Latest / History Dark / These Sisters were Laundering Drug Money through their Beauty Business _ Special Ops

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These Sisters were Laundering Drug Money through their Beauty Business _ Special Ops · 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.
0:11
Speaker 2: Police officers! My role is investigating serious and organised crime.
0:15
Speaker 2: We are a covert investigative team.
0:19
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.
0:29
Speaker 2: We'll spend years putting together all of these tiny pieces
0:31
Speaker 2: of evidence.
0:32
Speaker 3: The most bizarre investigation I've been involved in.
0:38
Speaker 1: And share the methods and evidence that can bring these
0:42
Speaker 1: criminals to book.
0:45
Speaker 4: Handguns coming in from the United States. He had the drugs.
0:48
Speaker 1: That is a lot of money.
0:50
Speaker 2: A real who-did-it.
0:53
Speaker 1: This time in Lancashire, a deadly hit and run on
0:56
Speaker 1: a busy street.
0:57
Speaker 2: The vehicle mounts the curb, hits the female, she's up
1:00
Speaker 2: into the air and it's thrown about 30, 40 feet.
1:02
Speaker 1: Turns out to be a brutal revenge attack.
1:05
Speaker 5: If you, Rob, steal from a drugs line, then there's
1:08
Speaker 5: going to be some sort of repercussions.
1:10
Speaker 1: And the ultimate betrayal.
1:12
Speaker 3: When it comes to drugs, you know, some of them
1:15
Speaker 3: would sell their own granny.
1:17
Speaker 1: A drug-dealing empire in Manchester.
1:19
Speaker 6: To recover that quantity of money isn't something that the
1:23
Speaker 6: police see on a day-to-day basis. We are dealing with
1:26
Speaker 6: real serious criminals here.
1:28
Speaker 1: With a 42-year-old matriarch calling the shots.
1:31
Speaker 6: The way that she operated with her business, there was
1:34
Speaker 6: no need for her ever to get her hands dirty.
1:46
Speaker 5: I've only ever worked in Lancashire, so I think I
1:48
Speaker 5: know the Lancashire folk It has a real mix, the
1:52
Speaker 5: diverse communities we have. It's a great place to work
1:54
Speaker 5: and live. I've always wanted to join the police. I've
1:58
Speaker 5: been in our force major investigation team since 2019, and
2:01
Speaker 5: it's took a number of years to get the correct
2:04
Speaker 5: skill requirements to join the department.
2:07
Speaker 4: You have to be on top of your game, really,
2:08
Speaker 4: to try and get this role.
2:15
Speaker 5: On the night of the 19th of November 2019, Police
2:19
Speaker 5: received numerous phone calls from members of the public reporting
2:23
Speaker 5: that somebody had been knocked down on King Street in Blackburn.
2:26
Speaker 5: We responded to that thinking at that time, worst case,
2:29
Speaker 5: a hit and run. We had two people, unfortunately, laid
2:33
Speaker 5: on the floor, a male and a female. And the
2:37
Speaker 5: offending vehicle was nowhere to be seen. Then phone calls
2:40
Speaker 5: were made to our senior investigating officers to come and
2:43
Speaker 5: take command of that scene.
2:47
Speaker 1: Veteran officer D.I. Lee Wilson was drafted in to take charge.
2:51
Speaker 2: I very rarely worked over this side of the county.
2:54
Speaker 2: I tend to ply my trade over at the west
2:56
Speaker 2: side of the county. And I got the call from
2:58
Speaker 2: my superintendent briefing, 9.30 tomorrow morning, can you get yourself
3:03
Speaker 2: over and take charge of the investigation? I'm termed an SIO.
3:09
Speaker 2: Under me, I will have detective inspector, detective sergeant, and
3:13
Speaker 2: then we have a blend, really, of various disciplines. Two
3:17
Speaker 2: of the key players on this investigation were DS Mark Brennan,
3:21
Speaker 2: who was the allocator receiver. That's an absolutely key role.
3:25
Speaker 5: My role is running the inquiry team. You understand the
3:28
Speaker 5: direction the boss wants to go in, and you're giving
3:30
Speaker 5: that out to the proper workers, often in the investigation,
3:34
Speaker 5: and they're feeding back to you, you know, their inquiries
3:36
Speaker 5: that they're doing.
3:38
Speaker 2: DC Lisa Bennett was the lead flow. Lisa will flag
3:41
Speaker 2: up the family's concerns, almost champion the family's corner within
3:45
Speaker 2: the investigation. You're there as.
3:49
Speaker 3: The point of contact between the investigation team and the family,
3:54
Speaker 3: feeding the family updates and also trying to extract as
3:57
Speaker 3: much information as you can from the family about the
4:00
Speaker 3: victim to try and find out why it's happened.
4:05
Speaker 1: With a team in place, they launched Operation Woodford to
4:09
Speaker 1: investigate the crime.
4:12
Speaker 2: There appeared to be something more than, dare I say it,
4:15
Speaker 2: routine road traffic accidents. This was not a vehicle with
4:20
Speaker 2: a blown tyre, a vehicle with defective steering. Watching that
4:24
Speaker 2: video on that first morning, this is clearly more sinister.
4:27
Speaker 2: This looks like a targeted attack.
4:30
Speaker 1: The female victim's single mum, Alison McBlain, had suffered horrific
4:34
Speaker 1: injuries and was in a critical condition. Family liaison officer
4:38
Speaker 1: DC Lisa Bennett was called in.
4:41
Speaker 3: I was asked to go to Royal Blackburn Hospital to
4:44
Speaker 3: speak to the family of Alison McBlain. I remember getting
4:48
Speaker 3: to the hospital and speaking with Sharon, who was Alison's mum.
4:54
Speaker 3: I remember myself sitting them down and explaining that we
4:58
Speaker 3: were treating it as a criminal investigation, that it wasn't
5:01
Speaker 3: an accident. I think Sharon wasn't really listening to what
5:05
Speaker 3: I was saying to her. All she cared about was,
5:08
Speaker 3: was her daughter going to survive? Was she going to
5:10
Speaker 3: pull through?
5:13
Speaker 1: They started to build a picture of the 36-year-old victims.
5:18
Speaker 1: and those who depended on her.
5:21
Speaker 3: Alison had a young son. He was 12. At that point,
5:26
Speaker 3: he didn't know what had happened to his mum. There's
5:29
Speaker 3: no easy deployment at all. But when it involves children,
5:33
Speaker 3: it's tough.
