Latest / History Dark / Illegally Selling Exotic Birds - from a London Pub__ _ Special Ops_ Crime Squad UK

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Illegally Selling Exotic Birds - from a London Pub__ _ Special Ops_ Crime Squad UK · History Dark

0:03
Speaker 1: When hardened criminals repeatedly evade justice, elite police units come
0:08
Speaker 1: together to crack these toughest cases.
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Speaker 2: Police officers!
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Speaker 3: My role is investigating serious and organised crime.
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Speaker 4: We are a covert investigative team.
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Speaker 1: For the first time across the UK, we have exclusive
0:24
Speaker 1: access to the investigations of Britain's most talented detectives.
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Speaker 5: We'll spend years putting together all of these tiny pieces
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Speaker 5: of evidence.
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Speaker 6: The most bizarre investigation I've been involved in.
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Speaker 1: And share the methods and evidence that can bring these
0:42
Speaker 1: criminals to book.
0:45
Speaker 7: Handguns coming in from the United States.
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Speaker 8: He had the drugs.
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Speaker 7: That is a lot of money.
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Speaker 2: No real who did it.
0:55
Speaker 1: This time... In Gloucestershire, a dangerous gang dealing drugs and
0:59
Speaker 1: guns from other counties.
1:02
Speaker 8: They found a shotgun in the boot.
1:04
Speaker 4: Our concern then is what other firearms could he have
1:06
Speaker 4: access to?
1:09
Speaker 1: A fraudster stealing hundreds of thousands while living the high life.
1:14
Speaker 8: Justin Harrods, man.
1:15
Speaker 2: Nice braids, son.
1:16
Speaker 3: Fever valued these claims that they'd paid out in the
1:19
Speaker 3: region of about £ 200, 000. And they were starting to realise
1:23
Speaker 3: that this was one big fraud.
1:25
Speaker 1: And a heartless group buying and selling Britain's wild birds
1:30
Speaker 1: for profit.
1:31
Speaker 9: I was receiving a phone call from one of my
1:34
Speaker 9: colleagues that there is an aviary that's massive, that is
1:36
Speaker 9: chock-a-block full of wild captured goldfinches.
1:40
Speaker 2: MUSIC PLAYS.
1:55
Speaker 4: I thoroughly enjoy investigative work. It's organised criminality that I've
2:00
Speaker 4: been involved in now for probably the last 10 to
2:02
Speaker 4: 12 years. It's that serious, non-gross crime, the gang networks,
2:06
Speaker 4: it's that world.
2:08
Speaker 1: In Gloucestershire between 2020 and 2021, there were over 1,600
2:14
Speaker 1: drugs offences recorded, more than four a day.
2:22
Speaker 4: There's organised criminals here in Gloucestershire in the same as
2:24
Speaker 4: any other town or county, maybe not at the same
2:26
Speaker 4: level as the likes of London and Manchester, but we
2:28
Speaker 4: still have proper serious criminals.
2:31
Speaker 1: One criminal whose name kept cropping up more and more
2:35
Speaker 1: was local drug dealer Lee Fisher.
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Speaker 4: He's lived in Dursley all his life. Our view at
2:42
Speaker 4: that time from a drugs intelligence perspective was that he
2:45
Speaker 4: was involved with his brothers, with his family, and with
2:50
Speaker 4: people he'd grown up with. It was a very close-knit community.
2:53
Speaker 4: Dursley is a very small town. Yes, I'd heard of
2:56
Speaker 4: Lee Fisher. My view originally was Big Fish, Little Pond.
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Speaker 4: Intelligence came in with saying that Lee Fisher was the
3:02
Speaker 4: biggest drug dealer in the area. Lee Fisher was involved
3:05
Speaker 4: in violent feuds. Lee Fisher was involved in the supply
3:08
Speaker 4: and the movement of firearms. It was then that we
3:10
Speaker 4: suddenly realised that actually the criminality here is higher than
3:13
Speaker 4: perhaps we thought was the case before.
3:16
Speaker 1: Concerned about the reports of the local drug dealer expanding
3:20
Speaker 1: his empire and using more menacing tactics, Chief Inspector Fletcher
3:24
Speaker 1: decided to set up a dedicated team to tackle the problem.
3:29
Speaker 4: I'm the leader of the team. It's just my responsibility
3:31
Speaker 4: really to bring those people together and highlight their specialisms
3:34
Speaker 4: and bring the best out of everybody.
3:36
Speaker 8: And then I have an evidential team led by Matt.
3:41
Speaker 6: Whether you're part of the surveillance team or part of
3:42
Speaker 6: the investigation team, there's a real mix. Sometimes you just
3:45
Speaker 6: need patience because we work to the timetable that the
3:48
Speaker 6: criminals set.
3:48
Speaker 4: Dan is probably the most tenacious investigator that I've known
3:52
Speaker 4: in my 24 years in the job.
3:54
Speaker 5: I've built up quite a good understanding of how drug
3:57
Speaker 5: supply works within our country and the technicalities, if you like,
4:00
Speaker 5: around police investigations in terms of that type of crime.
4:05
Speaker 1: In February 2018, they launched Operation Glamorgan, It's.
4:09
Speaker 5: Really important to try to get as much information as
4:12
Speaker 5: you can about a person that's under investigation. Really want
4:16
Speaker 5: to kind of live their life with them so you
4:18
Speaker 5: know where they're going, you know where they've been, and
4:20
Speaker 5: that's what we set out to achieve with the surveillance.
4:24
Speaker 1: And watching the gang's movements soon paid off.
4:27
Speaker 4: This is when we first saw his links to Liverpool.
4:31
Speaker 4: It was quite clear that Lee Fisher was tied into
4:35
Speaker 4: what are some quite serious criminals in the Merseyside area.
