis and Mr Yates, who in July 2009 decided not to reopen Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking after spending several hours reviewing the progress of the investigation carried out three years earlier. His diary showed a close connection to Mr Wallis. On 3 June 2009, for instance, he had a "private appointment" with Mr Wallis, the property developer Nick Candy and the PR entrepreneur Noel Redding at an Italian restaurant in London. In September 2009 – while Mr Yates was beginning to look afresh at the hacking inquiry following new disclosures in The New York Times – he again met Mr Wallis (who had by then left the paper) at the Mayfair restaurant Scotts. Among many other meetings with the NOTW's staff, Mr Yates had dinner with its editor, Colin Myler, and Ms Panton at the Ivy Club, private rooms above the famous theatreland restaurant in London, on 5 November 2009. Giving evidence by video link from Bahrain, where is he helping organise its police force, Mr Yates said Mr Wallis was "certainly a good friend" and had not declared the meals and drinks because they were "private engagements" for which he sometimes footed the bill. He added that he could not have known at the time that Mr Wallis, the deputy editor of the paper in 2006 at the time its royal editor, Clive Goodman, was arrested for phone hacking, would later become a suspect. Mr Goodman and the NOTW's private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in January 2007 for intercepting the voicemails of a total of eight people – whereas police now suspect other NOTW staff were involved and that the total number of victims will be 829. The inquiry produced minutes of a briefing from Scotland Yard on 9 July 2009, which indicated that Mr Yates may not have been told about the full scale of the evidence seized by police from Mr Mulcaire in 2006. One sentence read: "No evidence to support wider phones had been intercepted." Mr Yates denied that he had "been plied with champagne by Lucy Panton", but agreed he had drunk champagne with her. Mr Hayman, who was the senior counter-terrorism officer in 2006, dined with Ms Panton on 8 November 2005 and met her again at Scotland Yard on 11 November that year. He said he knew few details about Operation Caryatid. Sun's defence editor is arrested The defence editor of 'The Sun' has been arrested on suspicion of paying public officials for information. Virginia Wheeler, 32, appeared at a south London police station by appointment to answer questions related to evidence sent by News Corporation's management standards committee to Scotland Yard. 'Sun' publisher News International confirmed Ms Wheeler had been arrested in an email sent to its staff. A Metropolitan Police spokesman later confirmed a 32-year-old woman had been bailed to a date in May. Ms Wheeler had been abroad on extended leave. Police are understood to have wanted to question her for several weeks. Her arrest in connection with Operation Elveden follows those of 10 other former or current employees at 'The Sun'. Ian Burrell Murdoch briefed on terror by Met Scotland Yard chiefs briefed Rupert Murdoch on terrorist operations, the inquiry was told yesterday. Peter Clarke, who headed the force's counter-terror division, told the Leveson Inquiry there was "scepticism" in the media that the capital was a target before the 7 July attacks in 2005. He said he met Mr Murdoch when he was briefing senior journalists at News International's Wapping headquarters in August 2004. NOTW reporter denies MP's claims 'News of the World' reporter, Alex Marunchak, who was accused by the Labour MP Tom Watson of knowing a murdered private detective was about to sell a story on police corruption shortly before he was killed in 1987, has dismissed the claims as an "Oscar ceremony" performance. Mr Maranchuk said he had never heard of Daniel Morgan, or his employers, Southern Investigations, under after his murder. Leveson: I will stop more leaks Lord Justice Leveson has criticised leaks from his inquiry, which may include the revelation that Scotland Yard loaned a horse to former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks. He warned yesterday that he could restrict advance release of witness statements to core participants if the leaks continue. The leaks would constitute a breach of confidentiality and could disrupt the inquiry, he said.

Sun defence editor arrested

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:01:05 PST

The defence editor of the Sun newspaper was arrested today on suspicion of paying public officials for information. Virginia Wheeler, 32, appeared at a south London police station by appointment to answer questions related to evidence sent by News Corporation's management standards committee to Scotland Yard. Sun publisher News International confirmed Ms Wheeler had been arrested in an email sent to its staff. A Metropolitan Police spokesman later confirmed a 32-year-old woman had been bailed to a date in May. Ms Wheeler had been abroad on extended leave in recent months, a source said. Police are understood to have wanted to question her for several weeks. She becomes the 23rd person to be arrested by officers working on Operation Elveden. Ms Wheeler is The Sun's first female defence editor and reported from the front line in Libya last year. The arrest was made under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office (contrary to common law) and conspiracy in relation to both offences. Operation Elveden - which runs alongside the Met's Operation Weeting team - was launched as the phone-hacking scandal erupted last July with allegations about the now-defunct News of the World targeting Milly Dowler's mobile phone. It has now widened to include suspected corruption involving public officials, as well as police officers. A Met Police spokesman said: "Detectives from Operation Elveden have today arrested a 32-year-old woman by appointment on suspicion of corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office (contrary to common law) and conspiracy in relation to both offences." Ms Wheeler's arrest in connection with Operation Elveden follows those of 10 other former or current employees at The Sun. District editor Jamie Pyatt, 48, was the first to be arrested in November, while senior employees Chris Pharo, 42, and Mike Sullivan along with executives Fergus Shanahan, 57, and Graham Dudman were detained in January. The tabloid's deputy editor Geoff Webster, picture editor John Edwards, chief reporter John Kay, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker, and news editor John Sturgis were then arrested last month. A serving member of the armed forces, a Ministry of Defence employee and a Surrey Police officer have also been detained in connection with the investigation. All were later bailed pending further inquiries. Their arrests led The Sun's associate editor Trevor Kavanagh to launch an attack on police, claiming his colleagues had been treated like "members of an organised crime gang". Former News of the World crime editor Lucy Panton, who is married to a Scotland Yard detective, was also arrested as part of the investigation into the paying of police officers in December. Others questioned as part of the inquiry include former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, ex-Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson, former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner, and the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman. The latest arrest comes as former police chiefs were giving evidence at the Leveson Inquiry today. Peter Clarke, former head of the Met's counter-terror division, and John Yates, who was forced to resign as assistant commissioner over the phone-hacking scandal, were questioned while Andy Hayman, the officer in charge of the original hacking investigation in 2006, was also due to appear.

