A £40 billion underworld economy is dominated by homegrown criminals, with at
least 27 “Mr Bigs” running their empires from inside British jails, The
Times has learnt.
An intelligence map drawn up by the leading police expert on organised crime
identifies more than 1,000 active criminal networks and shows that gangland
is still controlled by British families, despite the influx of crime
syndicates from Eastern Europe and South-East Asia over the past decade.
In a separate operation, investigators have identified 27 crime bosses running
networks from prison cells. Although they are all in jail, Terry Adams,
Kenneth Noye, Brian Brendon Wright, Brian Gunn and Curtis Warren are being
monitored closely.
Deputy Chief Constable Jon Murphy, of the Association of Chief Police Officers
(Acpo), told The Times that crime specialists work together to make money
through drug deals, robberies and smuggling.
“British gangs are quite unlike the Italian Mafia model or the Turkish
groups,” he said. “There are no set ranks, rules and structures. They are
more fluid, flexible and opportunist.”
The intelligence picture was built up by Acpo working with the 43 police
forces in England and Wales and other bodies. More than 15,000 individuals
are said to have been identified as involved in organised crime. London has
more than 170 gangs. Some have sophisticated hierarchies; others are little
more than street-level groups.
In Liverpool, criminal networks are deeply embedded and run by a number of
families whose tentacles spread well beyond the city. Merseyside criminals
control the drug trade on the South Coast.
Manchester has established gangs such as the Longsight Crew and the Gooch
Close Gang, while Birmingham has been dealing for years with the rivalry
between the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Boys. Bradford is a centre for
money laundering and a major distribution point for heroin by
British-Pakistani gangs.
Serious crime in Nottingham has been dominated by the Gunn family. Glasgow is
the hub for the distribution of firearms in Scotland and the starting point
for much of the heroin trade, which spreads as far north as Shetland.
Many foreign gangs active in Britain are based overseas and exploit the
11,000-mile coastline and security weaknesses at sea ports to smuggle drugs,
guns and counterfeit goods into the country. Much of the media coverage of
gangs has concentrated on turf wars and feuds, but serious criminal activity
is focused on making money.
Career criminals prefer to work together when they have common interests. They
will form loose coalitions, sharing their specialist skills in pursuit of
the highest profit with the least risk.
Mr Murphy said that organised crime was driven by profit. “Some 60 per cent of
criminal groups are involved in drug trafficking, but many are
multi-commodity organisations,” he said. “If they can traffic drugs they can
also smuggle counterfeit goods.
“When the Government took a different approach to cannabis there was a big
shift by organised criminals into cannabis. The smuggling routes and methods
were the same, the profits were high but the penalties were less.” The
declassification of cannabis led to a boom in cannabis farms, controlled
largely by Vietnamese syndicates and producing high-strength skunk.
The Acpo intelligence map is being used by all police forces and the Serious
Organised Crime Agency to target the most dangerous and prolific gangs.
Most criminal networks specialise in one or two areas, but some diversify and
it is understood that one is involved in 14 types of activity.
Mr Murphy said: “We have an identified number of organised crime groups. We
believe we know who is doing what and how they are doing it.”
He said that it was the first time that British agencies had looked at
criminal groups rather than concentrating on individuals or types of
criminality. “We’re now looking at the groups and the networks of groups.
They often form loose, amorphous coalitions - coming together for a
particular venture, perhaps one group needs a skill which another
specialises in.”
A recent investigation in London uncovered an arms deal in which a Lithuanian
gang had been trading handguns in return for an introduction to Colombian
cocaine contacts. Another inquiry broke up a sex trafficking ring run
jointly by Lithuanian, Albanian and Chinese criminals.
Mr Murphy said: “There are Mr Bigs, but the person you start out thinking of
as the Mr Big is quite often not. These are people who are flying below the
radar and you may not realise who they are for a long time.”
The Acpo team is concerned at the ease with which inmates can obtain mobile
phones. “Significant criminal activity is being driven from within prisons,”
said Mr Murphy.
All criminal groups are prepared to resort to violence when necessary to
commit robberies, enforce protection rackets or secure drug deals. Firearms,
which are seen as a tool and a statement of intent, are a priority. Some
networks, notably newly arrived groups from Lithuania, have been established
to service that demand.
The map is being updated and refined continually to improve the picture and
keep track of the rise, fall and varying activities of different groups.
A scoring system is used to identify which groups should be targeted
immediately and which can be subjected to intelligence gathering.
Mr Murphy said: “This has given us a greater understanding of the make-up of
the criminal world. We know it’s not perfect yet. There is a difference, for
example, between what a shire force thinks is serious and organised crime
and what a city force thinks.
“What we’re talking about here is a continuum of harm from a poppy field in
Kandahar to a burglary on an estate or somebody getting shot here. The two
things are linked and we need a consistent policing response.”
In court today
High Court
Judgment expected in anticompetitiveness case brought by the bookmakers
Ladbrokes, William Hill & Betfred after 31 racecourses entered into an
agreement with Alphameric, a company that supplies betting systems to all
the main bookmakers. The 2006 joint venture developed Turf TV which ended a
20-year monopoly of a company owned partly by Ladbrokes & William Hill.
Old Bailey
Quentin Jermaine Farrell, 23, of Barkingside, East London, expected to be
sentenced after being found guilty of the murder of Donald Vincent, 20, who
was killed in September 2007 during an attempt by a gang of youths to steal
his mobile phone.
Old Bailey
Mohamed Boudjenane, 45, of Kilburn, London, in plea hearing charged with the
murder of an Algerian man, Lakhdar Ouyahia, 43, also of Kilburn, whose
headless
Blackfriars Crown Court
Jury continues to deliberate in the trial of three men and a teenager charged
with possessing terrorist-related documents. Jurors have heard that material
was found after the Manchester airport arrest of the former fast-food worker
Aabid Khan on his return from Pakistan. The Crown claims that computer hard
drives and DVDs found in his luggage contained an “encyclopaedia” of
articles promoting terrorism and the violent deaths of nonMuslims. Mr Khan
and his codefendants deny the charges.
Old Bailey
Sentencing expected of a youth, 16, found guilty of the murder of Martin
Dinnegan, 14, in North London. The boy was stabbed to death near his home in
Holloway in June last year. Another youth, 17, is to be sentenced for
grievous bodily harm.