4:39
Speaker 4: and we started looking at his phones. We suspect something
4:42
Speaker 4: is happening because of all the activity that's gone on before,
4:44
Speaker 4: all the communications that have occurred, but we're.
4:46
Speaker 8: Not quite sure what.
4:49
Speaker 6: One of his associates that he was linked to, their
4:51
Speaker 6: vehicle began travelling to Liverpool, and so a surveillance team
4:55
Speaker 6: was scrambled to work behind that car and see what
4:58
Speaker 6: happened when that vehicle travelled to Liverpool.
5:01
Speaker 4: We're utilising Merseyside because we're going into areas of Liverpool
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Speaker 4: that are deemed to be quite a hotspot for policing activity.
5:07
Speaker 6: And it's a very challenging time for the surveillance team
5:09
Speaker 6: because they're working behind people they don't know that well.
5:13
Speaker 6: We got a lot of help from Merseyside Police as
5:15
Speaker 6: our team arrived into Liverpool.
5:18
Speaker 1: But although the team identified other gang members, one man
5:22
Speaker 1: was nowhere to be seen.
5:24
Speaker 4: We were aware that Lee Fisher was flying out of
5:26
Speaker 4: the country to Belfast. It's a relatively common sort of
5:31
Speaker 4: method that some criminals look to do is when they're
5:33
Speaker 4: carrying out criminality, And ultimately, they may change the way
5:37
Speaker 4: they're operating or they may leave the country.
5:40
Speaker 1: Whilst their main target was out of reach, for now,
5:43
Speaker 1: the police team doubled down on the rest of the gang.
5:48
Speaker 8: They were able to see an interaction with another person.
5:52
Speaker 6: Something was placed into the back of the car, but
5:54
Speaker 6: we weren't able to say what that was at the time.
5:56
Speaker 4: Followed them as they've gone back out of the city,
5:58
Speaker 4: and it's obvious now they're coming back to Gloucestershire. So
6:01
Speaker 4: I've asked Merseyside Police to stop the car. suspecting that
6:03
Speaker 4: there's something in the boot of that vehicle and.
6:05
Speaker 7: I want to know what it is.
6:08
Speaker 6: They eventually found a shotgun in the boot and then
6:11
Speaker 6: the occupants of the car were arrested and taken into
6:13
Speaker 6: custody in Liverpool.
6:14
Speaker 4: Our concern then is, well, what else can he get
6:16
Speaker 4: and what other firearms could he have access to if
6:19
Speaker 4: he wanted to through his contacts in Liverpool?
6:23
Speaker 1: When the team examined the gun seized from the boot,
6:26
Speaker 1: it became clear the gang were a bigger threat than
6:29
Speaker 1: they thought. But disappointingly, they found no evidence of drug
6:33
Speaker 1: dealing and the gun courier didn't talk.
6:35
Speaker 4: It's going to be easy to discharge, easy to get
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Speaker 4: ammunition for, and it's something that can cause some serious
6:41
Speaker 4: injury or death.
6:42
Speaker 6: If they're asking for money or their debt paid back
6:44
Speaker 6: and they're pointing that at you, you're.
6:45
Speaker 7: Going to pay, aren't you?
6:47
Speaker 1: They may have found a gun, but they were still
6:49
Speaker 1: struggling to connect Lee Fisher with any crime.
6:54
Speaker 6: When his associate was arrested and his phone was seized,
6:56
Speaker 6: there was quite a lot of messages between him and
7:00
Speaker 6: Lee Fisher where Lee was asking for things to be
7:01
Speaker 6: speeded up because he needed the thing back in Gloucestershire.
7:05
Speaker 8: So we started to bank some really nice evidence.
7:08
Speaker 6: Early on, but we still needed to continue the investigation
7:11
Speaker 6: to see what other criminality Lee Fisher was engaged in.
7:14
Speaker 1: The team continued to watch the gang members every move.
7:22
Speaker 6: On the 5th of June, surveillance officers captured what turned
7:25
Speaker 6: out to be an important meeting.
7:26
Speaker 4: One of the people we'd identified working for Fisher was
7:30
Speaker 4: a chap called Stephen West and we believed that he
7:32
Speaker 4: was a drugs courier or a drug supplier working on behalf.
7:35
Speaker 7: Of Lee Fisher.
7:38
Speaker 1: Stephen West was a trusted member of the gang and
7:41
Speaker 1: police had followed him to a fast food restaurant where
7:44
Speaker 1: they believed he was meeting with a courier from another
7:48
Speaker 1: organised crime group.
8:05
Speaker 4: We saw McCrory drive in, Stephen West walk across the
8:08
Speaker 4: car park, meet up with McCrory, jump into the car
8:11
Speaker 4: and then come back out again and there's a a
8:14
Speaker 4: potential exchange of bags that has occurred, identifying potentially a
8:19
Speaker 4: route of some of those drugs coming into Fisher's enterprise.
8:22
Speaker 1: The team thought they had evidence of the drug's route,
8:25
Speaker 1: but with no drugs or sign of the main man,
8:28
Speaker 1: Lee Fisher, they couldn't risk going in too soon.
8:32
Speaker 4: There's always a risk whenever you execute a warrant that
8:35
Speaker 4: it may tip the hand to the person you're looking at,
8:37
Speaker 4: they may change the way they're operating, or they may
8:39
Speaker 4: leave the country, etc.
8:40
Speaker 8: or leave the county.
8:42
Speaker 4: But it's a risk that you have to balance up
8:44
Speaker 4: and understand and if you're being frustrated then sometimes that's
8:47
Speaker 4: what you.
8:48
Speaker 7: Need to do.