PM 'probably' rode loaned horse

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:08:57 PST

David Cameron "probably" rode a horse which was lent by police to former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, his spokeswoman said. The Prime Minister rode with Mrs Brooks's racehorse trainer husband Charlie, a friend since they went to school at Eton, while he was Leader of the Opposition. His mount may have been Raisa, the ex-Scotland Yard horse that it emerged this week was stabled at the couple's Cotswolds home from 2008-10, the spokeswoman said. But he had "no recollection" of ever having ridden with the ex-tabloid editor herself and had not ridden with Mr Brooks since entering 10 Downing Street, she insisted. Asked about the connection in an interview with Channel 5 News, Mr Cameron said: "It's a matter of record that I have been riding with Rebekah Brooks's husband, Charlie Brooks. "He is a friend of mine for 30 years standing and a neighbour in my constituency. But since I have been Prime Minister I think I have been on a horse once and it wasn't that one." The spokeswoman declined to disclose the identity of the horse to which he was referring.

Ronnie Wood: Show keeps me sober

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:28:00 PST

Ronnie Wood has revealed doing his radio and television show has helped him stay sober. The Rolling Stones guitarist, who has previously opened up about his alcoholism, presents a show on Absolute Radio, which has been turned into a television series for Sky Arts. And he said having a focus has helped him stay off the booze. He said: "While I've been keeping sober, it's been a way to express myself in a new focused way. It has helped me stay sober because of all the archives I'm having to plough down with my producer. I've had to concentrate but I also get the freedom, it's what I do, I deal with music, I get energy from it." The musician entered rehab after an intervention by artist Damien Hirst, and Ronnie told the Radio Times he knew he had to get clean as he was becoming immune to the effects of drugs and alcohol. He said: "The drink wasn't working, the dope wasn't working. I wasn't getting high. I was getting p'ed off and I was getting annoyed at myself. I thought, 'I'm not this person'."

millionaire Fife businessman has been convicted of murder after hiring Bulgarian hitmen to kill his brother.

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:10:49 PST

A millionaire Fife businessman has been convicted of murder after hiring Bulgarian hitmen to kill his brother. Businessman Toby Siddique was shot dead in Glenrothes on 24 October 2010. His brother Mo Siddique, 42, was found guilty of his murder. Co-accused Tencho Andonov, 28, and Deyan Nikolov, 27, were also convicted of murder. The court had heard how it was Andonov who pulled the trigger. He and fellow Bulgarian national Nikolov had been hired by Mo Siddique. Andonov was also convicted to attempting to murder David Dalgleish, who was injured in the attack. They will all be sentenced at the end of March. Millionaire Toby Siddique was said to have been lured to the flat with the promise of cheap contraband cigarettes and alcohol after the brothers fell out in an argument over the family business. He was shot in the face, and again as he lay on the ground. Andonov then turned his weapon - either a CZ83 of Czech origin or a Russian-made Makarov - on former security man Dalgleish, who was the only witness. Dalgleish survived the shooting. The trial heard about years of feuding between the Siddique brothers over their tangled business interests, especially their property company which let out hundreds of homes in Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy. Advocate depute John Scullion, prosecuting, described "a bitter and destructive relationship" and "a power struggle." Mr Scullion told the trial: "Mo hated his brother and wished him dead and, motivated by greed and hatred he began to plan the murder of his brother." Mo Siddique and Nikolov, who worked as a bouncer at a nightclub owned by Siddique, persuaded Andonov to carry out the assassination in return for £18,000, which was paid into his sister's bank account. The jury at the High Court in Edinburgh returned their verdicts on Wednesday afternoon after more than eleven hours of discussion spread over three days. The four-month murder trial had been one of the longest-running in recent Scottish history. Mohammed Nadeem Siddique, who was known as Toby, was shot at a flat in Glenrothes David Green, the area procurator fiscal for Fife, welcomed the jury's guilty verdicts. He said: "This is a crime motivated by greed. A tragic case of brother turning against brother and of a price being put on the victim's life. "No violent act should go unpunished and no-one who kills for reward should be allowed to escape justice. Today Andonov, Siddique and Nikolov have rightly been found guilty for their despicable crimes. "Today's conviction is testament to the close co-operation between officers from Fife Constabulary and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. "This was a very complex case, the successful prosecution of which reflects dedication and effective communication by staff across both organisations." The convictions brought to an end the largest and most complex investigation in Fife Constabulary's 62-year history. Det Supt Colin Beattie, who was in charge of the case, said that at one stage about 80 of the force's 1,400 staff were involved in the investigation, which it in excess of £1.4m. He said: "This was a large and extremely complicated investigation, where the identity of the perpetrators was not immediately known. "This required our staff to engage and work with other law enforcement agencies and partner organisations across the United Kingdom and beyond. The securing of evidence in this case presented unique challenges to us, which we overcame through the skill of our committed and dedicated workforce and the assistance provided by our colleagues in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and other police areas. "Thankfully such crimes are extremely rare in Fife. However, these convictions show that, whatever the gravity and magnitude of the crime, police officers and staff of Fife Constabulary, alongside our partners, have the structures and processes in place to respond effectively. "Finally, I would like to thank the diverse range of communities in Fife for their help and support in solving this case. Various nationalities and cultures cut across the entire investigation and our staff received cooperation and assistance from all concerned."

