Stephen Lawrence - justice denied by criminal corruption?

[Jan Klimkowski]

The murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, stabbed to death at a bus stop in south London, is perhaps Britain's most notorious racist slaying.

Allegations of corrupt interference with the investigation have been made ever since Stephen's death. Now, some of the details of those allegations are becoming clearer, and they point to a massively corrupt nexus.

Here are some of the dots.

Kenneth Noye (born 1947) is a notorious British crime boss, convicted murderer, police informant and high ranking freemason.

In November 1983, some small time crooks committed the Brinks-MAT armed robbery at a Heathrow Airport warehouse, and to their amazement hauled in three tonnes of gold bullion (some of which has never been recovered) and £26million of gold, diamonds and jewellery. They needed help in shipping the gold ingots, and Noye was involved as a fence and handler.

Shortly afterwards, a police detective named John Fordham, entered the grounds of Noye's Kent estate as part of a surveillance operation, and was stabbed to death by Noye. Noye was found not guilty of murdering a police officer; rather he was acquitted on grounds of self-defence.

By this time, Noye was already a police informant, and a high ranking member of a masonic lodge, where he had been proposed by masonic coppers.

Noye's tangled web of corruption

By Kim Sengupta and Paul Lashmar Friday 14 April 2000

The Independent

KENNETH Noye believed there was a price for everyone and he bought police officers and public officials to provide him with the protection he needed to mask his criminal activities.

KENNETH Noye believed there was a price for everyone and he bought police officers and public officials to provide him with the protection he needed to mask his criminal activities.

Detectives untangling his network of corruption now believe that at least one prominent MP was in his pay.

Such was the apprehension and nervousness created by the extent of Noye's corruption of the police that during the investigation into Stephen Cameron's murder officers were given around-the-clock protection from their colleagues. Others changed their telephone numbers. The Noye file on the case was restricted to less than a dozen senior officers.

With his lower-middle class background, Noye did not come from a traditional gangster family and he did not have the pathological hatred some felt for the police. From early in his criminal career he was prepared to do deals with officers, offering bribes and information on fellow villains.

Noye's big opportunity to fraternise with corrupt officers came when he was arrested by Scotland Yard in 1977 for receiving stolen goods.

The underworld was becoming wary of Noye. John 'Little Legs' Lloyd, a well known east London gangster, was warned about him by south London villains, others received similar messages.

In the late 70s Noye joined the Hammersmith Freeemasons' Lodge in west London. He was proposed and seconded by two police officers. He eventually rose to be the master of the lodge with the support of the membership of which the police made up a sizeable proportion. Other masons included dealers in gold and other precious metals. A little while later Noye was being helped out of an arrest by a detective who was a fellow mason.

One of Noye's police contacts was prepared to intervene on his behalf not just with fellow officers, but other law agencies. The detective approached a Customs officer investigating Noye in the early 80s and pressurised him to " lay off". The Customs man, at first surprised and then angry, warned that if the conversation went any further, he would have to officially report it.

When customs had arrested Noye, he was quick to offer information on fellow criminals engaged in cannabis smuggling. He also claimed that guns with major firepower were being imported into the country and offered to get a crate of Uzi sub machine guns. Customs passed the information on to the police but they refused to get involved on the curious grounds that they did not believe British criminals had access to automatic weapons.

But the police themselves were increasingly worried about Noye's connections. The Independent has seen documents which shows that Noye " has an association with an MP by the name of S---. They have been seen at Windsor Works ( a business owned by Noye) and it is alleged they have a business association."

The informer who providing the information, said the document, " further states that a Metropolitan Police officer was a frequent visitor to the Windsor Works and Noye took him abroad to the Continent."

The extent of police concern about Noye's connections was apparent when he became a prime suspect for the laundering of £26 million in bullion from the Brinks Mat robbery. While carrying out surveillance of Noye's home, an undercover officer, DC John Fordham, was stabbed to death by Noye.

Mr Fordham's partner, DC Neil Murphy, who was was present at the killing, told The Independent " There was enormous worry about leaks right from the start. I remember before the briefings took place the room was electronically swept for bugs - this, mind, a room in a top security police station. The name of a senior officer kept cropping up as someone being close to Noye.

"The other thing that stands out in my mind is how little we knew about Noye. This man was obviously a top level launderer, yet he had managed avoid much scrutiny. "

Noye was acquitted of DC Fordham's murder after pleading self-defence. But his contacts could not save him a 14 year sentence at a subsequent trial for laundering the bullion.

While in prison, Noye kept in touch with his police contacts and this paid off for his comeback in the crime business. While still a prisoner at a " halfway house", he became involved in a £50,000 deal to import cocaine from the US involving the Miami mafia.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency received intelligence about the plot, but a sting operation failed when Noye suddenly pulled out of the deal. He had been warned off by a corrupt detective on the National Crime Intelligence Service, John Donald, who had been corrupted by an associate of Noye's, Micky Lawson.

Donald eventually went to prison. Commander Roy Clark, one of his senior officers, said: " Donald was more than corrupt, he committed acts of treachery beyond belief. He sold operational secrets to those involved in organised crime and put the lives of police officers at risk."

Worshipful Master Noye was also involved in the corrupt world of the Essex drugs scene:

The Independent - UK

Life and times of Britain's most infamous villain

13 April 2000

By Kim Sengupta and Paul Lashmar

The life of Kenneth Noye has been one of malevolence and corruption. It is an example of how someone eagerly embracing crime as a profession can accumulate enormous wealth and frightening power. It is also a lesson on how vulnerable society can be to such a single-minded predator.

Noye, aged 53, is the most infamous villain in Britain. The essential difference between him and other gangland figures such as the Krays and the Richardsons is that he had the vision and the means to infiltrate legitimate business.

From a suburban lifestyle and background in Kent, Noye carried on, what appeared on the surface, to be normal business activities, dealing in cars, property and timeshares.

Behind this front, the burgeoning empire was underpinned by an elaborate network of fraud. It enabled his financial tentacles to extend outside Britain to post-communist Eastern Europe, the United States, Latin America, Spain and Cyprus, with a rogues' gallery of partners ranging from the mafia to Asil Nadir.

At the same time Noye was involved in some of the most high profile crimes in this country, investing heavily in drug smuggling and robberies, insurance scams and swindles.

Noye's success as a criminal is especially remarkable because he survived two shattering reverses - his trial in November 1985 for the killing of undercover police officer John Fordham, of which he was acquitted and his subsequent 14 year prison sentence for laundering gold from the £26million Brinks Mat robbery in 1983.

Apart from the aggravation of the prison term for Brinks Mat, the two trials brought him something he had studiously avoided - being in the public eye. Unlike the self-aggrandisement of some gangland figures, Noye eschewed publicity. There would be no celebrity photos of him such as those taken by David Bailey of the Krays.

Indeed, those who took pictures of Noye at social functions were intimidated into handing them over. As his cousin Michael Noye pointed out: "Kenny didn't like any photos of himself floating around. He knew that if people outside his own circle didn't know what he looked like, then he would be able to move around much more easily."