8:51
Speaker 1: And they decided to take a risk after watching an
8:54
Speaker 1: address in town.
8:58
Speaker 8: We saw Lee Fisher go there on a number of occasions.
9:01
Speaker 6: We saw Stephen West go there on certain key dates
9:04
Speaker 6: when he then went on to meet one of the suppliers.
9:06
Speaker 4: I arranged my intel team to obtain a warrant for
9:08
Speaker 4: that address and on the 22nd of June we go
9:10
Speaker 4: to that address and execute that warrant.
9:12
Speaker 6: But unfortunately, there wasn't the large amount of drugs that
9:15
Speaker 6: we were anticipating might be present.
9:18
Speaker 4: We also identify a number of weapons that are stored
9:21
Speaker 4: there that aren't criminal offences per se, but it does
9:24
Speaker 4: give us the penchant for what people are carrying around
9:28
Speaker 4: with them.
9:28
Speaker 6: However, we did seize a number of quite important items
9:31
Speaker 6: such as scales, wrappings and things that show that drugs
9:35
Speaker 6: have been prepared there. And also importantly, we seized one
9:38
Speaker 6: or two key mobile phones. Over the next couple of weeks,
9:43
Speaker 6: once the phone series were downloaded and we started to
9:45
Speaker 6: understand what had taken place there, we knew that it
9:48
Speaker 6: was an important part of the investigation and it would
9:51
Speaker 6: give us some good information about Lee Fisher particularly and
9:55
Speaker 6: some of the messages on the phones about how he
9:57
Speaker 6: was able to source drugs and sell it to others.
10:02
Speaker 1: They stepped up surveillance on the gang and in particular
10:05
Speaker 1: Lee's brother, Daniel Fisher.
10:13
Speaker 6: On the 2nd of July, officers observed evidence Daniel Fisher
10:17
Speaker 6: travelling to an address in Gloucester Road in Stonehouse, which
10:20
Speaker 6: is where Steve and Wes lived.
10:24
Speaker 4: They moved in and out of the house on a
10:25
Speaker 4: number of occasions. It's my belief that he's potentially picked
10:30
Speaker 4: up items from that address. I give the instruction to
10:34
Speaker 4: say that I want Danny Fisher detained and searched and
10:37
Speaker 4: he stopped on the street outside his car and he's
10:39
Speaker 4: found to be in possession of a quantity of drugs
10:41
Speaker 4: and mobile phones. So he gets arrested and at the
10:44
Speaker 4: same time Because we've arrested Danny Fisher, I give the
10:48
Speaker 4: instruction as well that we're going to go in and
10:50
Speaker 4: execute the warrant that we've already got for Stephen West's home.
10:54
Speaker 6: Sadly, probably the best thing we found there was two
10:57
Speaker 6: empty kilogram block wrappings, so cocaine's packaged in a very
11:01
Speaker 6: particular way and it's quite obvious what they were. But again,
11:04
Speaker 6: we were slightly frustrated that the timing wasn't quite right
11:07
Speaker 6: and we hadn't.
11:07
Speaker 8: Seized the drugs.
11:09
Speaker 1: At first sight, the raid again didn't seem to have
11:12
Speaker 1: surfaced much. But what they thought was an innocuous piece
11:15
Speaker 1: of paper turned out to be a key breakthrough, a
11:19
Speaker 1: dealer's list.
11:21
Speaker 6: Really importantly, some dealer lists were seized, which basically was
11:24
Speaker 6: their written record of all the people they'd been interacting
11:27
Speaker 6: with over the previous months.
11:30
Speaker 5: That was gold dust. It was an absolutely brilliant piece
11:34
Speaker 5: of evidence. Look at the figures so that we could
11:37
Speaker 5: understand the money that was coming through. Once you understand
11:40
Speaker 5: the money, you then understand the amount of drugs involved.
11:43
Speaker 5: What we were able to do was look at those
11:46
Speaker 5: people that we suspected were involved in the group, match
11:49
Speaker 5: up their initials, because it wasn't that hard. Many of
11:52
Speaker 5: the initials, well, all of them, I think, matched the
11:53
Speaker 5: people that we.
11:54
Speaker 2: Were looking at.
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Speaker 5: I can't really put into words how important that piece
11:57
Speaker 5: of paper was in terms of the investigation.
12:01
Speaker 1: The police now had strong evidence to implicate the lower
12:04
Speaker 1: members of the gang, but not enough on the boss,
12:07
Speaker 1: Lee Fisher, who had become evasive.
12:11
Speaker 5: He left Gloucestershire because at that point in time he
12:15
Speaker 5: felt that the police activity had got too much, so
12:18
Speaker 5: he needed to start to distance himself. Mobile phones are great.
12:21
Speaker 5: You don't have to be in the area to be
12:22
Speaker 5: involved in what's going on. You can go and live
12:24
Speaker 5: somewhere else and still orchestrate.
12:29
Speaker 1: But only five weeks later, Lee resurfaced. And ironically, it
12:35
Speaker 1: looked like the police's best chance of implicating him would
12:39
Speaker 1: be through his dealings with a different gang.
12:43
Speaker 6: On the 16th of August, Lee Fisher had been shown
12:46
Speaker 6: through all these events to be communicating with someone who
12:48
Speaker 6: was quite a significant drug supplier in Gloucester.
12:52
Speaker 5: They did everything they could to prevent us from seeing
12:55
Speaker 5: the meeting. This is a meeting of minds, this is
12:59
Speaker 5: a meeting of the heads of the two OCGs.
13:02
Speaker 1: There was one piece of the evidence Jack saw that
13:04
Speaker 1: remained to be filled.
13:07
Speaker 6: On paper we had quite a strong case, but where
13:09
Speaker 6: we were lacking it was a significant seizure of drugs.