PC David Rathband shot by gunman Raoul Moat found dead

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:08:37 PST

The police officer shot and blinded by gunman Raoul Moat has been found dead at his home in Northumberland. Northumbria Police force said PC Rathband had been discovered at his house in Blyth. Moat shot his former girlfriend Samantha Stobbart and killed her new boyfriend Chris Brown in Birtley, in July 2010. The next day he shot and blinded PC Rathband as the traffic officer sat in his patrol car in Newcastle. For almost a week Moat was the subject of a huge manhunt which ended when he apparently shot himself dead after a stand-off with armed police in the market town of Rothbury, Northumberland. The officer lost his sight and was fitted with prosthetic eyes.

Bailed Kyle Thain and James Harris return from Spain

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:06:57 PST

Two men from Essex accused of attempted murder in Spain have returned to England. Kyle Thain, 24, and James Harris, 29, had been in Spain for the past seven months after being accused of attacking two men in an Alicante bar in July 2011. The pair, both from Southend, were held in a Spanish prison for four months without charge. They have now been allowed to return to England on strict bail conditions. Mr Harris returned to the UK on Tuesday and his friend Mr Thain arrived at Stansted Airport on Wednesday evening. New lawyer As part of the conditions of their return to the UK, both men must sign in at the Spanish consulate in London twice a month. Speaking before her son Mr Thain's arrival, Sharon Harris, said: "I am so excited and nervous at the same time. "I still can't believe it. I won't be happy until I've got my arms around him at the airport." Both men have protested their innocence and have said they can prove they were elsewhere at the time of the attack. They were released from jail in November and given their passports back after each paid £6,000 in bail, but were told they could not leave the country. A new lawyer has now negotiated their return home. Pablo Sebastian, a Spanish lawyer working in Alicante with offices in Hadleigh in Essex, has been helping the boys' families secure their release. "We are very relieved to have them home," he said. "It is an improvement because they are back with their friends, family and at their jobs." 'Lives disrupted' Mr Sebastian said the men's "impeccable behaviour" while on bail in Spain had persuaded the Spanish judge to allow them back to the UK. It is thought the men's families have paid about £25,000 to cover travel, accommodation and legal costs since the pair were arrested. The men must now wait to hear if they must return to Spain for a trial. Richard Howitt, MEP for the East of England, is now calling for a change in European law to ensure minimum standards of justice across all member states. "The idea they have been several months in prison, outside the country and suffered such a huge financial loss is unacceptable," he said. "If we had a system whereby you respect and uphold each other's system of justice, then Kyle and James could have come home seven months ago. "But their lives have been totally disrupted, as have their families', which is why we need better standards of judicial co-operation at European level."

Gang murdered drug dealer then blew up his house

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:20:18 PST

Drugs gang executed one of their dealer's and then blew up his house to cover-up the murder, a court heard this afternoon. Colliston Edwards, 38, of no fixed address and Andre Johnson, 25, also of no fixed address are accused of shooting Leroy Burnett, 43, after he kept back some of their money from drugs deals. Max Walter, 21, of no fixed address was then recruited by the pair to blow-up his house in Crichton Road, Battersea the Old Bailey heard. Mr Burnett was allegedly a low level drug supplier, who dealt drugs in Wandsworth Road and the Nine Elms area on behalf of Edwards. Edwards, whose street name is Lousy, was allegedly a drug dealer who commuted between Doncaster and South London and worked in a team with Johnson, known as Tallman. The court heard that Lousy had two mobile phones and gave out the numbers to his customers, travelling to their homes to sell the drugs. He allegedly expected Mr Burnett to carry out sales and look after his phones whilst he was away in Doncaster, but problems arose when Mr Burnett started miscounting money owed to him. Prosecuting, Aftab Jaffbrjee said: "There was simply no reason other than this pernicious deed of drugs supply to cost Leroy his life. Ads by Google Build Eco Friendly Visit us Today for Carbon Reduction Eco Tips for Construction Industry! www.CutCarbon.info Election Boundary Changes Constituencies are changing. Have your say on our report, Autumn 2013 independent.gov.uk/boundarychanges "He was executed in his home having been shot in the head at point blank range. There was nothing else that accounted in his life for such a brutal attack. "Walter then blew up the entire house causing destruction to the building and the street." Edwards and Johnson are both on trial for joint enterprise of murder and intending to pervert the course of justice. They deny having anything to do with the murder or the cover-up. Walter has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and arson, but denies being reckless as to whether life was endangered. The trial which opened this afternoon is expected to last six weeks.