5:36
Speaker 5: Speaking to a number of eyewitnesses, people collectively were saying
5:39
Speaker 5: that they heard a noise, a vehicle driving, accelerating, screeching sounds.
5:45
Speaker 4: But very few actually saw the actual impact itself.
5:49
Speaker 1: Although there were few eyewitnesses, the impact was caught on CCTV.
5:54
Speaker 2: From the review of the council CCTV, we could see
5:58
Speaker 2: the vehicle mounts the curb, gives a no-quarter, hits the female.
6:02
Speaker 2: She's up into the air, off the bonnet, off the windscreen,
6:05
Speaker 2: and it's thrown about 30, 40 feet. He collapses in
6:08
Speaker 2: a heap, and then you can see him get up.
6:11
Speaker 2: He's looking around himself, clearly looking for his partner.
6:14
Speaker 4: She sustained over 20 injuries to her body.
6:16
Speaker 2: The injuries to the female victim were extremely serious, described
6:20
Speaker 2: as catastrophic.
6:22
Speaker 4: The male sustained injuries mainly to his hands and his feet.
6:26
Speaker 2: You can see pedestrians are, what on earth has just happened?
6:28
Speaker 2: And they step towards the male. He sees his partner's
6:32
Speaker 2: coat on the pavement. Obviously, his mind is in shock.
6:34
Speaker 2: He's trying to process what just happened. And he walks
6:37
Speaker 2: towards the cult and realises she's actually there on the floor,
6:40
Speaker 2: still inside the cult, in a terrible state. And he
6:43
Speaker 2: says to a member of the public, look after her,
6:45
Speaker 2: I can't hang around. And he disappears into the night.
6:49
Speaker 1: With the male victim long gone, the team focused on
6:52
Speaker 1: finding the car, a silver Fiat Punto.
6:56
Speaker 4: It was fast moving to begin with.
6:58
Speaker 5: Any officers that can be spared are brought to major
7:01
Speaker 5: investigations like this, whether it be uniformed colleagues, CID, whatever
7:04
Speaker 5: it may be. Every available resource is involved in that
7:07
Speaker 5: initial phase because the priority is to get that vehicle.
7:10
Speaker 1: And the team effort paid off.
7:13
Speaker 2: The vehicle was recovered fairly quickly after the attack. Down
7:17
Speaker 2: an alley about a mile or so away by a
7:18
Speaker 2: traffic officer who noticed this vehicle and in fact it
7:21
Speaker 2: was smouldering, the concepts were smouldering. He had the presence
7:24
Speaker 2: of mind to extinguish the fire. We could see the
7:27
Speaker 2: accident damage to the front of the vehicle. That looked
7:30
Speaker 2: wholly consistent with the collision. and also that one of
7:33
Speaker 2: the tyres had blown out, which you could see on
7:35
Speaker 2: the CCTV with the sparks as the steel came into
7:38
Speaker 2: contact with the roadway. So, pretty happy that we had
7:40
Speaker 2: the right car. What is in there that might lead
7:43
Speaker 2: me to identify who the offenders are?
7:46
Speaker 5: When we ran the registration through the Police National Computer,
7:50
Speaker 5: it came back registered to a high-identical maker vehicle, but
7:53
Speaker 5: it lived in a different county than Lancashire. Obviously, we
7:56
Speaker 5: conducted inquiries with themselves, but it was clear that person
7:58
Speaker 5: had nothing to do with it and the vehicle was
8:00
Speaker 5: running on a cloned plate.
8:02
Speaker 2: Basically, somebody had had possession of that vehicle and decided
8:05
Speaker 2: to mask its identity. There'd been a concerted attempt to
8:08
Speaker 2: set fire to the car and, no doubt to my mind,
8:11
Speaker 2: to destroy evidence. So that makes me think straightaway there's
8:14
Speaker 2: some sort of criminal element here, some element of pre-planning.
8:17
Speaker 2: Somebody's thought around this. How do we try and cover
8:20
Speaker 2: our tracks?
8:21
Speaker 1: With the car badly damaged, they were not sure what evidence,
8:25
Speaker 1: if any, could be recovered. And there was more bad
8:28
Speaker 1: news from the hospitals. where the young mum's condition was deteriorating.
8:33
Speaker 3: At that point, Alison was lying critical. She was on
8:36
Speaker 3: life support. I spoke to the doctor, the consultant, who
8:40
Speaker 3: basically told us that they didn't think she was going
8:43
Speaker 3: to pull through and the next day they would be
8:45
Speaker 3: doing brain stem tests to verify if there were any
8:49
Speaker 3: signs of life.
8:52
Speaker 2: There was very little on police systems around that car
8:55
Speaker 2: being used in Blackburn prior to the attack. So we
8:58
Speaker 2: really didn't have anything to put somebody in the driver's seat.
9:02
Speaker 2: There he is. Inside the vehicle was covered in soot.
9:05
Speaker 2: All the soft furnishings, the door linings, they were all melted.
9:09
Speaker 5: It was a really concerted attempt to try and destroy
9:13
Speaker 5: evidence within that vehicle.
9:14
Speaker 4: But there was forensic opportunities first in the lower parts.
9:18
Speaker 2: In the footwells of the vehicle, we recovered a bag
9:21
Speaker 2: of sweets, M & M' s if memory serves, a cigarette butt, and.
9:25
Speaker 5: A receipt for a local shop of an item that
9:28
Speaker 5: was purchased earlier that afternoon. Thankfully, it had not set
9:32
Speaker 5: on fire itself, so our inquiries then were immediately turned
9:35
Speaker 5: to going to that shop and reviewing the CCTV.
9:39
Speaker 1: And news came from the hospital about the Hetton One victim,
9:43
Speaker 1: Alison McBleen.
9:45
Speaker 3: And it all seemed to happen very quickly, that they
9:47
Speaker 3: told the family, unfortunately, there was nothing more they could
9:51
Speaker 3: do for Alison. They just turned the machine off and...
9:55
Speaker 3: then she's gone.
9:55
Speaker 7: It is difficult.
10:02
Speaker 1: With the death of Alison, the team were now investigating
10:06
Speaker 1: a murder.
10:08
Speaker 2: We had to start to learn, start to speak with
10:12
Speaker 2: the family about our victims' lives. Why has this happened?