13:12
Speaker 6: As the surveillance continued on the 16th of September, a
13:15
Speaker 6: further important event took place where a number of people
13:19
Speaker 6: were seen to come together in a small village pub
13:21
Speaker 6: in one of the villages on the outskirts between Stroud
13:24
Speaker 6: and Dursley. And Lee Fisher was seen to meet with
13:26
Speaker 6: somebody called Mark Bainbridge, who was potentially a customer of his.
13:33
Speaker 6: One of the perks of the job is to go
13:34
Speaker 6: and sit in the pub and try and listen to
13:36
Speaker 6: the conversation or understand what they're doing. I could see
13:40
Speaker 6: phone calls being made by the key people in terms
13:43
Speaker 6: and then they went outside for a meeting. Lee Fisher
13:48
Speaker 6: was calling the head of this organised crime group and
13:50
Speaker 6: vouching for Mark Bainbridge as a customer and setting up
13:53
Speaker 6: a meeting between Mark Bainbridge and one of the head
13:55
Speaker 6: of this organised crime group suppliers later on that day.
14:05
Speaker 1: The surveillance team continued to watch Mark Bainbridge as he
14:09
Speaker 1: travelled to a small village called Leonard Stanley.
14:16
Speaker 6: Which we knew from experience was a meeting place where
14:18
Speaker 6: the people supplying it quite like to meet customers to
14:21
Speaker 6: supply drugs.
14:25
Speaker 4: So again, we are able to capture the exchange that
14:29
Speaker 4: takes place.
14:34
Speaker 5: One of the really great things for me that we
14:37
Speaker 5: saw at that point was that the footage showed that
14:41
Speaker 5: Mark Bainbridge had a big lump of something white in
14:44
Speaker 5: his pocket, basically. You could see it. It tends to
14:48
Speaker 5: be on a drug deal. You'll see people come in
14:49
Speaker 5: nice and slow and they'll have a look around. They
14:52
Speaker 5: make sure the coast's clear. And then when they get
14:54
Speaker 5: the stuff, they're like.
14:55
Speaker 7: And they're off.
14:59
Speaker 4: I've made a decision that we're going to look to
15:01
Speaker 4: put an intervention on this point.
15:03
Speaker 6: And then a short time later that car was halted
15:05
Speaker 6: by uniformed colleagues and he was found to have a
15:08
Speaker 6: quarter kilo of drugs in his possession. We knew that
15:11
Speaker 6: was going to be the final piece of the puzzle
15:13
Speaker 6: to really strengthen the case. We had so many pages
15:16
Speaker 6: and pages of call data and surveillance evidence that we
15:19
Speaker 6: just needed something to prove to a court exactly what
15:21
Speaker 6: they were talking about or phoning each other about or
15:24
Speaker 6: what those meetings were about.
15:26
Speaker 5: This particular day was really important because it showed the
15:28
Speaker 5: quantity of the drugs that Matthew Cornwall was supplying. and
15:32
Speaker 5: it also showed the quantity of the drugs that were
15:34
Speaker 5: going into the Lee Fisher organisation.
15:38
Speaker 6: Lee was arrested in Dursley, just not far from his
15:41
Speaker 6: home address, and he was brought into custody while searches
15:45
Speaker 6: took place at a lot of other addresses. So in total,
15:47
Speaker 6: 13 people were arrested and charged.
15:52
Speaker 1: Stephen West pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and
15:55
Speaker 1: was sentenced to six years and nine months. Daniel Fisher
16:00
Speaker 1: was charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine and sentenced to
16:04
Speaker 1: five years. Mark Bainbridge received a sentence of four years
16:08
Speaker 1: and four months. The gang boss, Lee Fisher, was charged
16:13
Speaker 1: with two counts of conspiracy to supply cocaine and sentenced
16:16
Speaker 1: to six years and nine months in prison.
16:20
Speaker 4: It felt fantastic that we've got him. He's been prosecuted
16:23
Speaker 4: and he's now at Her Majesty's pleasure.
16:38
Speaker 1: Crash for Cash is a scam which sees fraudsters invent
16:41
Speaker 1: or deliberately cause road traffic collisions. It costs £ 336 million
16:50
Speaker 1: every year and increases the cost of all drivers' premiums.
16:58
Speaker 1: This type of fraud is big business and in 2018,
17:02
Speaker 1: There were 58,000 fake claims involving cars worth over £ 605 million.
17:26
Speaker 3: I joined police at the age of 16 straight out
17:28
Speaker 3: of school. I was a police cadet and then joined
17:30
Speaker 3: the regulars at 18. I work within the Insurance Fraud
17:35
Speaker 3: Enforcement Department with the City of London Police as a
17:38
Speaker 3: detective sergeant running an investigations team dealing with insurance fraud.
17:43
Speaker 3: The sense of it being a victimless crime isn't the
17:45
Speaker 3: case actually. There's a lot of victims behind fraud and
17:48
Speaker 3: also it's a very hard crime to detect because people
17:51
Speaker 3: can hide behind electronic devices, mobile phones, computers, that type
17:56
Speaker 3: of thing.
17:58
Speaker 1: Sergeant Hussey's unit is responsible for 580 convictions at court.
18:03
Speaker 1: resulting in over 300 years of prison time.
18:10
Speaker 3: We deal with all types of different insurance frauds, whether
18:15
Speaker 3: that's crash for cash, doctors dodgy solicitors, to basic claims fraud.
18:24
Speaker 1: When the unit received a tip-off from the Ministry of
18:27
Speaker 1: Justice about a crash-for-cash scam worth £ 200, 000, they decided to
18:33
Speaker 1: set up Operation Sabic to find out who was behind it.