After his release from prison, in May 1994, Noye was soon back in the crime business with his financial empire flourishing more than ever. But then came the fatal encounter on a slip road off the M25 in June 1996 which resulted in the murder of Stephen Cameron, Noye's flight to Spain and the beginning of the end of his criminal empire.

There is little in Kenneth James Noye's roots to suggest the path he would take. His family was not from inner city Deptford or Lewisham, the breeding ground for so many south London villains. He was born in Bexleyheath on 24 May 1947. His father James was a GPO engineer and his mother Edith, who worked three days a week at the Crayford dog track, was from a church-going family.

Mrs Noye could never think ill of her little Kenny, even when he was caught stealing money from a till at the local branch of Woolworths. At the age of 11, Kenny enrolled at Bexleyheath Secondary Modern, and his juvenile criminal activities took a more serious turn. His early criminal career was responsible for his distinctive broken nose - although it was acquired in doing nothing more serious than trying to steal apples from a neighbour's tree at the age of three.

At school, he showed the characteristics of his later life, outwardly keeping out of trouble, not attracting the attention of the teachers, but at the same time running a protection racket among fellow pupils and terrorising them with bullying.

One of them, Mick Marshall, now 51, recalled how Noye revelled in violence: "He was vile. He didn't give a damn who he hurt. But everyone knew Kenny had a knack of getting away with blue murder."

Noye was soon attracting the attention of the police for receiving stolen goods, shoplifting even smuggling beef carcasses. It was while waiting in legal chambers on one such matter that he met his future wife, Brenda Tremain, who was working as a legal secretary. The couple got married on 12 September 1970. They have two sons, Kevin and Brett.

By now Noye was on the fringes of heavy crime. He would regularly go to the Hilltop Hotel near his home where the then aristocracy of gangland, the Krays and the Richardsons, the Haywards, Frankie Fraser and others would gather to drink Dom Perignon and watch the cabaret.

Noye built up a reputation as a "fence" who could shift anything and an "armourer" who could provide guns. He also began to take a keen interest in gold, pumping his cousin Graham Noye, who worked at the Bank of England, for information on how it was traded. Soon he was into VAT fraud on gold importation which had the double advantage of enormous profit and a maximum sentence of just two years.

In 1977 after being arrested by Scotland Yard for receiving stolen goods he joined a Freemasons' Lodge which had a large number of police officers among its membership.

Business was going well for Noye, he was mixing with " first division" villains such as John " Little Legs" Lloyd and Freddie Foreman. He now had access to enough money to be able to fly to Miami with £50,000 in cash to invest in land. That one deal alone resulted in profit for Noye and his associates of £600,000.

But the really big money came from gold smuggled in from Africa, from Kuwait and from Brazil. Between 1982 and 1984 Noye ran smuggling operations worth an amazing £35million. Noye's own cut came to just under £4.5million. He was in his element.

Opening the front door of his house, Hollywood Cottage, in West Kingsdown, Kent, triggered a stereo blasting out Shirley Bassey singing the theme tune to the James' Bond film "Goldfinger". There were expensive clothes, jewelry and limousines. Noye bought his wife Brenda a squash club. For himself he acquired a procession of blonde and brassy mistresses, some of whom were partners of his friends and associates.

Making money, in however petty a way, remained his obsession. Despite his millions he illicitly extracted electricity for his house and stole a piece of garden furniture from his 94-year-old neighbour.

On 26 November 1983 came the then biggest heist in British criminal history - the Brinks Mat raid at Heathrow Airport. The gang included notorious London underworld figures "Little legs" Lloyd, Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson who were all essentially robbers and did not how to shift such a huge amount of loot. That task was Noye's forte.

There was general unease among some of the robbers and their families. Kathy McAvoy, Micky's second wife, explained: " Noye wasn't from south-west London. He was from the suburbs and that's just not the same. Noye wasn't the real thing and he knew the rest of us thought that."

On the trail of the missing gold, the police soon homed in on Noye and surveillance began on his mock-Tudor home. The operation led to the death of Detective Constable John Fordham, stabbed four times by Noye, who was accompanied by gold courier and fellow Brinks Mat suspect Brian Reader.

At his Old Bailey trial Noye pleaded self-defence, the same defence used in the killing of Stephen Cameron. He was acquitted.

Noye had told the court he had been alerted by his Rotweiller dogs to intruders in his garden. The intruders were actually Mr Fordham and another detective trying to gather evidence. A struggle ensued.

Neil Murphy, who was Fordham's surveillance partner on the night, said he had tried to distract Noye by shouting. But to no avail. Mr Murphy said: "Noye also had a gun, I could hear him shouting 'we will blow your head off'. I could see figures standing over John's body. Afterwards, in the ambulance, I could see John's chest going up and down. I said ' look, he is breathing! ', but the ambulanceman said it was just the oxygen."

A search of the home uncovered 11 bars of gold, copper coins used in smelting and, bizarrely, a Guinness Books of Record with the entry on the robbery circled.

One of the officers who interviewed Noye after his arrest was Det Chief Supt Brian Boyce. Although not a freemason Mr Boyce greeted Noye with a masonic handshake to put him at ease. Noye offered Mr Boyce £1m to ensure he did not go to prison.

The detective declined, and reported the conversation. Following Noye's acquittal on the Fordham murder charge, Mr Boyce was one of the guiding forces in charging him with the Brinks Mat handling.

Noye was then tried along with six others for the Brinks Mat job. He was found guilty and sentenced to four years for handling stolen goods. At the verdict his mask of a legitimate businessman slipped as he turned to the jury, his face contorted with rage before spitting out: "I hope you die of cancer."

Once in Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight, Noye quickly began to manipulate the system. He offered information on the Brinks Mat robbery in return for a reduced sentence. This was turned down. He ended up getting a comfortable job as a gym orderly, and cultivated prison officers, giving a £600 wrist watch to one for his wife's birthday.

Such was the bonhomie that after Noye's release he was visited by two prison officers escorting another prisoner, a friend of Noye's Derek Kandler, to a weight lifting competition. Noye took them to a Thai restaurant for a meal.

While inside, Noye was planning his move back into lucrative criminality. He had been forced to return nearly £3million of Brinks Mat proceeds, in return for no claims being made against his home. The quick way back to illicit wealth, he decided, was drugs.

While at Latchmere, a 'halfway house' where he finished his sentence, Noye was already involved in a £50,000 cocaine deal with the Miami mafia. He was almost caught, but managed to avoid arrest thanks to a tip off from a corrupt officer in the National Crime Intelligence Service.

But there were plenty of other opportunities. At another jail, Swaleside, Noye had befriended Pat Tate, a tattooed, muscle bound, 18 stone drug dealer from Essex, who acted as his protector. At Tate's suggestion, Noye invested £30,000 on an ecstasy shipment. He made a quick £70,000 profit. Police claim that ecstasy from part of this batch which led to the death of the teenager Leah Betts.

Tate was killed soon afterwards, shot dead along with two other men in a Range Rover parked in a secluded country lane near Chelmsford in December 1995. This wasn't the only casualty among associates of Noye. Nick Whiting, a car dealer, went missing from his showroom in West Kingsdown in 1990. His body was later recovered on Rainham Marshes, in Essex.