10:17
Speaker 1: Family liaison officer Lisa Bennett started to talk to Alison's mum, Sharon.
10:22
Speaker 3: We started asking Sharon about Alison's lifestyle to see if
10:26
Speaker 3: there was anything there. She had somewhat of a troubled
10:30
Speaker 3: life and she had turned to drugs. But recently, Sharon
10:34
Speaker 3: thought that Alison had turned a corner and that she'd
10:37
Speaker 3: managed to get herself clean of these drugs.
10:40
Speaker 1: However, a new man on the scene seemed to have
10:43
Speaker 1: set Alison back.
10:45
Speaker 3: Alison got involved with a male who was a boyfriend.
10:57
Speaker 1: CCTV from a local fast food shop confirmed that the
11:01
Speaker 1: second victim that fateful night was indeed her new boyfriend.
11:07
Speaker 2: He's the one person, to my mind, who can tell
11:10
Speaker 2: us who's most likely in that car. And I couldn't
11:12
Speaker 2: get to him because I couldn't find him. and I
11:15
Speaker 2: had to devote a lot of resources to getting hold
11:16
Speaker 2: of him. But eventually he came good. He's not the
11:20
Speaker 2: type of person who would want to speak to police
11:21
Speaker 2: officers readily, normally, but he did.
11:26
Speaker 5: He was quite open with us, admitted to being himself
11:29
Speaker 5: a drug user. He gave us the background and the
11:33
Speaker 5: reasons to why they were targeted. The evening prior to
11:39
Speaker 5: the murder taking place, he had stolen some drugs.
11:43
Speaker 4: Off another individual.
11:44
Speaker 5: We then started to paint a picture that it was
11:48
Speaker 5: those individuals we were interested in.
11:51
Speaker 2: So our two victims have been responsible for placing an
11:55
Speaker 2: order for drugs via this bully line, as it was called,
11:58
Speaker 2: this organised crime group, to purchase drugs. And instead of
12:02
Speaker 2: purchasing the drugs, they taxed, as they call it in
12:05
Speaker 2: drug parlance, they basically stole drugs from the occupants of
12:09
Speaker 2: that vehicle.
12:11
Speaker 5: It was approximately £ 60 worth of drugs. I think it's
12:14
Speaker 5: a fair assumption to make that if you tax or rob,
12:18
Speaker 5: steal from a drugs line, then there's going to be some.
12:20
Speaker 4: Sort of repercussions.
12:23
Speaker 1: The police still had no names, so they continued to
12:27
Speaker 1: try and build a picture of the events after the
12:29
Speaker 1: hit and run.
12:30
Speaker 5: This murder took place on King Street, so we initially
12:33
Speaker 5: do a survey of King Street.
12:34
Speaker 4: This is relatively town centre as well.
12:37
Speaker 5: You then start identifying the vehicle and its direction of
12:39
Speaker 5: travel and you keep growing that CCTV survey, keeping control
12:43
Speaker 5: of that vehicle, moving on to its next street, the
12:46
Speaker 5: next location, wherever that may be.
12:48
Speaker 1: The suspects had dumped the car in an area not
12:51
Speaker 1: covered by CCTV. But luckily there were cameras just along
12:56
Speaker 1: the road which captured them fleeing.
13:00
Speaker 5: We'd had relatively grainy figures on CCTV, people leaving from
13:04
Speaker 5: the dump site.
13:04
Speaker 4: They all went off in different directions. and it's then
13:07
Speaker 4: seen where they go.
13:09
Speaker 5: We didn't know who the four occupants of the vehicle
13:12
Speaker 5: were at that time, but what we did know is
13:14
Speaker 5: that within half an hour or thereabouts of the murder
13:17
Speaker 5: taking place, the four people that were in that vehicle
13:20
Speaker 5: were all back in one address.
13:22
Speaker 2: Which was about, I think, quarter of a mile, half
13:24
Speaker 2: a mile from where the car was dumped. It wasn't
13:27
Speaker 2: immediately set fire to. What appears to have happened is
13:30
Speaker 2: that the individuals who had gone back towards this home
13:33
Speaker 2: and then they came back, or rather two were sent back,
13:36
Speaker 2: to set fire to the vehicle. So no doubt there
13:38
Speaker 2: had been a council of war, a gathering of the clan,
13:40
Speaker 2: or the group, or the gang, or whatever you want
13:42
Speaker 2: to call them, and they'd decided what to do next.
13:49
Speaker 1: As well as a growing understanding of what had happened,
13:52
Speaker 1: the house in question at last gave the police the
13:54
Speaker 1: identity of one of the suspects, a small-scale drug gang
13:58
Speaker 1: boss who seemed to be at the centre of everything.
14:01
Speaker 5: When we had these four individuals going back to this
14:04
Speaker 5: address and we arrested the male occupant, we would say
14:07
Speaker 5: that he's the head of this organised crime group who
14:09
Speaker 5: was given that instruction to go and do this revenge
14:12
Speaker 5: attack because ultimately it was his drugs that were stolen.
14:16
Speaker 5: We then started painting a picture of all his associates.
14:20
Speaker 5: We've got a team doing these CCTV surveys of all
14:23
Speaker 5: the area and we started to identify the occupants of
14:26
Speaker 5: that vehicle.
14:28
Speaker 1: Their best lead proved to be the surviving evidence from
14:31
Speaker 1: the burnt-out car.
14:33
Speaker 2: The main thing that we got from that was there's
14:35
Speaker 2: a receipt here from a transaction at a local store
14:38
Speaker 2: two or three hours before the murder. Go to the shop,
14:41
Speaker 2: see if they've got CCTV, time the transaction, and with
14:45
Speaker 2: a bit of luck, we'll get clips of people around
14:48
Speaker 2: the vehicle.
14:50
Speaker 5: We were confident in who the driver was because many
14:52
Speaker 5: witnesses said he's been the driver of that vehicle for
14:54
Speaker 5: some period of time.
14:56
Speaker 4: He was wearing distinctive clothing. He's wearing the same.
14:58
Speaker 5: Clothing earlier in the afternoon as he is in the evening.
15:01
Speaker 5: His forensic's within the vehicle as well. The front seat
15:05
Speaker 5: passenger was an easy one for us to identify because
15:07
Speaker 5: only a week or so before he'd injured his foot.