Drug gangs report blasting UK cities as dangerous

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:25:51 PST

Comment By Professor Alan Stevens Drug gangs report blasting UK cities as dangerous is too confusing The problems are nowhere near as deep in Manchester or Liverpool as they are in Rio de Janeiro – or even San Francisco A masked municipal policeman stands outside a shopping mall in MexicoAP On one hand it is right to state that there are communities in British cities suffering from social exclusion and marginalisation and that this contributes to their drug and crime problems. But on the other, these problems are nowhere near as deep in Manchester or Liverpool as they are in Rio de Janeiro or Ciudad Juarez – or even San Francisco or Los Angeles. The problem with the INCB report is that the wording is unclear. It gives the impression that its comments on no-go areas could apply equally to all of these cities. But it should have been more careful in specifying which ones it was referring to. The cities in Central and South America have more extreme problems which come from bigger social inequalities. They are dramatically more affected by crime and health problems. For example, in the past few years in Rio there have been repeated attempts to crack down on the areas controlled by violent drug markets. For a while these places were no-go zones. But authorities have acted in a militaristic fashion in the past year as they prepare for the World Cup.

British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:19:30 PST

British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control, a United Nations drugs chief said yesterday. Professor Hamid Ghodse, president of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said there was “a vicious cycle of social exclusion and drugs problems and fractured communities” in cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The development of “no-go areas” was being fuelled by threats such as social inequality, migration and celebrities normalising drug abuse, he warned. Helping marginalised communities with drugs problems “must be a priority”, he said. “We are looking at social cohesion, the social disintegration and illegal drugs. “In many societies around the world, whether developed or developing, there are communities within the societies which develop which become no-go areas. “Drug traffickers, organised crime, drug users, they take over. They will get the sort of governance of those areas.” Prof Ghodse called for such communities to be offered drug abuse prevention programmes, treatment and rehabilitation services, and the same levels of educational, employment and recreational opportunities as in the wider society. The INCB’s annual report for 2011 found persistent social inequality, migration, emerging cultures of excess and a shift in traditional values were some of the key threats to social cohesion. As the gap between rich and poor widens, and “faced with a future with limited opportunities, individuals within these communities may increasingly become disengaged from the wider society and become involved in a range of personally and socially harmful behaviours, including drug abuse and drug dealing,” it said.

Britain’s biggest international criminals has walked free from court despite been accused of attempting to smuggle £80 million worth of cocaine into the U.K.

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:34:06 PST

A man who was named one of the Britain’s biggest international criminals has walked free from court despite been accused of attempting to smuggle £80 million worth of cocaine into the U.K.

Jamie Dempsey, 33, was suspected of plotting to flood London and the south-east with 299kg (660lb) of high-purity cocaine in 2009.

He appeared on a ‘most wanted’ list of crooks hiding in the Costa Del Sol - nicknamed ‘Costa Del Crime’ - and even featured on BBC’s Crimewatch programme.

Freed: Jamie Dempsey, centre, leaves court with his friends and family after being acquitted of his involvement in an £80m euro cocaine empire

Speaking outside of court after being cleared of any wrongdoing, Dempsey said: 'I’m just relieved the nightmare is over.

'I couldn’t be further from being a criminal - I’m just a penniless plumber from Essex.

'I was in Marbella at my parent’s house when I was arrested - the police simply got the wrong man, it was a case of mistaken identity but I don’t want to say any more.

'My face has been all over the TV and the newspapers, my friends and family have been put through hell.h

'I just want to have a good meal and get on with my life.'

Hiding place: Dempsey was cuffed in Benhavis, a mountain village near Marbella in Spain in a police operation that cost £1m

A two-year investigation, costing over £1million pounds, was launched to track Dempsey who was believed to be evading capture in Spain.

Officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) finally arrested him with the help of the Spanish police in Benhavis, Marbella, last May following a tip-off from the public.

His capture was hailed as a 'great result' but on Monday he was dramatically cleared of conspiracy to supply cocaine after a four-week trial.

Last May police named Dempsey as a suspected drug lord living the high life in the Costa Del Sol.

But a jury of five men and four women took nine-and-a-half hours to find him not guilty.

Judge Michael Pert ordered the court to be cleared after Dempsey’s family erupted into cheers after the verdict was read out.

Jailed: Fernando Hurtado, left, and John Esqulant, right, were both sentenced to 28 years behind bars

Speaking outside Leicester Crown Court his sister Natalie Dempsey, 24, said: 'We are just happy he’s coming home.

'Our family has been torn apart because of this. We’re going to give him a proper Essex home coming.

'The champagne will be flowing in Chigwell when he comes home. He doesn’t normally drink or smoke but he’ll want to party hard after all this.

'The police got the wrong man but they didn’t care. They just wanted to arrest someone in the Costa Del Sol and send them down.'

Last year three people arrested in the same police ‘sting’ operation as Dempsey were jailed for a total of 55 years.

Taxi driver John Esqulant and Colombian Fernando Hurtado were each jailed for 23 years at the same court after they were convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Part-time model and promising footballer Frank Stedman was jailed for nine years after admitting the same offence.