Immediately after his release, Noye spent a month in Northern Cyprus where he met Asil Nadir, the former boss of Polly Peck who is wanted in Britain on fraud charges. Nadir allegedly offered Noye a job working for him, which he turned down. Various business opportunities were discussed to exploit what was seen as the area's impending tourist boom, and Noye invested in a timeshare development.

But other business opportunities beckoned back in Britain, including a plot to swindle £1billion out of cash point machines. It was led by "Little Legs" . According to one former member of the gang, Martin Grant, Noye put money into the venture and then threw a pre-operation party at a Kent hotel at which six high-charging prostitutes were present. Noye boasted later that he had gone to bed with each of them. The plot collapsed. Other members of the gang went to prison. There was not, however, enough evidence to charge Noye. Yet again, it appeared, he had been warned off just in time.

In April 1996, Noye was once again in Northern Cyprus, accompanied by his latest mistress, Sue McNichol-Outch. She had become his regular companion. He again met Nadir and visited his timeshare development near Famagusta. The couple returned in time to explore Noye's latest business venture, importing £500,000 of the drug, Khat, from Africa.

But a month later came the murder of Stephen Cameron and, then in 1998, his arrest in Spain. His long suffering wife Brenda has now left him, moving to Cornwall. She has a new man in her life, fisherman David Collings, although she turned up at the trial to give evidence on behalf of her husband.

Those who know Noye say that once again he will try to manipulate his way through the system. But this time the combination of charm, bribery and menace is unlikely to work. The violence he so readily unleashed against others was his final undoing.

[Jan Klimkowski]

In 1996, Noye stabbed 21-year-old Stephen Cameron to death on the M25 motorway. He fled to Spain's Costa del Crime, knowing there was no extradition treaty with the UK.

This was regarded as Britain's most notorious road rage murder, but there are allegations that the murder was over a drugs deal.

Eventually, Daniella Cable, Cameron's girlfriend, 17 at the time of the murder and an eyewitness as she had been in his car, was flown secretly to Spain, and identified Noye. He was eventually arrested, and convicted of Cameron's murder.

Daniella Cable will remain in a Witness Protection programme for the rest of her life.

If she has any sense.

For the other eyewitness to Cameron's murder, Alan Decabral, refused to enter Witness Protection and was shot dead in his car, in October 2000.

Additional details here:

Arrogant killer who made crime pay
By John Steele
http://www.telegraph.co.uk - 17th April 2000

Noye given life for road rage murder on M25
BRASH and bullish, Kenneth Noye liked to give the impression that he was smarter and tougher than anyone else. He was arrogant, too, entertaining fellow prisoners while on remand at Belmarsh jail by boasting of the guests he would invite to a party on his acquittal.

Police believe he was just the man to fight, from anger or pride, someone who complained about his driving. He was the kind of man who, when losing a fair fight, would use any means, including a knife, to save face. Noye was notorious for driving his high-powered cars at near suicidal speeds. To pursue him was "virtually impossible", said one officer who investigated a suspected plan for cocaine importation by Noye in the early Nineties. "He would drive at 100mph or more. At times you just couldn't stay with him. It was too dangerous."

Spanish officers sent to arrest him on behalf of Kent police in August 1998 faced the same difficulty. On his way to one assignation with a young woman Noye drove a Jeep at 100mph along a treacherous road towards Barbate, near Cadiz in southern Spain. One police car was left behind, another skidded and a third failed to negotiate the slip road Noye suddenly took.

He was just the kind of driver to decide, in an instant, to take the M20 slip road off the M25 and swerve his powerful Land Rover Discovery towards it at breakneck speed, cutting up the slower Bedford Rascal van driven by Danielle Cable. Noye typified a new breed of entrepreneurial and international British criminal. It had evolved from the local gangs - such as that led by the Kray twins - whose interests lay in clubs and protection rackets.

In the Seventies and early Eighties, Noye was a working-class man on the make. The son of a Post Office manager and a greyhound track manageress, he grew up in Bexleyheath, a suburb in Kent where many had moved from the rundown dockland areas along the Thames. Short, stocky and with a broken nose acquired when he fell from a tree as a child, he left school at 15 and studied commercial art at printing college.

As an apprentice printer in Fleet Street, he spent his cash on smart clothes and the many women he chased. But he was ambitious. Working night shifts allowed him to take a daytime job driving a tipper truck. And when he married his loyal wife Brenda, he decided to set up his own haulage business. He branched out into property. One deal secured him £300,000 which he invested in mobile homes in America. He began cultivating criminal contacts.

Noye was eager to embark on money-making deals. He began trading in jewellery, particularly watches. He tried his hand at building. He even renovated a sunken boat raised from the Mediterranean, an enterprise that earned him £40,000. By his late twenties, he was a millionaire. He moved with Brenda into Hollywood Cottage, a mock-Tudor building in acres of woodland, with orchard and swimming pool, at West Kingsdown, Kent. Here Brenda raised their two sons. A cottage that had occupied the site had burnt down in mysterious circumstances.

By now the distinction between legal and illegal business was becoming blurred as Noye diversified into illicit gold dealing and VAT evasion. He was mixing with financiers, and it was not long before his eyes were opened to the potential of offshore banking and money laundering. He had a cluster of convictions. Most were for shoplifting or receiving stolen cars and property in his youth. But he had also assaulted a police officer and been caught smuggling a pistol from Miami. Beneath the veneer of the successful entrepreneur lay a thug. Neighbours, wary of his notorious temper, tried not to cross him. Once he emptied a shotgun into a pub ceiling just to settle a bar room argument, it was whispered.

However, anxious that his standing as a successful businessman should impress, Noye began befriending local politicians, county dignitaries and magistrates. He joined the Freemasons. He also began to cultivate police, informing on his rivals. During his trial in 1985 for the murder of Det Con John Fordham - of which he was acquitted - evidence emerged that Noye had told the officer in charge of the Brink's-Mat robbery investigation, Brian Boyce, to ring a fellow officer named Ray Adams.

Adams, Noye had suggested, would say he was "not a violent man or a killer". Mr Adams, who later became a commander of Scotland Yard's intelligence branch, is understood to have been one of Noye's police handlers. There is no evidence of impropriety on the part of his official police handlers but Noye has long been suspected of forging corrupt relationships with other officers he met, particularly through his Masonic links.

An illustration of his attitude to detectives came when he offered Det Chief Supt Boyce a £1 million bribe if he ensured Noye escaped prison. Mr Boyce rejected the offer. By January 1985, a Scotland Yard team hunting the three tons of gold taken in the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery - Britain's biggest proved raid - knew the bullion was being sold back on to the legitimate market. It traced the chain back to Noye and hoped he would lead to the gold.

It was known that Noye kept shotguns but this was not considered a danger. Police thought they were part of the haulier-turned-country squire image he cultivated. His rottweiler dogs presented a greater threat to Det Con Fordham, the experienced undercover officer who, with a colleague, Neil Murphy, was sent into the grounds of Hollywood Cottage to monitor activity. Only Noye knows truly what happened when first his dogs and then he, armed with a kitchen knife, confronted the balaclava-clad Fordham.