15:10
Speaker 4: And was on crutches.
15:11
Speaker 5: When we have somebody running on CCTV on crutches, that's
15:15
Speaker 5: quite a good indicator that he's our man.
15:18
Speaker 2: We're looking around the hospitals and sure enough we start
15:21
Speaker 2: to pick this individual up.
15:24
Speaker 4: In relation to the backseat passengers, that proved a bit
15:27
Speaker 4: more difficult.
15:27
Speaker 2: But I went internally to departments within the police, departments
15:32
Speaker 2: who work with social services closely. Do you know the
15:35
Speaker 2: two young people? And we got lucky. One of them
15:38
Speaker 2: was correctly identified.
15:40
Speaker 5: The fourth one was our trickiest customer in relation to
15:44
Speaker 5: trying to identify who that final passenger was.
15:47
Speaker 4: We had several images of this individual on CCTV.
15:50
Speaker 5: We couldn't really identify exactly who he was, but he
15:53
Speaker 5: was consistent with a mail that we had as a suspect.
15:56
Speaker 5: And then when we had the bottles of juice that
15:58
Speaker 5: was bought from the shop and we recovered them back
16:01
Speaker 5: from the head of the organised crime group's address, when
16:04
Speaker 5: that person's DNA came back on that bottle, Mr Wilson,
16:08
Speaker 5: the senior investigating officer, was elated.
16:10
Speaker 2: I want them all arrested. I want them all questioned.
16:13
Speaker 2: They tried to get out of town, but they couldn't
16:15
Speaker 2: get out of town. They hadn't got the money to
16:17
Speaker 2: get out of town and live on their own. And
16:19
Speaker 2: eventually they just fell. They just fell into place and
16:22
Speaker 2: they were arrested or surrendered.
16:25
Speaker 1: Five men were now in custody, but one mystery remained.
16:29
Speaker 1: How had the killers known where to target Alison? Out
16:33
Speaker 1: of the blue, the family liaison officer took an anonymous
16:35
Speaker 1: call from a woman who claimed to have information.
16:39
Speaker 3: I got a phone call on my police mobile. It
16:42
Speaker 3: was a withheld number and it was a female voice.
16:45
Speaker 3: Sounded younger. telling me that she had been with Alison
16:50
Speaker 3: moments before this had happened and that they'd had a conversation.
16:56
Speaker 3: I asked her for a name. She wasn't willing to
16:58
Speaker 3: give it to me. So I spoke to Sharon, Alison's mum,
17:03
Speaker 3: and told her how important, how crucial this witness was.
17:07
Speaker 3: If she could try and persuade her to come forward,
17:10
Speaker 3: then it would.
17:11
Speaker 8: Really, really help.
17:14
Speaker 3: So Sharon had a conversation with her and she gave
17:16
Speaker 3: her permission to give her name to me. The female
17:20
Speaker 3: was Carys Poynton.
17:24
Speaker 1: 28-year-old Carys was another drug user and a friend of Alison.
17:28
Speaker 2: We decided that we would have a look at what
17:31
Speaker 2: had happened in the immediate moments, really, before the attack.
17:35
Speaker 2: And what we knew was from the surviving victim that
17:39
Speaker 2: they'd split up briefly and that the female had gone
17:42
Speaker 2: into a local pharmacy just at the back of a
17:44
Speaker 2: garage forecourt and she'd gone there ostensibly to pick up
17:47
Speaker 2: a methadone prescription. She was in there, we had the
17:51
Speaker 2: CCTV of that, she was wearing the same distinctive yellow coat.
17:56
Speaker 2: As she comes out of that premises, she, I suppose
17:58
Speaker 2: metaphorically and literally, bumps into somebody who she clearly knows.
18:02
Speaker 5: By looking at the CCTV camera, you would believe that
18:04
Speaker 5: they're friends. The female victim then left the chemist and
18:08
Speaker 5: walked on King Street.
18:11
Speaker 2: That female goes into the same pharmacy as our victim
18:15
Speaker 2: and instantly, and I mean instantly, is straight on her phone.
18:19
Speaker 2: Who's she ringing? Highly suspicious. Highly, highly suspicious. She keeps
18:24
Speaker 2: the door propped open and she's almost, we think, commentating.
18:29
Speaker 2: She appears to be studying where our victim's going.
18:32
Speaker 5: What you're viewing there is her contacting the bullet line to...
18:35
Speaker 5: give away the location of a friend.
18:37
Speaker 2: She'd actually rung the people in the car, and we
18:40
Speaker 2: knew from other phone work that that group had put
18:44
Speaker 2: out to the drug-using community, if you tell us where
18:46
Speaker 2: they can be found, then we will sort you out
18:49
Speaker 2: and give you drugs or give you cash. And she
18:52
Speaker 2: literally put the black spot on her friend. She was
18:58
Speaker 2: at the funeral, clearly grief-stricken, and all the while, she
19:01
Speaker 2: knew exactly what she'd done. She knew that Alison.
19:05
Speaker 3: was dead, partially because of her. But when it comes
19:10
Speaker 3: to drugs, I know some of them would sell their
19:13
Speaker 3: own granny.
19:15
Speaker 2: The reason her friend was dead was because she put
19:17
Speaker 2: that phone call in. We were able to pull that
19:22
Speaker 2: evidence together. She was arrested, she was brought in, and
19:25
Speaker 2: she was charged actually jointly with the murder.
19:30
Speaker 1: At the Crown Court... The driver of the car, Caleb Conley,
19:34
Speaker 1: was found guilty of murder and received 14 years. Dean Kayam,
19:38
Speaker 1: the front seat passenger, was also found guilty of murder
19:42
Speaker 1: and was sentenced to 20 years. Passenger Joshua Titterington received
19:47
Speaker 1: 17 and a half years. The 16-year-old was found not guilty.
19:54
Speaker 1: For ordering the hit and run, John Chatwood received 14
19:57
Speaker 1: years for manslaughter. Finally, Carys Poynton, Alison's friend, was found
20:04
Speaker 1: guilty of murder and was sentenced to 13 years.
20:09
Speaker 3: When I heard the verdict and we'd got back in
20:11
Speaker 3: a room with the family, we all shed a tear.
20:14
Speaker 2: We'd got justice.
20:15
Speaker 5: But how do you ever replace a loved one? How
20:18
Speaker 5: does a son ever replace his mother?