The sting operation began in March 2009 when officers posed as criminals who could arrange delivery of the drugs.

Three Soca agents met 41-year-old Hurtado, from Woking, Surrey, at a site in Waltham Abbey, Essex, to organise the delivery.

Two weeks later, Stedman, 26, of North Weald, Essex, paid the officers £320,800 in cash as part-payment for the drugs.

Shortly after the handover in April, armed officers stopped the van containing the Class A drug near an industrial estate in Markfield, Leics.

Esqulant, 52, of Theydon Bois, Essex, and Hurtado were arrested the same day while Stedman was brought in as he stepped off a flight at Heathrow airport in June 2010.

Scotland Yard lent police horse to Rebekah Brooks

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:09:09 PST

The former Sun and News of the World editor was lent the horse in 2008, the year after Clive Goodman, who worked for her as royal editor of the News of the World, was jailed for phone-hacking along withe the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch visited Mrs Brooks's home in the Cotswolds to check she had suitable facilities and was a competent rider before the horse went there. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police pointed out that it is routine for retired Mounted Branch horses to be lent out to members of the public at the end of their working lives, but the arrangement is likely to raise fresh questions about the Met's relationship with Mrs Brooks. The news comes a day after the Leveson Inquiry was told that Mrs Brooks was briefed by a senior Met officer on the progress of the original phone-hacking inquiry and even consulted on how far she thought the investigation should go. Mrs Brooks, who is married to the former racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, kept the horse at her home in the Cotswolds for two years before giving it back to the Metropolitan Police in 2010. It was then found a new home in Norfolk with a serving police officer. Dave Wilson, Mrs Brooks's spokesman, said: "It's well known by people in the horse world that the Met looks for homes for horses once they retire. Rebekah took on a horse and effectively acted as a foster parent for it for a year or so. "The Met horse team comes out to make sure your facilities are right and proper. It's just a way of giving a temporary home to a horse that has had a distinguished service in the Met. It went off to a retirement paddock in Norfolk once it couldn't be ridden any more." At the time Mrs Brooks took on the horse, she was editor of The Sun, but had given evidence to a committee of MPs five years earlier admitting that the News of the World had paid policemen when she was editor of the Sunday paper between 2000 and 2003. By the time she gave the horse back to the Met she was chief executive of News International and the Met was facing calls to re-open its investigation into phone hacking following the disclosure that thousands of names of potential victims appeared in Mulcaire's notebooks. A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "When a police horse reaches the end of its working life, Mounted Branch officers find it a suitable retirement home. Whilst responsibility for feeding the animal and paying vet bills passes to the person entrusted to its care at its new home, the horse remains the property of the Metropolitan Police Service. "Retired police horses are not sold on and can be returned to the care of the MPS at any time. In 2008 a retired MPS horse was loaned to Rebekah Brooks. The horse was subsequently re-housed with a police officer in 2010." The Metropolitan Police website states that: "At the end of the police horse's working life the animal is re-homed at one of many identified establishments who have previously contacted the Mounted Branch with a view to offering a home. "The Mounted Branch is looking for suitable homes for retired horses, that is homes where the horse will not be ridden. Anyone in the southeast of England offering such a home will be considered first."

Bank tax dodges halted by retrospective law

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:07:59 PST

A bank in the UK has been forced to pay more than half a billion pounds in tax which it had dodged by using "highly abusive" tax avoidance schemes. One tax dodge involved the bank claiming it should not have to pay corporation tax on profits made when buying back its own IOUs. The government said it would change the law retrospectively and immediately to stop anyone else using the scheme. The identity of the bank has so far not been revealed. Announcing the crackdown, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, said the bank should never have devised the schemes in the first place. "The bank that disclosed these schemes to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has adopted the Banking Code of Practice on Taxation which contains a commitment not to engage in tax avoidance," he said. "The government is clear that these are not transactions that a bank that has adopted the code should be undertaking. "We do not take today's action lightly, but the potential tax loss from this scheme and the history of previous abuse in this area mean that this is a circumstance where the decision to change the law with full retrospective effect is justified," he added. The second tax avoidance scheme, designed by the same bank, involved investment funds claiming that non-taxable income entitled the funds to tax credits that could be reclaimed from HMRC. The Treasury described this as "an attempt to secure 'repayment' from the Exchequer of tax that has not been paid". Compulsory notification A Treasury source suggested that outlawing the tax dodges immediately would save the government a further £2bn in tax that would otherwise have been foregone. The bank in question in fact disclosed the two schemes to the tax authorities under rules which have been in place since 2004. Anyone, such as a bank, accountant, lawyer or tax adviser, who devises a seemingly legal tax avoidance plan, is obliged to tell the tax authorities about it within a few days of using it or marketing it to clients. More than 2,000 schemes have been disclosed in the past eight years. "Quite a few of the disclosures have come from banks in the past," said John Whiting, of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT). "They are usually intended to sell to others such as clients." New code The banking code on taxation was first introduced by the Labour government in June 2009. It followed reports that some big banks used large scale tax avoidance schemes involving complex transactions and financial instruments. The code - which was supported by the incoming coalition government the following year - demands that banks which sign ensure that their tax and the tax obligations of their customers are observed. It says they should not go out of their way to avoid tax for themselves or clients. The 15 biggest banks operating in the UK have signed up. 'Treated even-handedly' In a separate development, HMRC said it would appoint a senior official to act as an "assurance commissioner" for any tax deals struck with big companies for more than £100m. The job of the commissioner will be to make sure taxpayers in general do not suffer from any such settlements. The move follows severe criticism last December from MPs on the public accounts committee who denounced HMRC for appearing to cut contentious tax deals with companies such as Vodafone and Goldman Sachs. Lin Homer, the new HMRC chief executive said: "This commissioner will take the role of challenging whether any proposed settlement secured the correct amount of tax efficiently and that taxpayers had been treated even-handedly." "The commissioner will also make sure that the governance procedures have been followed," she added.