Noye was to admit stabbing the officer to death but claimed that he acted in self-defence as he feared for his life. Later that year an Old Bailey jury accepted this defence. In 1986 Noye was convicted of handling the bullion and jailed for 14 years. He contained his arrogance in the murder trial, but in the second case reverted to type. He told a convoluted tale of dealing in smuggled gold and appeared contemptuous of the Crown's attempts to prove that he had handled the stolen bullion. His arrogance backfired and the jury did not believe him.

In a moment to be contrasted with his tears in the M25 trial - as a disabled witness told the court of his kindness and generosity - Noye snarled at the jurors who convicted him: "I hope you all die of cancer." Of the three tons of virtually pure Brink's-Mat bullion - worth £26 million - police recovered only scraps. About half went through Noye's hands, creating a flood of cash which was invested in London's burgeoning Docklands developments.

The Brink's-Mat inquiry took Yard officers to America and around the world, providing conclusive proof for the first time that a new generation of British criminals such as Noye had forged international liaisons. As a police killer and the handler of the Brink's-Mat gold, Noye enjoyed considerable status among the inmates of high-security wings in jails around the country.

Noye had no drugs convictions before the Brink's-Mat case. But he appears to have developed a taste for trafficking while in prison. Between 1992 and 1993 he was drawing towards his release and was allowed out on day release from Latchmere House, an open jail in Surrey. The aim was to allow him to rehabilitate himself in the community. Noye, ostensibly, found a job with a skip hire firm in Kent. In reality, he spent his time with a long-time associate, planning, it was suspected, to import cocaine from Colombia via Florida to Britain.

His activities attracted the attention of the United States authorities and the regional crime squad in south-east England. But their six-month operation was destroyed by a corrupt police officer, John Donald, who offered through another criminal to supply Noye and his associate with details of the investigation. The approach was sufficient to alert Noye, who abandoned the suspected cocaine plot. Donald was jailed for 11 years.

Noye was released in 1994 and, despite being forced to pay £3 million following civil action by the loss adjusters for Brink's-Mat's insurers, never seemed to be short of cash. In the civil agreement, Kenneth and Brenda Noye were allowed to buy a new house in Sevenoaks, Kent, close to the police station.

He owned vehicles in false names and is believed to have lavished money on at least one mistress and, according to police sources, call girls. At least one holiday was spent in Northern Cyprus at the Jasmine Court hotel where Asil Nadir, the fugitive Polly Peck chief, was based. An indication of Noye's activities in this period came in 1996 when several men involved in an audacious plot to steal up to £800 million from high street cash machines were convicted.

One of the ringleaders was John Lloyd. Lloyd, 62, and nicknamed "Little Legs", was long suspected of involvement in the Brink's-Mat gang and had paid £5 million to the loss adjusters. His girlfriend, Jean Savage, was jailed for laundering cash from Noye's handling operation. Lloyd and Savage had lived in a cottage in West Kingsdown they bought from Noye. The case, centring on an attempt to create counterfeit cards, relied on the evidence of an informer, Martin Grant. Grant maintained that Noye had been involved in the preparation of the plot but he was never prosecuted.

-----------------------------

Road rage fiancée fears Noye revenge
New identity for witness with £1m price on her head

http://www.guardian.co.uk

Jamie Wilson

Monday April 17, 2000

The former fiancée of the man murdered by Kenneth Noye in the M25 road rage attack has spoken of her fear of an assassination attempt ordered by the gangster, after police warned her of a £1m price on her head.

Danielle Cable, who was with Stephen Cameron when Noye stabbed him to death at an interchange near Swanley, Kent, in May 1996, has been living under a new identity under the witness protection scheme since she helped police to identify Noye in 1998.

Speaking publicly for the first time since Noye was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey last week, Ms Cable, 23, said she lived in constant fear of her life. "I have to live from day to day wondering if I'm being watched or followed. I will always live in fear of Kenny Noye and what he could do to me if he ever found out where I lived."

Two years after Mr Cameron's murder, detectives flew Ms Cable to southern Spain to identify the man suspected of killing her fiancé. She told the Mail on Sunday of spotting Noye in a restaurant: "There were lots of people, and I was shaking. I saw him straight away. I just looked at him. I felt hatred. My stomach was churning and my heart was pounding. I felt I wanted to say something, but no words would have come out anyway."

Two weeks after she returned, police told her to go on holiday for her safety. "I never went back home. I haven't been back since."

In her new life she often wears a wig to disguise herself and will be photographed only in silhouette. "I have lost twice - Stephen and my old life," she said. "I haven't seen two of my brothers since I was relocated, and I didn't see my mother for four months."

Ms Cable is planning to marry a soldier who has helped her to recover from witnessing the stabbing. "I always said I would never love anybody again. But I met someone, and although I love him in a different way he is brilliant."

Scotland Yard yesterday refused to comment on reports that Noye, 52, is being investigated in connection with a string of gangland murders.

According to the reports, detectives believe that the south London car dealer John Marshall, found shot dead in his Range Rover a few days after Noye fled to Spain, may have been killed on his orders.

Marshall is believed to have supplied Noye with false number plates and papers for the Land Rover he was driving when he killed Mr Cameron. Noye is said to have ordered Marshall's murder before he could be questioned by police.

Noye has also been linked to the shooting of Daniel Roff, found dead in his car outside his house in Bromley, Kent, in March 1997. Roff was suspected of being involved in the murder of Noye's close friend, the great train robber Charlie Wilson.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From the Telegraph article above:

However, anxious that his standing as a successful businessman should impress, Noye began befriending local politicians, county dignitaries and magistrates. He joined the Freemasons. He also began to cultivate police, informing on his rivals. During his trial in 1985 for the murder of Det Con John Fordham - of which he was acquitted - evidence emerged that Noye had told the officer in charge of the Brink's-Mat robbery investigation, Brian Boyce, to ring a fellow officer named Ray Adams.

Adams, Noye had suggested, would say he was "not a violent man or a killer". Mr Adams, who later became a commander of Scotland Yard's intelligence branch, is understood to have been one of Noye's police handlers. There is no evidence of impropriety on the part of his official police handlers but Noye has long been suspected of forging corrupt relationships with other officers he met, particularly through his Masonic links.

Ray Adams was recently in the news.

He was a central figure in a BBC investigation into alleged Murdoch empire fraud and corruption.

News Corporation firm NDS accused of ITV Digital hack ITV Digital was plagued by piracy of its smartcards and went into administration in 2002

27 March 2012 Last updated at 16:10

BBC News

A News Corporation subsidiary company used a computer hacker to sabotage Sky TV's biggest rival, BBC Panorama has reported.

NDS is accused of leaking information from On Digital which could be used to create counterfeit smart cards, giving people free access to paid for TV.

The Carlton and Granada owned company folded in 2002 following rebranding which saw it renamed ITV Digital.

An NDS statement denied the claims, calling them "simply not true".

ITV Digital was first launched as On Digital and was set up as a rival to News Corporation's Sky TV in 1998.

But the widespread availability of secret codes to reproduce the cards needed to access the service meant ITV Digital's services could be accessed for free by pirates.

Hacking intelligence

The latest claims have been made by Lee Gibling - who set up a website in the late 90s known as The House of Ill-Compute, or Thoic.

Mr Gibling told the BBC he was paid to publish stolen information. His contact at NDS was Ray Adams, who at the time was head of UK security for the firm - which manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations' pay-TV companies across the world.