20:21
Speaker 2: Every case brings its own challenges and there can be
20:25
Speaker 2: no better purpose than to bring the offenders responsible for
20:28
Speaker 2: taking another person's life to justice.
20:36
Speaker 1: From March 2020 to 2021, there were over 200,000 drug
20:41
Speaker 1: offences recorded in England and Wales. That's a leap of
20:44
Speaker 1: almost 20% in the year before. In Greater Manchester in 2019,
20:52
Speaker 1: there were over 196 deaths from the misuse of illegal drugs,
20:57
Speaker 1: the highest figure since 1993.
21:06
Speaker 6: Manchester's such a diverse place to live. I've worked for
21:09
Speaker 6: Great Manchester Police now for 27 years. I'm a detective
21:13
Speaker 6: inspector in the Serious Organised Crime Group.
21:15
Speaker 7: You don't know what challenges you're going to face and
21:18
Speaker 7: what work you're going to be dealing with.
21:21
Speaker 6: Manchester, like all major cities, has got varying degrees of
21:23
Speaker 6: drug criminality, so there remains a constant supply because there's
21:27
Speaker 6: a constant demand for it. So by targeting the people
21:30
Speaker 6: who are supplying the drugs, the hope is that we
21:32
Speaker 6: can bring down violent crime.
21:42
Speaker 1: One family of criminals well known to the serious and
21:45
Speaker 1: organised crime group are the Dins.
21:47
Speaker 6: Who'd previously been known to the police some years ago
21:51
Speaker 6: when three members of the family had been arrested in
21:53
Speaker 6: connection with the supply of large amounts of Class A drugs.
21:57
Speaker 6: So two members of the family had been imprisoned and
22:00
Speaker 6: from that point things had gone relatively quiet.
22:03
Speaker 1: But the team had word that other members of the
22:06
Speaker 1: gang had recently picked up the gauntlet.
22:09
Speaker 6: We then started to realise they had carried on going
22:12
Speaker 6: but had restructured in terms of who was running things
22:15
Speaker 6: and who was now in charge. Omar Din, who'd fled
22:19
Speaker 6: to Dubai, had previously been in charge. His sister Shazia
22:22
Speaker 6: had taken over. The foundations in place for us really
22:26
Speaker 6: to start doing more research, starting to run a wider
22:29
Speaker 6: operation into Shazia and her family.
22:34
Speaker 1: To find out the scale of the drug dealing, DI
22:37
Speaker 1: Smethurst built a team, including an officer with specialist gang knowledge,
22:41
Speaker 1: DC Chris.
22:43
Speaker 6: Chris is a real enthusiastic officer, very, very passionate about
22:46
Speaker 6: his role and expects the same from his colleagues, basically,
22:49
Speaker 6: in terms of if he's giving 120%, he expects other
22:52
Speaker 6: people to be giving exactly the same.
22:55
Speaker 1: DC Chris still works undercover and his identity needs to
22:58
Speaker 1: remain hidden.
22:59
Speaker 9: The job in the Serious Organised Crime Group is targeting
23:03
Speaker 9: and disrupting the top-level criminals... Groups, organised crime gangs that
23:08
Speaker 9: are committing crime, i.e. moving large amounts of drugs, supplying firearms,
23:13
Speaker 9: we'll target them to disrupt them and, if we can.
23:16
Speaker 7: Remove them from the streets.
23:18
Speaker 1: To target the drug-dealing activities of the Din family, they
23:21
Speaker 1: set up Operation Heart.
23:26
Speaker 9: We were well aware of the Din family. They were
23:28
Speaker 9: previously known to the police. Abi Adin had been convicted
23:32
Speaker 9: for supplying kilo amounts of cocaine in the Salford area
23:36
Speaker 9: years earlier and now was on licence and the information
23:38
Speaker 9: was now saying that another sibling, Shazia Adin, had taken
23:42
Speaker 9: up the mantle of supplying those drugs.
23:44
Speaker 6: We were using a lot of surveillance so we started
23:46
Speaker 6: to try and gain an understanding of Shazia's lifestyle and
23:50
Speaker 6: how she was coming by the income and the money
23:52
Speaker 6: that she seemed to have.
23:54
Speaker 1: But on closer investigation, the family business, an online beauty shop,
23:58
Speaker 1: did not appear to be generating this amount of cash.
24:03
Speaker 6: As we looked more into it, finances that were being
24:05
Speaker 6: declared by this business in terms of the profits that
24:08
Speaker 6: it was making, it didn't support the lifestyle that was
24:11
Speaker 6: being led by members of the Din family.
24:14
Speaker 1: The business sold everything from body lotion to mascara online,
24:18
Speaker 1: but nowhere near the volumes to account for their spending.
24:22
Speaker 6: That started to raise concerns and we started to ask
24:25
Speaker 6: the question, where's the rest of this money coming from
24:27
Speaker 6: that they're spending, that they're living the lifestyle with, because
24:30
Speaker 6: it's not being generated legitimately.
24:34
Speaker 1: The team began surveillance of the rumoured new boss, 42-year-old
24:38
Speaker 1: Shazia Den.
24:41
Speaker 6: Other than meeting with family members, the only other person
24:44
Speaker 6: really that we could see any contact with her was
24:48
Speaker 6: the man from Doncaster called Peter After.
24:51
Speaker 9: He had previous convictions for being involved in supplying kilo
24:55
Speaker 9: amounts of Class A drugs.
24:57
Speaker 6: Rafter was well known within the criminal community within South Yorkshire.
25:02
Speaker 9: Surveillance officers observed Peter Rafter meeting Shazia Din quite frequently
25:07
Speaker 9: at various locations.
25:10
Speaker 6: That again raises more alarm bells with us. What is
25:12
Speaker 6: the relationship between these two people? So we started to
25:16
Speaker 6: try to gain an understanding of what that relationship was
25:19
Speaker 6: about and why it existed.
25:22
Speaker 9: Shazia and Peter Rafter would meet up and it was
25:25
Speaker 9: almost like instructions were verbally given face to face and
25:29
Speaker 9: then Peter Rafter would go away and conduct the exchanges, i.e.
25:34
Speaker 4: Passing cash or moving drugs.
25:37
Speaker 6: Peter Rafter seemed to be a man who was connected
25:40
Speaker 6: with members of other criminal groups and would offer us
25:44
Speaker 6: opportunities to try and evidence the criminality of the gang.