18:38
Speaker 3: A solicitor had reported fraud in that they'd been receiving
18:44
Speaker 3: a number of referrals that had come through that were
18:47
Speaker 3: fictitious road traffic collisions and highlighting to us that this
18:51
Speaker 3: was a fraud and needed investigating.
18:54
Speaker 1: But when the team investigated further, they found that not
18:58
Speaker 1: only were the fraudsters making money on false referrals, they
19:02
Speaker 1: were making staggering sums from the insurance companies by taking
19:07
Speaker 1: out policies in fake names and making false claims for
19:11
Speaker 1: crashes that never happened.
19:15
Speaker 10: We were provided with the details of one particular claim.
19:19
Speaker 10: and our internal checks then established a link to over
19:24
Speaker 10: 60 policies and over 40 claims.
19:29
Speaker 3: Viva valued these claims that they paid out in the
19:31
Speaker 3: region of about £ 200, 000, and they were starting to realise
19:35
Speaker 3: that this was one big fraud.
19:38
Speaker 10: In this scam, what the suspects were doing was setting
19:41
Speaker 10: up fraudulent bank accounts with either stolen or entirely fictitious IDs.
19:48
Speaker 10: they would then use those to apply for a policy
19:51
Speaker 10: with Aviva. Very shortly after taking out the policy, we
19:55
Speaker 10: would then receive a phone call notifying us of a
19:58
Speaker 10: claim from one of the suspects pretending to be the policyholder,
20:04
Speaker 10: our customer, saying that they'd caused an accident. we would
20:08
Speaker 10: then be contacted by the third party and that would
20:10
Speaker 10: either be one of the other suspects or even just
20:13
Speaker 10: the same suspect pretending to be somebody else and they
20:16
Speaker 10: would say that they were injured and bring a bodily
20:19
Speaker 10: injury claim personal injury claim.
20:22
Speaker 3: And to support that they would use photographs of vehicles
20:25
Speaker 3: which were generally just found on the internet really and
20:28
Speaker 3: just doctored.
20:30
Speaker 10: The details of that vehicle would match the details of
20:32
Speaker 10: the vehicle for the policy and so we would always
20:36
Speaker 10: then pay a claim in good faith.
20:38
Speaker 1: Both teams had their work cut out to try and
20:41
Speaker 1: find out who was behind the fraudulent claims.
20:44
Speaker 3: We looked at money flows, looked at telephone numbers, emails,
20:49
Speaker 3: that type of thing, and where this was all registered to.
20:53
Speaker 3: And then we come up with a common suspect, someone
20:56
Speaker 3: that we'd previously dealt with.
21:01
Speaker 1: The man they had in mind had been sent to
21:03
Speaker 1: jail in 2013 for a similar scam. using scrapped cars
21:08
Speaker 1: to take bogus payouts from insurers.
21:12
Speaker 3: We knew that they were a professional boxer, portrayed themselves
21:16
Speaker 3: to be a real pillar within their local community in
21:18
Speaker 3: providing sort of boxing services. You know, we knew that
21:22
Speaker 3: we were dealing with someone that is quite skilled at
21:24
Speaker 3: controlled violence. So, you know, this was a big factor
21:28
Speaker 3: when we were planning this operation to make sure we
21:30
Speaker 3: get it right.
21:33
Speaker 1: And instead of keeping a low profile, the convicted fraudster
21:36
Speaker 1: was featured boxing on the television. He also ran his
21:40
Speaker 1: own YouTube channel with over 40 self-promoting videos encouraging young
21:45
Speaker 1: people to be like him.
21:47
Speaker 11: I want my young generation in Afghanistan to be better
21:54
Speaker 11: than me and good as me, you know.
21:59
Speaker 1: Using his past to evoke empathy and support.
22:03
Speaker 11: Because there was a war back in Afghanistan and Kabul,
22:06
Speaker 11: so my dad decided to send me to England for
22:11
Speaker 11: a better life. I probably was about 11 years old.
22:18
Speaker 10: The main suspect of the scam was spending his money
22:23
Speaker 10: on extravagant holidays, on high fashion, on extremely expensive motor vehicles.
22:31
Speaker 10: living well beyond his apparent means.
22:35
Speaker 3: So our main subjects led a very lavish lifestyle. They
22:39
Speaker 3: loved their fast cars, they liked their holidays. In effect,
22:44
Speaker 3: they owned a property abroad. So this criminality was basically
22:48
Speaker 3: funding their lavish lifestyle.
22:50
Speaker 11: Ladies and gents, the mighty RX-7 is about to go out.
22:56
Speaker 1: And one of the ostentatious vehicles he flaunted online... was
23:00
Speaker 1: a custom-built bright pink sports car.
23:05
Speaker 3: You know, Justin Harrods, man.
23:07
Speaker 2: Nice race, sir.
23:08
Speaker 11: Let's see what's going on.
23:13
Speaker 3: There was quite a key, quite a funny photograph that
23:16
Speaker 3: was recovered in the first investigation where there's a picture
23:19
Speaker 3: of our subject just surrounded with his dog and 50-pound notes.
23:26
Speaker 1: The suspect, Hamid Siddiqui, had no way to account for
23:30
Speaker 1: his playboy lifestyle, and he seemed to think he was untouchable.
23:34
Speaker 8: We go hard or we go home. Let's go, baby.
23:38
Speaker 11: If anyone comes my way, I'm going to knock him out.
23:42
Speaker 7: Boom!
23:44
Speaker 1: The team had nowhere near enough evidence to go to court.
23:48
Speaker 1: Their only option was to attempt a search of properties
23:51
Speaker 1: connected with Hamid.
23:54
Speaker 8: We'd conducted two searches.
23:57
Speaker 7: Which was negative, so we was quite unhappy.