However, the company has denied Mr Gibling's claims and said Thoic was only used to gather intelligence on hackers.

"It is simply not true that NDS used the Thoic website to sabotage the commercial interests of ONDigital/ITV digital or indeed any rival," the NDS statement said.

"As part of the fight against pay-TV piracy, all companies in the conditional access industry - and many law enforcement agencies - come to posses codes that could enable hackers to access services for free.

"It is wrong to claim NDS has ever been in possession of any codes for the purpose of promoting hacking or piracy."

'Killer blow'

ITV Digital's former chief technical officer, Simon Dore, told the programme that piracy was "the killer blow for the business, there is no question".

"The business had its issues aside from the piracy... but those issues I believe would have been solvable by careful and good management. The real killer, the hole beneath the water line, was the piracy. We couldn't recover from that."



Mr Gibling told Panorama that codes on the Thoic site originated from NDS.

"They delivered the actual software to be able to do this, with prior instructions that it should go to the widest possible community," he said.

Two former senior policemen ran the NDS UK security unit. Mr Adams had been head of criminal intelligence at the Metropolitan Police and Len Withall, who had been a chief inspector in the Surrey force.

Both men were secretly filmed by Panorama.

Mr Adams claimed he "would have arrested" Mr Gibling if he had known ITV Digital's code had been published on Thoic and denied having the codes himself.

But internal NDS documents, obtained by Panorama, show a hacked code was passed to Mr Withall and Mr Adams from a technology expert inside the company.

'Their baby'

Mr Gibling said NDS paid for Thoic's servers and was across all of its hacking and TV piracy.

"Everything that was in the closed area of Thoic was totally accessed by any of the NDS representatives," he said.

He added that although Thoic was in his name, in reality the website belonged to NDS.

There is no evidence that James Murdoch knew about the events reported by Panorama
"It was NDS. It was their baby and it started to become more their baby as they fashioned it to their own design."

Once ITV Digital's codes were published on Thoic, Mr Gibling said his site was then used to defeat the electronic countermeasures that the company used to try to stop the piracy.

He added that new codes, created by ITV Digital, were sent out to other piracy websites.

"We wanted people to be able to update these cards themselves, we didn't want them buying a single card and then finding they couldn't get channels. We wanted them to stay and keep with On Digital, flogging it until it broke."

NDS's UK security unit was 50% funded by Sky. But the satellite broadcaster, chaired by James Murdoch, told the programme it had no involvement in how the unit was run and was not aware of Thoic.

Mr Murdoch was a non-executive director of NDS at the time although there is no evidence that he knew about the events reported by Panorama.

'Fit and proper'

Ofcom, the television regulator, is currently examining whether Mr Murdoch and News Corporation are "fit and proper" persons to be in control of BSkyB, the company that runs Sky TV. News Corporation currently owns 39% of BSkyB.

Tom Watson MP, a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee that has been examining the phone-hacking scandal, has called for Ofcom to examine these new allegations in their assessment.

"Clearly allegations of TV hacking are far more serious than phone hacking," he said. "It seems inconceivable that they (Ofcom) would not want to look at these new allegations. Ofcom are now applying the fit and proper person test to Rupert and James Murdoch. It also seems inconceivable to me that if these allegations are true that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch will pass that test."

NDS declined to be interviewed for the programme.

Panorama: Murdoch's TV Pirates, BBC One, Monday, 26 March at 20:30 BST and then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer.

NDS response to BBC Panorama:
NDS is a global leader in the fight against pay-TV piracy, having repeatedly and successfully assisted law enforcement in that important effort.

Like most companies in the conditional access industry - and many law enforcement agencies - NDS uses industry contacts to track and catch both hackers and pirates. This is neither illegal nor unethical. And, to ensure that all activity remains completely within legal bounds, NDS staff and their contacts operate under a clear code of conduct for operating undercover.

These allegations were the subject of a long-running court case in the United States. This concluded with NDS being totally vindicated and its accuser having to pay almost $19m in costs.

[Jan Klimkowski]

In the Murdoch phone hacking thread, I've posted a lot of material about the murder by axe of Daniel Morgan in 1987, which is linked to PI Jonathan Rees and various allegedly corrupt cops. The PI firm received lots of custom from Murdoch empire organs.

See posts here.

There's a lot of material in that thread, but to keep this particular row of dots coherent, here are some of the key elements:

Before phone-hacking PI Glenn Mulcaire, there was long time News International "fixer", Jonathan Rees, who has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Rees was acquitted because, as Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell admitted to victim Daniel Morgan's family: "It is quite apparent that police corruption was a debilitating factor in that investigation. This was wholly unacceptable.'

Police have admitted corruption in the Met was a debilitating factor' in the £50million collapse of one of Britain's most horrific unsolved murder cases.
The latest attempt to gain justice for the killing 24 years ago of private investigator Daniel Morgan fell apart in farce yesterday after evidence from supergrasses was discredited.
Mr Morgan, 37, was hacked to death with an axe outside a pub. There have been five separate investigations at a cost to the taxpayer of £50million.
After prosecutors offered no evidence against three men yesterday, a Scotland Yard officer sincerely' apologised to Mr Morgan's family. He said police corruption during the initial investigation in 1987 was a key reason that no one had ever been convicted.
The first investigation is feared to have seen the real killers shielded by corrupt officers.

(snip)

Police alleged Glenn Vian was the axeman and that Mr Morgan was murdered because he discovered his business partner Jonathan Rees was using their company to launder the proceeds of drug trafficking. Mr Rees was also said to have obtained information from corrupt serving police officers about operations.

Source.

Below is an outline of the criminal and corrupt career of Jonathan Rees, funded in part by News International.

Jonathan Rees worked from a dingy office in south London. He lived in a cramped flat upstairs. He was divorced, overweight and foul-mouthed but his business was golden: he traded information. His sources may have been corrupt. His actions may have been illegal. But the money kept coming from one golden source in particular. As Rees himself put it: "No one pays like the News of the World do."

(snip)

Rees was jailed for a conspiracy to frame an innocent woman and then accused of conspiracy to murder.

And yet the man who became the prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, has always maintained in evidence to parliament and on oath in court that he knew nothing of any illegal activity during the seven years he spent at the top of the News of the World. The entire story unfolded without ever catching his eye. In the same way, the prime minister and his deputy were happy to appoint Coulson last May to oversee the communication between the British government and its people, even though they were already fully aware of all the essential facts.

It begins with the bug. It is commonplace for journalists to interview police officers, but the listening device recorded Rees routinely paying cash directly or indirectly to serving officers, a serious criminal offence. By April 1999, Rees had been working for Fleet Street for several years, and he had created a vibrant network of corrupt sources.

The bug recorded the sound of Detective Constable Tom Kingston from the south-east regional crime squad collecting cash for himself and for his mate who was an intelligence officer involved in the protection of the royal family and other VIPs. DC Kingston sold Jonathan Rees a Special Branch report disclosing police knowledge of an Albanian crime gang in London, Police Gazette bulletins which listed suspects who were wanted for arrest, and threat assessments in relation to the terrorist targets his mate was supposed to be protecting. Rees sold them to newspapers primarily the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Mirror.