25:48
Speaker 6: If we were going to be successful in investigating this group,
25:50
Speaker 6: he was going to be our way in.
25:53
Speaker 1: The team continued to watch Peter Rafter in the hope
25:55
Speaker 1: that he would lead them to the bigger prize, Shazia Den.
25:59
Speaker 1: But soon became frustrated that Shazia was never seen to
26:02
Speaker 1: be directly involved.
26:04
Speaker 9: Peter Rafter was observed meeting Shazia Din in Bury. After
26:08
Speaker 9: some communication, Peter Rafter then drove around the corner where
26:13
Speaker 9: he was observed meeting a courier and passing him a bag.
26:16
Speaker 9: The courier then drove with this bag to another part
26:20
Speaker 9: of Manchester where he was then stopped by a traffic patrol.
26:25
Speaker 7: The courier was arrested.
26:26
Speaker 9: He had a whole door with a large amount of cash.
26:29
Speaker 9: That money had been brought from a customer in South
26:31
Speaker 9: Yorkshire by Peter Rafter.
26:34
Speaker 1: Rafter was not arrested, but along with the courier and cash,
26:38
Speaker 1: the police seized a mobile phone.
26:42
Speaker 9: We were then able to establish his cell site, his
26:45
Speaker 9: call records, who he's in contact with in his movements,
26:48
Speaker 9: to establish how the couriers for this organised.
26:51
Speaker 2: Crime group were working.
26:54
Speaker 1: Just as they were starting to build a picture of
26:56
Speaker 1: the structure of the drug-dealing gang and its expansion in
27:00
Speaker 1: South Yorkshire, news came through which forced their hand.
27:05
Speaker 6: In an ideal world, we wanted to allow Peter Rafter
27:08
Speaker 6: to carry on out and about, meeting other criminals so
27:11
Speaker 6: as to gain a better understanding of who else was
27:13
Speaker 6: involved with the group. We then received some other intelligence
27:17
Speaker 6: to say that Peter Rafter might have possession of a firearm.
27:21
Speaker 6: That in itself, obviously, is something that the police need
27:23
Speaker 6: to react to. And it became paramount for me that
27:27
Speaker 6: we either proved or disproved that intelligence. And the only
27:30
Speaker 6: way we could do that was by stopping Peter Rafter
27:32
Speaker 6: and then searching him his vehicle and his properties.
27:38
Speaker 9: Peter Rafter was stopped in his van and he was
27:40
Speaker 9: found in possession of a revolver and ammunition.
27:44
Speaker 2: He was subsequently arrested.
27:45
Speaker 7: Upon his person, he had.
27:47
Speaker 9: Keys to another vehicle which was parked outside his home address.
27:52
Speaker 9: Within that van was 28 kilos of amphetamine and one
27:57
Speaker 9: kilo of heroin.
27:58
Speaker 6: Peter Rafter received a lengthy custodial sentence. He got 12
28:02
Speaker 6: years in total.
28:04
Speaker 1: Taking Rafter off the streets was vital, but it had
28:07
Speaker 1: a massive impact on the broader year-long investigation into the Dins.
28:11
Speaker 6: We were left now with Shazia and a vacuum in
28:15
Speaker 6: terms of who's now working for Shazia. As an investigation,
28:20
Speaker 6: it was almost a setback because Rafter was central to
28:22
Speaker 6: everything we were trying to achieve.
28:26
Speaker 1: A second line of attack was to focus on other
28:29
Speaker 1: members of Shazia Dins' family.
28:31
Speaker 6: We started to work out that her son, Hassan, was
28:34
Speaker 6: quite involved with the crime group and that he was
28:37
Speaker 6: potentially working on Shazia's behalf. We established that Hassan had
28:42
Speaker 6: got control of a new apartment within Bury Town Centre
28:46
Speaker 6: and wasn't living there. That had all the hallmarks that
28:48
Speaker 6: it was being used as a criminal safe house.
28:52
Speaker 9: We observed Hassan Din leaving in possession of a large,
28:56
Speaker 9: heavy holdall. At this point, Abiyah Din pulls up in
29:01
Speaker 9: her Mercedes vehicle and Hassan Din enters with this large
29:06
Speaker 9: heavy bag. Abia then drives a short distance around the
29:12
Speaker 9: corner to a car park where Hassan exits Abia's vehicle
29:16
Speaker 9: in possession of this bag and places it into the
29:19
Speaker 9: boot of his own vehicle. Surveillance officers then observed Hassan
29:23
Speaker 9: drive with this bag up to a location north of Bury.
29:28
Speaker 9: At this location Hassan met with a drugs courier who
29:32
Speaker 9: had a small white van. The surveillance officer observed the
29:36
Speaker 9: courier approach Hassan Din in the driver's seat and show
29:39
Speaker 9: him what we believe to be an encrypted phone as
29:43
Speaker 9: ratification that he was meeting the right person because couriers
29:46
Speaker 9: don't always know who they're meeting so passwords can be
29:49
Speaker 9: passed so you know you're meeting the correct individual. The
29:53
Speaker 9: courier then removed this hold-all from Hassan's vehicle and placed
29:57
Speaker 9: it into his home vehicle. The courier then drove from
30:01
Speaker 9: Bury all the way to south Manchester.
30:04
Speaker 6: We decided to follow that bag, and in turn that
30:06
Speaker 6: bag was then handed over to somebody else. And because
30:09
Speaker 6: there had been a bit of a time delay between
30:10
Speaker 6: Hassan having had the bag and it being in the
30:13
Speaker 6: hands of the third party, we decided to stop the
30:15
Speaker 6: third party. And when we did so, we found that
30:17
Speaker 6: the bag contained over £ 170, 000 in cash.
30:22
Speaker 1: The other man turned out to be a money launderer,
30:25
Speaker 1: and although Hassan had been involved... there was not enough
30:29
Speaker 1: evidence to charge him.
30:32
Speaker 6: To recover that quantity of money isn't something that the
30:35
Speaker 6: police see on a day-to-day basis. It has real alarm
30:39
Speaker 6: bells ringing. We are dealing with real serious criminals here.
30:43
Speaker 9: A significant amount of cash that we could directly link
30:46
Speaker 9: to the DINs. But we didn't have any plus-A drugs
30:49
Speaker 9: at this point that we could directly link to Hassan,
30:53
Speaker 9: Shazia and Abiyah. So the investigation operation had to continue.