The daily Sun had systematically paid large sums of money to “a network of corrupted officials” in the British police, military and government.

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:22:20 PST

A day after presiding over the publication of his new, damn-the-critics Sun on Sunday tabloid, Rupert Murdoch was confronted with fresh allegations from a top police investigator that the daily Sun had systematically paid large sums of money to “a network of corrupted officials” in the British police, military and government. Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (130) » The allegations, part of a deepening criminal probe into The Sun and Mr. Murdoch’s defunct News of the World, highlight the challenges to Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation as he seeks to minimize the threat to his British media holdings. They also cast a harsh spotlight on the freewheeling pay-for-information culture of the British media. In public testimony on Monday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is leading the criminal investigation into Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers, said The Sun, long a source of special pride and attention for Mr. Murdoch, had illegally paid the unidentified officials hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for news tips and “salacious gossip.” She said the payments had been authorized “at a very senior level within the newspaper.” Her comments, unusual during a continuing criminal inquiry, directly undercut Mr. Murdoch’s campaign of support for the embattled newspaper. On Feb. 17, the 80-year-old Mr. Murdoch made a grand entrance into the Sun newsroom, where, marching around in shirtsleeves, he vowed to reinstate journalists suspended in the criminal investigation, offered to pay their legal bills, issued a robust statement about the paper’s probity and announced that he was defying conventional industry wisdom by starting a Sunday issue. Ms. Akers said illegal activities had been rife at the paper. “There appears to have been a culture at The Sun of illegal payments, and systems have been created to facilitate such payments whilst hiding the identity of the officials receiving the money,” she told the Leveson Inquiry on media ethics and practices, led by Lord Justice Leveson. The payments involved “frequent and sometimes significant sums of money” to public officials, she said. In a statement, Mr. Murdoch said that “the practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson Inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at The Sun.” He remained publicly bullish, helping promote the new Sun on Sunday in newspaper stores and announcing on Twitter that it had sold 3.26 million copies. In another blow to Mr. Murdoch, related this time to The News of the World, a lawyer for the Leveson Inquiry said Rebekah Brooks, a former Murdoch executive, was apparently informed by the police in 2006 that detectives had evidence that the cellphones of dozens of celebrities, politicians and sports figures had been illegally hacked by an investigator working for the newspaper. The disclosure, contained in a September 2006 e-mail from a company lawyer to the editor of The News of the World, Andy Coulson, is highly significant. Until late in 2010, Mrs. Brooks, Mr. Coulson and other officials at News International, the British newspaper arm of News Corporation, repeatedly asserted that the hacking had been limited to a single “rogue reporter” — the paper’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. The assertion was rendered implausible, at best, by the fact that the police had information that so many hacking victims existed, and that so few of them had anything to do with the royal family. Monday’s disclosures could not have come at a more inopportune time for Mr. Murdoch. In recent weeks, morale at The Sun hit a low point after a number of senior editors and reporters were arrested on suspicion of illegally paying sources. At the same time, journalists at The Sun and elsewhere released a stream of angry attacks at the police, saying the investigation had gone too far and was targeting reporters for what they said was normal behavior in the British tabloid press like taking sources out to lunch or paying whistle-blowers. “The Sun journalists who have been arrested are not accused of enriching themselves — they were simply researching stories about scandals at hospitals, scandals at army bases and scandals in police stations that they believed their readers were entitled to know about,” Kelvin Mackenzie, a former editor of The Sun, wrote in The Daily Mail. “If the whistle-blower asks for money, so what?” The Metropolitan Police Service’s highly unusual decision to release specific details of a continuing investigation seemed designed to rebut such criticism. “The cases we are investigating are not ones involving the odd drink, or meal, to police officers or other public officials,” Ms. Akers said. “Instead, these are cases in which arrests have been made involving the delivery of regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists.”