DC Kingston eventually ended up in prison for selling a huge quantity of amphetamine which he had stolen from a dealer. But Rees had other links to other corrupt officers. His partner, Sid Fillery, was a former officer who had connections all over the force. The bug recorded their relationship with Duncan Hanrahan and Martin King, who had left the Metropolitan police to work as private investigators and who were similarly well connected until both were jailed in relation to police corruption. Hanrahan also admitted conspiring to rob a courier of £1m at Heathrow airport.

Some of what they sold was tittle-tattle: a disparaging remark made by Tony Blair about John Prescott within earshot of a bent officer; gossip about the sex lives of Buckingham Palace servants. But some of it was highly sensitive. When one of Britain's most notorious criminals, Kenneth Noye, was finally arrested, Rees bought and sold details of the secret intelligence which had led to his capture as well as the precise time and route by which he would be driven from prison to court. When the TV journalist Jill Dando was murdered on her doorstep, Rees procured a police source so that he could sell live details of the investigation.

And the corruption did not stop with the police. The listening device caught Rees boasting that he was in touch with: two former police officers working for Customs and Excise who would accept bribes; a corrupt VAT inspector who had access to business records; and two corrupt bank employees who would hand over details of targets' accounts. (One of them had the first name Robert and was wittily referred to as Rob the Bank. The other was simply Fat Bob.)

(snip)

One person who is familiar with Rees's operations claims that he or one of his associates started using Trojan Horse software, which allowed them to email a target's computer and copy the contents of its hard disk. This source claims that they used this tactic when they were hired by the News of the World to gather background on Freddy Scapaticci, a former IRA man who had been exposed as an MI6 informer codenamed Stakeknife.

Two other sources claim that Rees was commissioning burglaries. One is a private investigator who was told directly by Rees's network that they had broken into targets' home on behalf of a Fleet Street newspaper. The other is a lawyer who claims to have evidence that a high-profile client was the target of an attempted burglary by Rees's associates in search of embarrassing information. There is no independent confirmation of this.

The bug betrayed the sheer speed and ease with which Rees was able to penetrate the flimsy fence of privacy that shields the vast reservoir of personal information now held on the databases controlled by the police and the DVLA, the phone companies and banks. On one occasion, he was asked to find out about the owner of a Porsche. Armed with the registration number, it took him a grand total of 34 minutes to come up with the owner's name and home address from the DVLA and his criminal record from the police computer.

When the Daily Mirror wanted the private mortgage details of all the governors of the Bank of England, Rees delivered.

When the Sunday Mirror wanted to get inside the bank accounts of Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex, it was equally easy, as the bug recorded:

Reporter: "Do you remember a couple of months ago, you got me some details on Edward's business and Sophie's business and how well they were doing?"

Rees: "Yeah."

Reporter: "And you did a check on Sophie's bank account."

Rees: "Yeah."

Reporter: "Is it possible to do that again? I'm not exactly sure what they're after but they seem to be under the impression that, you know, she was in the paper the other day for appearing in Hello magazine. They think she's had some kind of payment off them."

Rees: "What? Off Hello?"

Reporter: "Um, yeah."

Rees: "… find out how much."

Reporter: "Well, we just want to see if there's been any change to her bank account. "

This would be a breach of the Data Protection Act unless the courts held there was a clear public interest in establishing the health of the countess's business or her deal with Hello magazine. The payment of bribes would be a criminal offence regardless of any public interest. Rees made no secret of his criminality. At one point the police bug caught Rees telling a Daily Mirror journalist that they must be careful what they wrote down "because what we're doing is illegal, isn't it? I don't want people coming in and nicking us for a criminal offence, you know."

But Rees did get nicked and for a serious criminal offence. The listening device caught him being hired by a man who was getting divorced and wanted to stop his wife getting custody of their children. Rees came up with a plan. Aided and abetted by yet another corrupt police officer, DC Austin Warnes, he arranged to plant cocaine in the car of the unsuspecting woman, so that she could be charged, convicted and smeared as an unreliable parent.

In order to stop that plot, in September 1999, Scotland Yard raided Rees and charged him with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Fifteen months later, he was taken off Fleet Street's payroll when he was sentenced to six years in prison, increased to seven years on appeal. DC Warnes was sentenced to four years.

And none of this was secret. Apart from the case itself, which was held in open court, the Guardian two years later, in September 2002, ran a three-part series on invasion of privacy and devoted some 3,000 words to a detailed account of Rees's dealings with corrupt police officers and of his use generally of illegal methods to acquire information for the News of the World and other papers.

Based on an authorised briefing by Scotland Yard, the Guardian story made repeated references to the News of the World's involvement and quoted an internal police report to the effect that Rees and his network were involved in the long-term penetration of police intelligence and that "their thirst for knowledge is driven by profit to be accrued from the media". The Crown Prosecution Service found that there was no evidence that the reporters involved knew that Rees was acquiring the material by corrupt means.

A year later, in August 2003, Sid Fillery, who was still running the agency and working for Fleet Street, also got himself arrested and charged with 15 counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing indecent images. This was reported in national media. He was later convicted.

All of this extraordinary and well-publicised activity around the News of the World nevertheless apparently escaped the attention of Andy Coulson, even though he had been hired early in 2000 to be deputy editor of the paper under his close friend, Rebekah Wade. And Jonathan Rees was not the only private investigator who was routinely breaking the law for the News of the World without Coulson knowing anything at all about it.

All through the late 1990s, the paper had been hiring an investigator called John Boyall, who, among other services, specialised in acquiring information from confidential databases. He had a wiry young man working as his assistant, named Glenn Mulcaire. In the autumn of 2001, John Boyall fell out with the News of the World's assistant editor, Greg Miskiw, who had been responsible for handling him. Miskiw replaced him by poaching Glenn Mulcaire and giving him a full-time contract.

Source.

[Jan Klimkowski]

News Intl and PIs were even involved in surveillance on the lead detective investigating the axe murder of Morgan.

Subsequently, Rebekah Brooks and Head of Scotland Yard Press Bureau Dick Fedorcio "discussed" the matter briefly, and no action was taken to protect then Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook, and his family.

Brooks claimed News Intl believed Cook was having an affair with BBC TV's Crimewatch presenter and former police officer Jackie Haines. In fact, Cook and Haines were married, so News Intl's "defence" was simply not credible.

For whatever reason, after a recent investigation into Fedorcio's time as Scotland Yard Press supremo, he was about to be charged with gross misconduct, and rather than defend himself, Fedorcio chose to resign.

Of course the gross misconduct charges may have been due to other matters entirely. Shame Dick didn't want to put his side of things...

Oh those crazy dots....

Rebekah knew nothing..... :rofl:

Murdoch must have slipped into senile megalomania if he thinks Wade/Brooks can keep her job.

Or he has some deeply ugly material on senior politicians in his files.

News of the World surveillance of detective: what Rebekah Brooks knew

Brooks summoned to meeting with Scotland Yard to be told her journalists had spied on behalf of murder suspects

Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 19.47 BST

As editor of the News of the World Rebekah Brooks was confronted with evidence that her paper's resources had been used on behalf of two murder suspects to spy on the senior detective who was investigating their alleged crime.