30:58
Speaker 1: A week later, Hassan Din was arrested for a completely
31:02
Speaker 1: unrelated matter and the team got access to the flat
31:06
Speaker 1: in Bury.
31:07
Speaker 9: We obtained the key and the key fob to the
31:10
Speaker 9: apartment at the Rocking Berry where we had seen him
31:14
Speaker 9: leaving that apartment with this large amount of cash. And
31:17
Speaker 9: we went and searched the apartment. In the kitchen, there
31:22
Speaker 9: was a cash counting machine and a large amount of
31:26
Speaker 9: cash 66,000-pound vacuum pack on the kitchen worktop. And there
31:32
Speaker 9: was a set of digital scales which had traces of cocaine,
31:36
Speaker 9: which we believe was for weighing large amounts of Class
31:40
Speaker 9: A drugs.
31:41
Speaker 1: With only traces of cocaine, they still didn't have enough
31:45
Speaker 1: evidence to secure any conviction and certainly nothing to tie
31:49
Speaker 1: in Shazia. Throughout the investigation, the team were also working
31:55
Speaker 1: to target lower-level members of the drugs network.
31:58
Speaker 6: We're now starting to cause real problems for Shazia. But
32:03
Speaker 6: for whatever reason, it just didn't seem to deter Shazia
32:07
Speaker 6: from being involved in this criminality. And we still continue
32:10
Speaker 6: to see the patterns of telephone calls and the movement
32:14
Speaker 6: between members of the Great Manchester community across to Doncaster
32:18
Speaker 6: at the relevant times when the phone calls were going on.
32:21
Speaker 7: We reacted to those on about another two or three occasions.
32:25
Speaker 1: Even with multiple arrests, none of the put soldiers could
32:28
Speaker 1: point the finger at suspected boss Shazia.
32:32
Speaker 9: Even though people working for them are getting stopped and
32:35
Speaker 9: arrested in possession of drugs and cash, they're never going
32:38
Speaker 9: to be able to name the Din family because they
32:40
Speaker 9: don't know who they are. They carried on continuing with
32:43
Speaker 9: their business.
32:45
Speaker 1: The investigation had a third way into Shazia's empire. And
32:49
Speaker 1: it began only a month after the jailing of the
32:51
Speaker 1: original Den courier, Peter Rafter. The team had seen Shazia
32:56
Speaker 1: Den at a meeting outside Doncaster Prison.
32:59
Speaker 6: It was a real surprise when we saw Shazia meet
33:02
Speaker 6: up with Natalie Rafter, who was Peter's daughter.
33:05
Speaker 9: Shazia had had a prearranged visit with Natalie Rafter to
33:09
Speaker 9: see him in the prison with Peter Rafter's grandchild, Natalie's
33:12
Speaker 9: two-year-old son as well.
33:14
Speaker 6: We'd had contact between Natalie and Shazia before on the phones.
33:18
Speaker 7: We'd seen that through telephone calls.
33:20
Speaker 9: After the prison visit, Natalie Rafter was observed passing large
33:25
Speaker 9: amounts of cash to Shazia Din. It was bundles of
33:29
Speaker 9: cash being put in the boot of Shazia's vehicle. Having
33:34
Speaker 9: visited her father, who's in prison for drugs offences, and
33:38
Speaker 9: then committing a criminal act in the car park of
33:40
Speaker 9: the prison in full view of everybody, Natalie Rafter... had
33:44
Speaker 9: become involved in this conspiracy.
33:48
Speaker 6: We then started to work on the view that actually
33:51
Speaker 6: Natalie was now running the Doncaster side of the organised
33:54
Speaker 6: crime group. So we started to look at the relationship
34:00
Speaker 6: between Shazia and Natalie Rafter and started to try and
34:03
Speaker 6: make some sense around who Natalie Rafter was speaking to.
34:07
Speaker 6: And from that, we established that she was having contact
34:09
Speaker 6: with a number of criminal groups within Doncaster. And we
34:13
Speaker 6: worked out that at various times when Natalie was in
34:16
Speaker 6: contact with Shazia, a short time later would then be
34:19
Speaker 6: a supply of drugs over into Doncaster. We were able
34:25
Speaker 6: to deploy surveillance and we captured a man called Lee Davis.
34:31
Speaker 6: We saw him meet up with a group from Doncaster
34:33
Speaker 6: and we saw a package get exchanged.
34:36
Speaker 9: We'd established that Lee Davis, who was a Manchester criminal,
34:41
Speaker 9: had supplied South Yorkshire with a kilo block of cocaine.
34:46
Speaker 7: So the operation shifted onto him. We believed he was.
34:50
Speaker 9: Then somebody who was working for the Din family and
34:54
Speaker 9: filling that void that Peter Rafter once did. So surveillance
34:59
Speaker 9: centred around him, what he was doing, who he was
35:01
Speaker 9: speaking to, who he was visiting.
35:05
Speaker 1: One of the places they saw him visit frequently was
35:07
Speaker 1: a block of flats.
35:09
Speaker 6: He'd got access to a flat in Salford, but was
35:13
Speaker 6: contained within a flat block of about 30 flats. We
35:16
Speaker 6: just couldn't link Davis to any particular flat at all.
35:20
Speaker 6: And at this point, we were starting to get a
35:22
Speaker 6: little bit frustrated.
35:24
Speaker 1: A week later, the team got another possible lead.
35:28
Speaker 9: Based on information we'd received, we conducted a search warrant
35:32
Speaker 9: at Lee Davis's business premises... a garage just outside the
35:37
Speaker 9: city centre Manchester. Lee Davis wasn't present but within that
35:42
Speaker 9: mechanics garage we discovered several kilos of heroin and we
35:47
Speaker 9: recovered a hydraulic press which was used in the production
35:51
Speaker 9: of heroin.