You can buy a Kalashnikov for a hundred euros on the back streets of Athens

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:17:44 PST

"You can buy a Kalashnikov for a hundred euros on the back streets of Athens and people are doing so to guard their property," Mr Chrysanthopoulos told me from his home outside the capital yesterday. Thanks to the disastrous euro, his country is sliding remorselessly towards bankruptcy and disintegration. Modern Greece is an economic corpse, kept on life support by Germany and France, who fear the euro will be destroyed if they admit the truth. Last week's £110BILLION bailout was not aimed at rescuing the Greek people. It was to save the euro from total collapse. Yet the country seems doomed to another historic crisis as disastrous as the German occupation, a bloody civil war and years of military rule. "What we risk today is anarchy, the collapse of society and a breakdown in law and order," says Mr Chrysanthopoulos, 66. "We have more than 20,000 homeless families in Athens alone. "There are food lines for the hungry, which have not been seen since the Second World War. "Penniless pensioners are begging in the streets. People are bartering for essentials, living hand to mouth." Sooner or later they will be thrown out of the euro — the greatest peacetime catastrophe in the history of Europe. Hatred seethes against Germany, which in 1942 reduced Greece to starvation and slavery during its brutal Nazi occupation. A Greek radio station has just been fined for describing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a "dirty Berlin slut". Nazi resistance fighter Manolis Glezos, now 89, says Germany plundered Greece for the equivalent of £138billion in the 1940s. "They grab us by the throat for the debt — let's do the same to them for the reparations," he says. Germans hit back, branding the Greeks "idle swindlers". They claim nobody pays tax because bandit politicians steal their money. The insults are fuelling precisely the nationalistic antagonism that sowed the seeds for two world wars — and which the EU was created to eliminate forever. Germany and France, who must accept the blame for allowing Greece into the euro at all, are terrified of contagion. So they are forcing this humiliated nation to slash pay and pensions to starvation levels. Last week's costly bailout has bought time — and the fantasy of an orderly default. Mr Chrysanthopoulos feels betrayed by the euro currency con. But he is not alone. Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dems' fervently pro-euro ex-leader, last week admitted: "I was wrong." His successor, the made-in-Brussels Nick Clegg, admits he would no longer join the euro. Two former editors of the fanatically pro-Brussels Financial Times confess they backed the wrong horse. Ex-EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein admits: "The euro has failed." We will never hear honesty like that from Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine, who lost the Tories three elections by stoking the row over Europe. But unlike Mr Chrysanthopoulos, they will probably die comfortably in their beds without witnessing the hideous consequences. Greek instability risks spilling over to fragile ex-fascist regimes Spain and Portugal. If it does, we can only hope it doesn't bring chaos to Italy — then to France. People will take only so much belt-tightening austerity. More revolutions have been triggered by oppressive taxes than anything else. The drive for ever closer political and economic union and the end of national rivalry was aimed at ending war in Europe. We must pray the arrogant fools who launched this undemocratic juggernaut do not achieve precisely the opposite.

TONY Adams has been compared to TV gangster Tony Soprano, and his gang are rumoured to be responsible for 25 murders.

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:11:31 PST

When he appeared in court last November, he gave his address as the cottage in Barnet. Land Registry documents confirm the property is owned by Cole, 31. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the player, who has a multi-million-pound property investment portfolio. Adams, once said to be worth £150 million, headed a notorious North London crime gang nicknamed the A-team or Adams Family. He bought a yacht and sent his daughter to a private school. But in 2007 he was jailed for seven years — for money laundering his own wages — after an undercover operation by MI5 and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Just like Chicago mobster Al Capone, he had escaped justice for years before finally being nailed for tax evasion. Officers spent 21 months and £10 million eavesdropping on Adams. During the probe his accountant was killed in a drive-by shooting, and a hitman was reputedly buried in the foundations of London's O2 Arena. A search of Adams' £1million former home uncovered £700,000 worth of stolen goods. Adams was released in 2010 after serving half his sentence. But last year he was sent back to do the rest of his time after he defied a financial reporting order and failed to declare luxury purchases including a £7,500 facelift. His earliest release date is now December 2013.

Britain’s crime hot spots revealed

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:02:13 PST

The findings, posted on an interactive website, will allow the public to discover how many cases of robbery, vehicle crime and other offences take place in their area – and to rank areas from best to worst. Oxford Street in London's West End was revealed to be the shopping destination surrounded by the most crime. During 2011, there were 656 vehicle crimes, 915 robberies and 2,597 violent crimes within three quarters of a mile of the Oxford Street branch of John Lewis. There were also 5,039 reported instances of anti-social behaviour – equivalent to 14 a day. High streets and shopping centres in Bristol, Brighton and Derby also featured in a top 10 of crime hot spots, according to the website ukcrimestats.com. A spokesman for the New West End Company, which represents Oxford Street traders, said: "We need to remember that this is an area with extremely high footfall, with over 200 million visits a year. This data needs to be seen in context. "Oxford Street has seen an overall reduction in crime over the past 10 years, with our lobby for harder sentencing on crime having a positive impact." The Croydon postcode CR0 was found to have the highest number of crimes reported last year, with 5,000 more than any other postal area. The south London suburb was the scene of some of the most severe rioting last summer. During 2011, 2,081 burglaries, 3,258 violent crimes and 8,316 instances of anti-social behaviour were reported in the CR0 postcode district. Dan Lewis, the chief executive of the Economic Policy Centre, the Right-of-centre think-tank which carried out the analysis and created the website, said: "On the one hand it is good that the Government is now publishing such detailed crime statistics, but the official police website does not allow the public to put these figures in context. "It has taken us, as a private sector provider, to harness this data in a way which is much more helpful to consumers. "It's not just important that the Government becomes more transparent, it's vital that what information is published is actually useful to the public." Seven of the 10 schools with the highest number of crimes within three quarters of a mile of their gates were in London. Two were in Portsmouth and one in Bristol. Almost 8,250 acts of anti-social behaviour, robbery, vehicle crime or violent crime were reported within three quarters of a mile of Charing Cross railway station in London last year, 1,700 more than Newcastle's central railway station, which had the second-highest crime rate. There were also high numbers of crimes around stations in Birmingham, Blackpool and east London. Anyone craving a life free from crime should consider a move to Wales. Nearly a third of the 50 postcode districts with the lowest number of reported crimes last year were in Wales, with several on the island of Anglesey. Official figures suggest that the Welsh village of Garndolbenmaen, on the edge of the Snowdonia national park, had one reported crime last year – a single case of anti-social behaviour. Steve Churchman, who runs the village shop serving the 300 residents, said the area was "like Beirut" when he moved there from London eight years ago. "We had a real problem with anti-social behaviour back then," said Mr Churchman. "There was this gang of kids. We had a phonebox vandalised, a bus stop graffitied and a few break-ins." Mr Churchman said the falling crime figures in the village were a result of pushing for convictions on those residents who stepped out of line and having police office and community support officers out on the beat. The children who caused the trouble had grown up and were now "nice lads", he added.