Brooks was summoned to a meeting at Scotland Yard where she was told that one of her most senior journalists, Alex Marunchak, had apparently agreed to use photographers and vans leased to the paper to run surveillance on behalf of Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery, two private investigators who were suspected of murdering their former partner, Daniel Morgan. The Yard saw this as a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Brooks was also told of evidence that Marunchak had a corrupt relationship with Rees, who had been earning up to £150,000 a year selling confidential data to the News of the World. Police told her that a former employee of Rees had given them a statement alleging that some of these payments were diverted to Marunchak, who had been able to pay off his credit card and pay his child's private school fees.

A Guardian investigation suggests that surveillance of Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook involved the News of the World physically following him and his young children, "blagging" his personal details from police databases, attempting to access his voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly sending a "Trojan horse" email in an attempt to steal information from his computer.

The targeting of Cook began following his appearance on BBC Crimewatch on 26 June 2002, when he appealed for information to solve the murder of Morgan, who had been found dead in south London 15 years earlier. Rees and Fillery were among the suspects. The following day, Cook was warned by the Yard that they had picked up intelligence that Fillery had been in touch with Marunchak and that Marunchak agreed to "sort Cook out".

A few days later, Cook was contacted by Surrey police, where he had worked as a senior detective from 1996 to 2001, and was told that somebody claiming to work for the Inland Revenue had contacted their finance department, asking for Cook's home address so that they could send him a cheque with a tax refund. The finance department had been suspicious and refused to give out the information.

It is now known that at that time, the News of the World's investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, succeeded in obtaining Cook's home address, his internal payroll number at the Metropolitan police, his date of birth and figures for the amount that he and his wife were paying for their mortgage. All of this appears to have been blagged by Mulcaire from confidential databases, apparently including the Met's own records.

Mulcaire obtained the mobile phone number for Cook's wife and the password she used for her mobile phone account.

Paperwork in the possession of the Yard's Operation Weeting is believed to show that Mulcaire did this on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, the paper's assistant editor and a close friend of Marunchak.

About a week later, a van was seen parked outside Cook's home. The following day, two vans were seen there. Both of them attempted to follow Cook as he took his two-year-old son to nursery. Cook alerted Scotland Yard, who sent a uniformed officer to stop one of the vans on the grounds that its rear brake light was broken. The driver proved to be a photojournalist working for the News of the World. Both vans were leased to the paper. During the same week, there were signs of an attempt to open letters which had been left in Cook's external postbox.

Scotland Yard chose not to mount a formal inquiry. Instead a senior press officer contacted Brooks to ask for an explanation. She is understood to have told them they were investigating a report that Cook was having an affair with another officer, Jacqui Hames, the presenter of BBC Crimewatch. Yard sources say they rejected this explanation, because Cook had been married to Hames for some years; the couple had two children, then aged two and five; and they had previously appeared together as a married couple in published stories."The story was complete rubbish," according to one source.

For four months, the Yard took no action, raising questions about whether they were willing to pursue what appeared to be an attempt to interfere with a murder inquiry. However, in November 2002, at a press social event at Scotland Yard, Brooks was asked to come into a side room for a meeting. She was confronted by Cook, his boss, Commander Andre Baker, and Dick Fedorcio, the head of media relations. According to a Yard source, Cook described the surveillance on his home and the apparent involvement of Marunchak, and evidence of Marunchak's suspect financial relationship with Rees. Brooks is said to have defended Marunchak on the grounds that he did his job well.

Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World. In March Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plant a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst.

Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex-husband would get custody of their children, and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.

Cook and his wife are believed to be preparing a legal action against the News of the World, Marunchak, Miskiw and Mulcaire. Operation Weeting is also understood to be investigating.

[Jan Klimkowski]

And poor Stephen Lawrence, murdered in the streets?

Further allegations here:

Links between Ray Adams and others involved with the phone hacking scandal

After the allegations made in Panorama's Murdoch's Pirates an eagle eyed Something Awful forum member Daveman23 noted some interesting links between various individuals involved with groups and individuals mentioned in the Panorama documentry, including Ray Adams, former head of security of the Murdoch subsidiary NDS, that's well worth a read:

That would be former Scotland Yard commander Ray Adams (and Head of Criminal Intelligence - organised crime basically) working for NDS as Head of Security. That's the same Ray Adams who is accused of interfering with the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and investigated for misconduct over his links with drug dealer, murderer and police informant Kenneth Noye and his associate Clifford Norris, father of David Norris (now in jail for Stephen Lawrence's murder). The report into corruption relating to Mr Adams was withheld from the Macpherson report into the murder.

Also the same Ray Adams whose friend DC Alan "Taffy" Holmes shot himself in 1987 whilst Ray was being investigated by a police corruption inquiry. DC Holmes was the policeman working with murdered private detective Daniel Morgan on a whistleblowing case against corruption in the Met (allegations from Gillard and Flynn's "The Untouchables"). Daniel Morgan's murder inquiry in 1987 also seems to have suffered from NI "interest", involving the surveillance of the wife of the chief investigating officer.

Daniel Morgan's business partner, Jonathan Rees, was acquitted of Mr Morgan's murder in 2011 alongside the Vian brothers and James Cook. Another police officer, Sid Fillery, was arrested at the time but later released. Mr Fillery went to take over Mr Morgan's job at Southern Investigations. Mr Fillery also had charges of perverting the course of justice dropped but was later convicted on 15 counts of making indecent images of children.

Mr Rees was being paid by News International to the tune of around £150,000 a year and shared a business address with former senior NI executive (and Northern Ireland editor) Alex Marunchak. Mr Marunchak also likes hackers as he paid one to crack Ian Hurst's (alias Martin Ingram) home PC. Mr Rees also established the firm Abbeycover, at the same address as Southern Investigations, with the former news editor of the News of the World, Greg Miskiw.

The same names, every time.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Here's the bland version, via Channel 4 News:

Saturday 12 May 2012

Fresh claims of corruption in the Stephen Lawrence murder case are to be reviewed by Scotland Yard and the police watchdog.

Detectives have been checking "a considerable number of files and reports dating back to the 1980s" connected to the Stephen Lawrence case.

The review follows claims that a confidential report compiled by the force's anti-corruption command was not disclosed to the 1998 Macpherson inquiry - a public enquiry into the police handling of the case.

The involvement of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in the review comes after the teenager's mother, Doreen Lawrence, called for the reopening of the major public inquiry into the circumstances of the racist murder.

But police refused to disclose if two months of searches by the force had uncovered any evidence that reports had not been passed on.

A statement from the Metropolitan Police said: "The Directorate of Professional Standards has reviewed a considerable number of files and reports dating back to the 1980s as well as conducting interviews with a number of key individuals involved in the original investigation into both Stephen Lawrence's murder and police corruption.

"We have retrieved a number of key documents, which greatly assist in understanding what material was available to the Macpherson inquiry and are now in the process of sharing our findings with the Independent Police Complaints Commission so that they can review it in the light of their previous involvement in the case."

Documents were said to focus on the conduct and integrity of former Metropolitan Police commander Ray Adams, who was involved in the investigation into the murder.