24:00
Speaker 3: We then come across some other information as to another
24:03
Speaker 3: address where he potentially would be, which was a shop
24:05
Speaker 3: premises in Northwest London.
24:10
Speaker 7: It was a little bit strange.
24:11
Speaker 3: Really, because all the other premises were greengrocers, newsagents, bakeries, cafes,
24:17
Speaker 3: that type of thing. And there was this one premises
24:20
Speaker 3: that had blackened out windows, like mirrored glass. We kept
24:26
Speaker 3: knocking and knocking and still no reply. There was a
24:31
Speaker 3: slight little tear in the mirror glass. So as we
24:34
Speaker 3: were looking through the glass, we saw our main subject
24:37
Speaker 3: hiding behind the desk. And eventually I think he weighed
24:41
Speaker 3: up his options and realised actually the game was up
24:43
Speaker 3: and he came and opened the front door. At the
24:49
Speaker 3: rear of the shop was living and accommodation, just a
24:52
Speaker 3: single bed and a small kitchen.
24:54
Speaker 8: But within that area, we found things.
24:56
Speaker 3: Like bank cards and different people's names. We found mobile phones,
25:01
Speaker 3: stolen identities. And it turned out that a lot of
25:04
Speaker 3: this information was linked to our case.
25:09
Speaker 10: Incredibly, we found this main suspect to have a conservative
25:13
Speaker 10: estimate of over 100 aliases. Practically, that would mean that
25:19
Speaker 10: he would have to have fake ID or stolen IDs
25:22
Speaker 10: different telephone numbers or contact numbers or a number of
25:26
Speaker 10: them and understand which one was related to which alias.
25:33
Speaker 1: The team had uncovered an incredibly complex web of lies,
25:37
Speaker 1: but not the critical evidence they needed. And it looked
25:41
Speaker 1: like it had been destroyed.
25:42
Speaker 3: We've got special equipment that can recover deleted data, for instance,
25:49
Speaker 3: and from that we realised quite quickly that There was
25:52
Speaker 3: evidence on there suggesting that he was making up claims
25:55
Speaker 3: with Aviva, instructing other people on what to say.
26:00
Speaker 1: It was the breakthrough the team needed. And in another
26:04
Speaker 1: surprising twist, they discovered Hamid had recruited his own girlfriend
26:09
Speaker 1: into the crime.
26:10
Speaker 3: From listening to conversations on the call recordings and listening
26:15
Speaker 3: to the main subject's partner, we knew that it was her.
26:18
Speaker 7: So we then started to build a case.
26:21
Speaker 3: around her, looking at, obviously, her involvement, and we've recovered
26:24
Speaker 3: mobile phones that, when downloaded, we realised that, actually, she
26:28
Speaker 3: knew exactly what was going on as she was receiving
26:31
Speaker 3: instructions from her partner as to what to say, what
26:33
Speaker 3: to do in relation to these claims.
26:39
Speaker 1: After an exhaustive year of collating and gathering evidence, the
26:43
Speaker 1: team had cracked the case. At court, the defendants pleaded guilty...
26:49
Speaker 1: Siddiqui's 32-year-old girlfriend received an 11-month suspended sentence. For masterminding
26:57
Speaker 1: such an elaborate scam, Hamid Siddiqui himself was sentenced to
27:01
Speaker 1: four years in prison. The police are now looking to
27:05
Speaker 1: recover funds that were illegally obtained under the Proceeds of
27:08
Speaker 1: Crime Act.
27:09
Speaker 10: The suspect was extremely overconfident in his criminal ability. That
27:14
Speaker 10: led to greed and ultimately that led to his downfall.
27:27
Speaker 1: Each year the illegal sale of endangered species is worth
27:30
Speaker 1: around 15 billion pounds globally. A recent study revealed that
27:38
Speaker 1: in the past 50 years, Britain has lost 38 million
27:42
Speaker 1: birds from its skies, mainly due to intensive farming methods.
27:53
Speaker 1: Illegal traders in the UK sell wild birds for between
27:56
Speaker 1: £ 50 and £ 120, depending on their colouring and bird song.
28:16
Speaker 12: I've got nearly 25 years of policing experience. My current
28:20
Speaker 12: role is to lead a very wide, diverse range of
28:24
Speaker 12: operational teams for the Wildlife Crime Unit, which is a
28:29
Speaker 12: unit of specialist, highly trained detectives with a research analytical capability.
28:35
Speaker 12: For the last 12 months, we have investigated just under
28:39
Speaker 12: 500 wildlife crime-related matters, and this has translated into about
28:44
Speaker 12: 150 allegations of crime. When you look at the added
28:49
Speaker 12: complexities of wildlife crime, not only do you have the
28:52
Speaker 12: associated criminality, and unfortunately this is obviously leading globally to
28:58
Speaker 12: certain species becoming nearly extinct, and it has a real
29:01
Speaker 12: impact on the communities where they survive and rely upon
29:06
Speaker 12: these species and their existence. Within the team we have
29:13
Speaker 12: a number of highly specialist detectives, Tara is one of
29:17
Speaker 12: our finest detectives and back in 2018 she championed what
29:22
Speaker 12: was obviously a very unique case.
29:26
Speaker 9: I've got 30 years experience. I've worked in lots of
29:29
Speaker 9: different departments both uniform and plainclothes and I now work
29:34
Speaker 9: in the wonderful world of the Wildlife Crime Unit.
29:37
Speaker 12: We work very closely with what are referred to as
29:41
Speaker 12: Borough Wildlife Crime Officers, so these are officers on the
29:44
Speaker 12: front line.
29:45
Speaker 7: I work for a department within the RSPCA called the
29:47
Speaker 7: Special Operations Unit. It's a plainclothes division of the Inspectorate.