Gangster’s moll rents a house from Ashley Cole

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:48:47 PST

Gangster's moll Ruth Adams, 51, pays about £1,500 a month to rent the Chelsea defender's three-bedroom cottage. Her husband Terry, 57 — a fan of Chelsea's London rivals Arsenal — also lived at the property for 17 months between prison sentences. He moved in to the £600,000 home in Barnet, North London, after his release from a seven-year stretch for money laundering, before being banged up again last year. Neighbours often see loyal Ruth — who married Adams 29 years ago — driving a top-of-the-range Lexus. One local said: "It's funny that it's Cole's house because Terry is an avid Arsenal fan and was once linked to buying the Gunners. "Ruth is very polite but won't engage you in conversation for long. She's still close to her husband."

MURDER INVESTIGATION: Police arrest four after man is stabbed to death in Camden Town

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:04:34 PST

MURDER squad detectives have made four arrests after a man was stabbed to death in Camden Town in the early hours of this morning (Sunday). Early reports had linked the Inverness Street attack with Liverpool football fans who were in London last night ahead of today's Carling Cup Final at Wembley. Met Police said they did not believe the incident was "football related" but confirmed the 26-year-old knife victim was from Merseyside. Witnesses said people in Inverness Street at the time of the attack were not wearing football colours but large crowds of supporters had been drinking and chanting there earlier in the evening. Accountant Chad Williams, who lives in Inverness Street, said: "I looked out the window when I heard screaming. One guy was on the floor outside Bar Uno. "There was chaos out there for the next five minutes. The emergency services were there – they were with the guy for 45 minutes. "There was a guy, a young guy with blonde hair, he went to help him. He performed CPR. He was pumping at his chest. There was an awful lot of blood. It was all over him, too. "The emergency services arrived and did everything you would want of them." There was an eerie hush in Camden Town today as excited tourists coming out of the tube station were confronted by the scene. A post-mortem examination is expected to take place today.

Two men jailed for smuggling £1.6m cocaine haul dissolved in bags containing 550 live tropical fish

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:18:45 PST

A pair of Polish drug criminals who tried to smuggle 17 kilos of cocaine into Britain inside live tropical fish were jailed yesterday. Olaf Urlik, 33, and Norbert Jarzabek, 32, both originally from Poland, first practised and then attempted to smuggle the high purity cocaine, worth an estimated £1.6m at wholesale, from Colombia into the UK. The drug was dissolved in bags of fluid and then stored inside larger bags with the live fish, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) said.

European court rules against Italy for expelling migrants

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:23:49 PST

European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled that Italy had violated it human rights obligations when it deported a group of African migrants intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea to Libya in 2009. The decision delivered in Strasbourg by 17 judges of the court was described as a 'landmark' by the United Nation's Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and was also welcomed by several rights groups in Italy and elsewhere. Italy's International Cooperation Minister, Andrea Riccardi, said that the ruling would force Italy to 'think and rethink our policies towards migration.' The case concerned 24 Somalis and Eritreans who were in a group of 200 migrants intercepted by the Italian Coast Guard 35 nautical miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Belarus fights Europe to retain death penalty

noreply@blogger.com (Reporters) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:10:56 PST

Belarusian MPs have blasted a recent resolution of the European Parliament on death penalty in Belarus as an attempt to interfere in the country’s internal affairs. The Belarusian parliamentary commission on international affairs has issued an official statement saying that the European Parliament’s resolution on the death penalty in Belarus was a continuation of the practice of pressuring Belarusian authorities and meddling with the country’s internal affairs. Additionally, the Belarusian side noted that from the text of the resolution they could draw a conclusion that the European side did not pay much attention to the credibility of facts and the logic of conclusions. In particular, the Belarusian parliamentarians criticized the fact that the case of Metro bombers Konovalov and Kovalyov, mentioned in the resolution, is called unjust, despite of the fact that the trial in the case was open to the maximum and well-covered by the media. The Belarusian politicians also expressed surprise over the fact that their country was called the Belarusian Federation in the European Parliament’s resolution, while its official name is Republic of Belarus. However, the text of the resolution posted on the European Parliament’s website in English uses the correct name. Belarusian MPs stressed that the use of capital punishment in their country is not against international norms and its use is extremely limited, and in practice happens only in extraordinary cases. The ban on capital punishment is the internal affair of the Republic of Belarus and can only be made with consideration of the Belarusian society’s opinion, the politicians said.