35:52
Speaker 6: And this is where things took a little bit of
35:54
Speaker 6: a twist really and sometimes you've just got to take
35:57
Speaker 6: a bit of a pump with information. I made a
36:02
Speaker 6: decision that night we would deploy surveillance to the area
36:05
Speaker 6: of this flat in Salford and just see whether we
36:08
Speaker 6: could link Davis to the flat and whether the intelligence
36:11
Speaker 6: that I'd had was correct. And lo and behold, as
36:14
Speaker 6: I was there on surveillance myself, having turned out just
36:16
Speaker 6: in my flip-flops, my shorts and a t-shirt, Davis came
36:20
Speaker 6: to the flat in his van and he came out
36:23
Speaker 6: of the flat carrying a cardboard box. We decided to
36:26
Speaker 6: go over and speak to Davis and just to see
36:28
Speaker 6: what was in the box. And when we stopped and
36:30
Speaker 6: searched him, within the box were 12 kilos of heroin.
36:34
Speaker 6: And we had Davis arrested in possession at that time
36:36
Speaker 6: with 12 kilos of heroin.
36:38
Speaker 9: We then discovered Lee Davis was in possession of keys
36:41
Speaker 9: to a flat within this flat block. Within there, we
36:46
Speaker 9: discovered another 16 kilograms of heroin. So in total, 28
36:53
Speaker 9: kilograms of heroin with a potential street value of over £ 2.
36:56
Speaker 7: 8 million.
36:59
Speaker 1: When Lee Davis was arrested, he hadn't time to turn
37:02
Speaker 1: off his encrypted mobile phone.
37:04
Speaker 6: Because he just wasn't expecting us at that time, it
37:06
Speaker 6: enabled us to get access to his phones. We were
37:09
Speaker 6: able to then show his links back in to Shazia
37:12
Speaker 6: and to Hassan and to all the members of the
37:14
Speaker 6: Din family. So Shazia sits at the top, keeping her
37:17
Speaker 6: hands clean, and Lee Davis was effectively arrested. doing a
37:21
Speaker 6: lot of the dirty work for the family. He was
37:23
Speaker 6: the man storing the drugs, he was the man moving
37:25
Speaker 6: the drugs around.
37:27
Speaker 1: After two years of intense investigative work, the team were
37:31
Speaker 1: ready to act.
37:33
Speaker 9: We believe we had enough evidence then, we'd had enough
37:35
Speaker 9: drugs seized, we had enough events observed on surveillance and
37:40
Speaker 9: we had enough links from the call data.
37:44
Speaker 7: We're good to go here, we need to start arresting people.
37:56
Speaker 6: We were taking out Shazia and her sister Abia. We'd
37:59
Speaker 6: got Hassan, who was her son, who was doing the
38:02
Speaker 6: day-to-day management. Lower down that scale, we'd got the drivers,
38:06
Speaker 6: we'd got the people who were storing the drugs, and
38:08
Speaker 6: then we'd got Natalie, who was arranging the supply of
38:11
Speaker 6: drugs within Doncaster.
38:13
Speaker 9: From the business premises of the DINs, several thousand ecstasy
38:17
Speaker 9: pills were recovered from the office area. We conducted a
38:21
Speaker 9: warrant at an industrial unit in Doncaster and recovered a
38:25
Speaker 9: large amount of amphetamine, heroin, MDMA and cannabis, a street
38:29
Speaker 9: value of about £ 120, 000 worth of drugs.
38:33
Speaker 1: The 2014 generation of DIN criminals had been caught with £ 500, 000
38:37
Speaker 1: worth of drugs. The haul from the Shazia DIN investigation
38:42
Speaker 1: was nearly £ 3 million.
38:46
Speaker 4: Shazia, he'd been arrested this morning.
38:48
Speaker 5: on suspicion of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. No comment.
38:53
Speaker 2: So, Shazia Dinh, what relationship do you have?
38:56
Speaker 4: No comment.
38:57
Speaker 7: How often do you see Shazia?
38:59
Speaker 4: No comment.
39:00
Speaker 2: How would you describe your relationship?
39:02
Speaker 3: No comment.
39:04
Speaker 2: Is Shazia a business partner of yours?
39:06
Speaker 7: No comment.
39:07
Speaker 4: OK, no problem. The Rock in Bury, which is an apartment,
39:12
Speaker 4: a flat.
39:13
Speaker 2: Do you know that address? No comment.
39:14
Speaker 4: When were you last there? No comment.
39:17
Speaker 5: So after you've opened to see Peter, why is his
39:19
Speaker 5: daughter putting large amounts of money in your boot?
39:21
Speaker 4: I don't remember. The daughter of a drug dealer.
39:25
Speaker 6: If you can't remember what it is, then how do
39:28
Speaker 6: you know it wasn't cash?
39:30
Speaker 1: Because I know it wasn't cash.
39:32
Speaker 3: Because she gives me stuff, she gives me candles and
39:35
Speaker 3: stuff like that, treats for the dogs.
39:38
Speaker 1: The Den family remained largely silent, but Lee Davis suddenly
39:42
Speaker 1: claimed he had been forced into the crimes.
39:45
Speaker 8: I'm scared. I'm scared now, you know, and it's like,
39:48
Speaker 8: I'm dead. I'm a dead man walking. I've got nothing
39:52
Speaker 8: left in me. I've got nothing left in me. I
39:57
Speaker 8: don't know what to do.
39:59
Speaker 3: So now linked to you, that's 22 kilograms of heroin,
40:03
Speaker 3: which is worth over two million pounds.
40:06
Speaker 4: Okay?
40:10
Speaker 1: The Dyns were behind bars. The beauty booth business was
40:13
Speaker 1: shut down and at Manchester Crown Court, Lee Davis' story
40:18
Speaker 1: changed and he pleaded guilty. He was convicted of conspiracy
40:22
Speaker 1: to supply Class A drugs and sentenced to nine years.
40:28
Speaker 1: Natalie Rafter was sentenced to 11 years and four months.
40:33
Speaker 1: Hassan Din received 14 years. Abi Adin's previous convictions meant
40:40
Speaker 1: she received 18 years. And the family matriarch, Shazi Adin,
40:45
Speaker 1: was sentenced to 15 years.
40:47
Speaker 9: It was the biggest case that I've ever worked on.
40:52
Speaker 9: It spanned over two years, the volumes of surveillance, the
40:57
Speaker 9: volume of drugs recovered.
40:58
Speaker 6: At that point, when everyone's in the police cells and
41:02
Speaker 6: is being interviewed or being charged, you think, that's it,
41:05
Speaker 6: we've achieved what we set out to achieve.
41:08
Speaker 7: Hopefully, we've made a real difference to the people of Manchester.
41:14
Speaker 3: So so