29:52
Speaker 7: We investigate organised animal crime, so that tends to be
29:57
Speaker 7: anything that is either financially driven or is gang-related, such
30:04
Speaker 7: as dog fighting, badger digging, puppy dealing is a big
30:10
Speaker 7: area of our work. And in amongst that is the
30:13
Speaker 7: trading wild birds.
30:16
Speaker 1: At the start of 2018, Operation Savannah was launched to
30:21
Speaker 1: investigate a gang behind the illegal trapping and selling of
30:25
Speaker 1: wild birds in the south-east of England.
30:28
Speaker 9: The information was that this East London pub, The Bell
30:33
Speaker 9: in Leytonstone, was as regular as clockwork, so every weekend
30:39
Speaker 9: was having a bird club. This was an opportunity for
30:45
Speaker 9: men from roughly about the age of 18 to the
30:49
Speaker 9: age of 80 attending on a regular basis, meeting up there.
30:55
Speaker 8: There was even a.
30:56
Speaker 9: Poster that was put at the front door of the
30:58
Speaker 9: pub on a Saturday morning advertising bird club three pounds.
31:04
Speaker 1: Someone's had to do that, they're making.
31:06
Speaker 9: Money on the door, obviously not conducive for a pub
31:11
Speaker 9: to be open and running. This was a private affair
31:14
Speaker 9: that was arranged.
31:16
Speaker 7: To trade a British bird in this country, it has
31:19
Speaker 7: to have a ring on its leg. So it has
31:22
Speaker 7: to be shown to be bred in captivity. What you
31:25
Speaker 7: can't do, is catch a bird from the wild and
31:28
Speaker 7: then sell it. The most inhumane way that they will
31:32
Speaker 7: trap birds is called liming. The use of a non-setting glue,
31:38
Speaker 7: so things like rat glue. People can buy it for
31:41
Speaker 7: pest control. They'll smear this glue on things like floristry wire,
31:47
Speaker 7: so thin wires that are quite rigid, and then stick
31:50
Speaker 7: them in the ground surrounded by feed, and then they'll
31:53
Speaker 7: have a decoy bird in a separate cage which then
31:56
Speaker 7: attracts the birds down. So when the birds land to feed,
32:00
Speaker 7: they get these wires stuck to their feathers, which stops
32:04
Speaker 7: them taking off, and then the trapper will come and
32:07
Speaker 7: just scoop the birds up.
32:11
Speaker 1: Another common method to catch wild birds is to use
32:15
Speaker 1: a small wooden cage trap.
32:18
Speaker 7: This is a standard single cage trap. You can see
32:20
Speaker 7: it's wooden wire. This is the lid with the spring
32:23
Speaker 7: on it. This is the actual trap trigger. What they'll
32:27
Speaker 7: do is set that against the back of the trap
32:30
Speaker 7: and that's the trap now set. As the birds come
32:32
Speaker 7: in and land on the trap, it gets triggered.
32:36
Speaker 1: To attract the birds, seeds are placed next to a
32:39
Speaker 1: decoy bird, which is held in place with a hook.
32:42
Speaker 5: You put the bird down, you tether it to another
32:45
Speaker 5: small post.
32:46
Speaker 6: And then the bird would attract other birds' attention by
32:49
Speaker 6: trying to fly away, but unable to, but yet still
32:52
Speaker 6: tethered to the ground.
32:55
Speaker 7: The main injuries to the bird will be once the
32:57
Speaker 7: bird's inside, what it'll do is it'll beat itself against
33:00
Speaker 7: these bars because it's under stress all the time. So
33:04
Speaker 7: you're going to be getting damage to the primary feathers
33:07
Speaker 7: as well as its head when it's trying to squeeze
33:09
Speaker 7: through the bars. Trying to develop intelligence around this area
33:14
Speaker 7: is a challenge because the people involved in this activity,
33:18
Speaker 7: they won't give us any information. As the operation developed,
33:23
Speaker 7: we realised that we needed to expand it out away
33:26
Speaker 7: from the pub. At least three of the people attending,
33:30
Speaker 7: we'd had previous prosecutions with.
33:34
Speaker 9: Some of them that were named already had previous convictions
33:37
Speaker 9: in relation to animal cruelty, but mainly around offences relating
33:43
Speaker 9: to birds and the capture of wild birds. The additional
33:47
Speaker 9: evidence was allowing us to confirm who was actively involved.
33:52
Speaker 9: who we felt were the ringleaders, and make sure that
33:55
Speaker 9: the evidence was sufficient for a judge to grant us
33:58
Speaker 9: warrants for the pub and three other addresses.
34:04
Speaker 1: But as the investigation got underway, more challenges appeared.
34:08
Speaker 2: For the team.
34:09
Speaker 9: The three addresses that were of interest to us, they
34:13
Speaker 9: were Essex area, so they were past our borders, so
34:16
Speaker 9: we also had the problems of making sure we had
34:19
Speaker 9: suitable support from other constabularies and making sure that our
34:23
Speaker 9: teams were able to deal suitably at those three addresses
34:28
Speaker 9: at the same time that we were entering the Bell pub.
34:31
Speaker 7: We couldn't do one after the other because we couldn't
34:34
Speaker 7: afford for somebody to tip somebody off, the evidence being
34:37
Speaker 7: got rid of. We had to develop the information to
34:41
Speaker 7: make it actionable so that we knew when the optimum
34:45
Speaker 7: time was to strike at the pub and that took
34:48
Speaker 7: a number of weeks. Where the pub was situated is
34:53
Speaker 7: on a really busy high street in London. You've got
34:56
Speaker 7: shops at the side of it, shops across the road,
34:58
Speaker 7: traffic on the road, people coming and going, extremely busy.
35:02
Speaker 7: But equally what we didn't know was how organised the
35:05
Speaker 7: event was. Did they have people outside watching to see
35:08
Speaker 7: if there was anybody on the street? Were they clocking
35:11
Speaker 7: any strangers coming in?
35:15
Speaker 1: After meticulous planning, on 2 February 2019, The Wildlife Crime Unit,
35:21
Speaker 1: together with the RSPCA and the Metropolitan Police, raided four addresses.
35:30
Speaker 9: Fantastic day to do it. The Bell pub was absolutely heaving.
35:35
Speaker 7: I can't say I've ever followed a police raid into
35:38
Speaker 7: a pub, which was unusual. You wouldn't expect this sort
35:43
Speaker 7: of activity to just be happening in a pub. They
35:46
Speaker 7: were serving food. And you've got all these people walking
35:49
Speaker 7: past you with birds just going into the beer garden.
35:53
Speaker 7: Police had gone in. Anybody who was holding a bird
35:56
Speaker 7: or stood near a bird moved away. And in some cases,
36:00
Speaker 7: throw the birds over the fence because they knew straight
36:03
Speaker 7: away that what they had in their possession was illegal.
36:06
Speaker 7: And they didn't want to be seen near that bird.
36:16
Speaker 9: I was receiving a phone call from one of my
36:19
Speaker 9: colleagues that was going to me, there is an aviary
36:22
Speaker 9: at my address that is full of goldfinches. And I
36:26
Speaker 9: kept saying, are you winding me up? Are you having
36:29
Speaker 9: a joke?
36:29
Speaker 7: This isn't funny.
36:30
Speaker 9: We're really, really busy here. No, no, no, no, no,
36:33
Speaker 9: I'm not.
36:34
Speaker 11: I'm really not.
36:35
Speaker 9: Are you sure there is an aviary that's massive, that
36:38
Speaker 9: is chock-a-block full of wild captured goldfinches?
36:43
Speaker 8: So mostly gold finches.
36:44
Speaker 5: I've seen one exotic finch, which is up here in this.
36:50
Speaker 4: Top corner somewhere.
36:52
Speaker 7: What you had in that location was someone who'd basically
36:56
Speaker 7: devoted their whole premises to the keeping and storing of birds.
37:02
Speaker 7: It was an immense set-up. I've done many bird trapping jobs,
37:07
Speaker 7: but never on that scale.
37:09
Speaker 6: You can see inside this bag which was hanging on
37:11
Speaker 6: the window that there is a single goldfinch.
37:14
Speaker 8: The bird is completely in darkness inside this bag.
37:20
Speaker 5: I believe this process is used to keep the birds
37:22
Speaker 5: calm in my experience.
37:24
Speaker 7: The money he'd spent on setting up the cages just
37:28
Speaker 7: shows how many birds were passing through his hands. He
37:32
Speaker 7: was trading birds on an industrial scale. That's not something
37:36
Speaker 7: that you would see regularly. He was one of the
37:38
Speaker 7: main players behind the pub.
37:45
Speaker 1: DC Tara Wilson was facing another problem, establishing who was
37:50
Speaker 1: a legitimate pub customer and who was there to illegally
37:54
Speaker 1: trade wild birds.
37:59
Speaker 9: There were numerous cameras which recorded the actions of the day,
38:03
Speaker 9: but that camera had been running for weeks before So
38:07
Speaker 9: the continuity was there for previous bird clubs. So, you know,
38:11
Speaker 9: none of them could say, oh, I actually just went
38:13
Speaker 9: there and looked that day and I wasn't too sure
38:16
Speaker 9: what it was about. Well, no, because you've actually been
38:18
Speaker 9: seen on this day and this day and this day.
38:20
Speaker 7: The CCTV at the pub was significant to show that
38:23
Speaker 7: man A walked in that pub with a cage under
38:26
Speaker 7: his arm and he placed it on a table in
38:29
Speaker 7: the beer garden. He was then found stood eight feet
38:32
Speaker 7: away from it by the police and denied any knowledge
38:36
Speaker 7: of it. However, what we could show was that he
38:38
Speaker 7: walked in the pub with that cage under his arm
38:40
Speaker 7: and that cage contained a wild goldfinch.
38:45
Speaker 1: During the raids, more than 270 birds were seized from
38:49
Speaker 1: the four separate addresses. Inside the pub, the police found
38:54
Speaker 1: 40 cages containing goldfinches, linets and siskins, as well as
38:59
Speaker 1: 27 canaries and mules. 190 wild birds were found at
39:05
Speaker 1: the home address in Southend-on-Sea.
39:10
Speaker 9: I would love to do something like this again, although exhausting, very,
39:15
Speaker 9: very worthwhile, but the RSPCA said it was the biggest
39:18
Speaker 9: ever capture of wild British birds and they were absolutely
39:23
Speaker 9: delighted at how well we worked together and the result
39:27
Speaker 9: on that day and subsequently and the court results.
39:32
Speaker 1: Operation Savannah prosecuted 17 people for various offences related to
39:38
Speaker 1: the keeping and possession of wild caught birds. Three offenders
39:43
Speaker 1: were disqualified from keeping birds for life and the rest
39:46
Speaker 1: were fined. The mastermind behind the Bird Club was sentenced
39:52
Speaker 1: to six months in prison, suspended for two years. He
39:55
Speaker 1: was also ordered to pay £ 28, 000 in costs.
39:59
Speaker 7: It sends absolutely a clear message to these sort of
40:04
Speaker 7: people that their activities aren't tolerated. It's not acceptable. The
40:09
Speaker 7: public won't accept it, let alone the courts.
40:16
Speaker 2: So so