Despite investigating the claims for more than a month, Scotland Yard has been unable to confirm if the potentially crucial files were passed to the inquiry, headed by Sir William Macpherson.

Home Secretary Theresa May has since offered to meet Mrs Lawrence, who said the claims gave further impetus to her calls for a public inquiry.

Some of the allegations against Mr Adams centred on his relationship with Kenneth Noye, who was later convicted of a separate murder.

No criminal or misconduct charges were brought as a result of the internal investigation into Mr Adams.

He was questioned at the Macpherson inquiry about corruption, but no evidence of wrongdoing was found.

During the Macpherson inquiry, lawyers claimed Noye had a criminal associate, Clifford Norris, whose son David was a prime suspect in the murder of Stephen.

David Norris and Gary Dobson were convicted of Stephen's murder in January this year - 19 years after the crime - and sentenced to life at the Old Bailey.

It has also been claimed that another Scotland Yard officer, who interviewed the suspects following Stephen's killing, had links to Clifford Norris.
Former detective sergeant John Davidson denies any wrongdoing.

The Metropolitan Police statement came as Mrs Lawrence joined a vigil with the family of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot dead in controversial circumstances in Florida.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Oh yeah, so for the official record:

Some of the allegations against Mr Adams centred on his relationship with Kenneth Noye, who was later convicted of a separate murder.

No criminal or misconduct charges were brought as a result of the internal investigation into Mr Adams.

He was questioned at the Macpherson inquiry about corruption, but no evidence of wrongdoing was found.

Nothing to see here, then......

[Jan Klimkowski]

Here is a long article on the aftermath of the Brinks-MAT heist, and its role in funding the criminal drugs culture of Essex and Kent in the late 80s and 90s.

The motive for the murder of Daniel Morgan is unclear. However, the Morgan family believe it may be linked to his investigation of, or involvement with, individuals warring over the legacy of the Brinks-MAT bullion.

There are also claims that he was investigating corruption in the Metropolitan Police..


Lots of photos at the link.

Fool's Gold: The curse of the Brink's-Mat gold bullion robbery


More than 20 people whose lives were touched by the bullion have met an untimely often gruesome end



Scene: 1983 police van and officers


When veterans of London's criminal underworld meet, they grimly refer to the Brink's-Mat millions as Fool's Gold.

More than 20 people whose lives were touched by the bullion have met an untimely often gruesome end since the record-breaking raid, an investigation has revealed.

Just after dawn on November 26, 1983, six armed men burst into the Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow expecting to find £3million in cash.

Instead they stumbled across nearly seven thousand gold ingots, worth nearly £28million.

The heist turned them into some of Britain's richest men and filled the pockets of countless other crooks as the gold was melted down and the money laundered to fund shady activities such as drug smuggling.

Just three out of 15 men involved in planning and executing the robbery were ever convicted robbers "Mad" Mickey McAvoy and Brian "The Colonel" Robinson and security guard insider Tony Black, Robinson's brother in law.


Robbed: The security warehouse
PA


The vast majority of the gold worth over £500million at today's prices has never been recovered.

But nearly 30 years on, most of those involved have come to regret the day they ever came into contact with the Brink's-Mat bullion.

More than 20 people connected to the heist are dead.

The include an ex-policeman who ended up with an axe in his head, an underworld figure gunned down on his yacht off Corfu, and an enforcer now believed to be part of the foundations of the O2 Arena in London.

A senior detective who worked on the investigation said he was never surprised by the brutal murders.

He said: "These villains were out of control, many of them off their heads on drugs bought with their new-found riches.

"The trouble was that when that money either ran out, or in the case of some of them, never materialised, there was only one way to respond to kill people to show others that even 25 years after the robbery, if they dared to cross the gang they would still pay with their life."


Bullion: The heist gang came into riches
Photoshot


A new book, The Curse of Brink's-Mat by Wensley Clarkson, traces the fate of the men whose lives became entwined with the case.

It tells how the idea of a curse was the last thing on the minds of the six robbers who, after tying up guards at the depot, found riches beyond their wildest dreams.

Robinson, McAvoy, Brian Perry and three other men managed to disable the security alarm and enter the warehouse thanks to "insider" Black, who worked at the depot.

Once inside, they doused the guards with petrol and threatened to set them alight unless they revealed the combinations to the vault, which they knew contained £3million.

But when they got inside, they could hardly believe their eyes. Stacked in front of them were 6,800 gold ingots, hundreds of thousands of pounds, travellers' cheques and two boxes of diamonds.

The men spent the next two hours loading their battered blue Transit van before making their getaway.

The stolen vehicle creaked under the weight. By the time the alarm was raised 15 minutes later, the robbers and the loot had vanished.


Posh: Brian Perry's house
Rex Features


It seemed like the perfect crime but none of the gang had experience in gold, so they had to recruit other underworld figures who had. So much was melted down that it is thought that most people with gold jewellery made in the UK after 1993 are wearing Brink's-Mat.

Soon millions of pounds were flooding the underworld and unleashing a tide of gangland violence and murders from London's East End to the Costa del Sol.

The effect was not just felt by criminals. The double-strength ecstasy that killed Leah Betts, 18, in 1995 was almost certainly imported using money from the robbery.

Police were certain that the gang must have had inside help and were quick to suspect Black, the last guard to arrive on the morning of the raid.

He confessed that he had provided information and a duplicate key, and named three of the robbers, McAvoy, his brother-in-law Robinson, and a man called Tony White.

Robinson and McAvoy had spent six months planning the crime, but on finding themselves millionaires they aroused suspicions by moving from their council homes to mansions in Kent. McAvoy is reputed to have named two pet rottweilers Brinks and Mat.


Gruesome: The scene of private eye Daniel Morgan's death

In December 1984, Robinson and McAvoy were jailed for 25 years each while Black was sentenced to six years.

But there were still many villains at large and an extraordinary amount of gold and in the coming years death and betrayal were linked to the infamous robbery.

The first death occurred in 1985, when Kenneth Noye, recruited for his links to the smelting trade, stabbed an undercover detective John Fordham in his garden.

At the resulting trial, the jury found Noye not guilty of murder on the grounds of self-defence.

He was on trial again in 1986 after police found 11 bars of gold at his home. He got a 14-year sentence.

Cops revealed Shirley Bassey's hit Goldfinger had been primed to play on the stereo whenever anyone walked into Noye's lounge.

He is currently serving life for the murder of 21-year-old motorist Stephen Cameron in a road rage attack in front of Cameron's girlfriend Daniella Cable, 17, near the M25.

The curse has hit many in the criminal underworld including Great Train Robber Charlie Wilson, who was gunned down at his Marbella home after £3million of Brink's-Mat money went missing in a drug deal.

In 1996, Keith Hedley, a suspected money launderer, was shot dead by three men on his yacht off Corfu.


Killer: Kenneth Noye
PA


Two years later, Hatton Garden jeweller Solly Nahome, who had helped move hundreds of gold bars, was also shot dead outside his home.

Perry, who was jailed for handling gold, died after being shot three times in the head in South London at the age of 63 following his release in 2001.

And the same year, Brink's-Mat gang member George Francis, 63, was gunned down at point-blank range in his car outside the courier business he ran in South East London.

Three decades on, the hunt for the missing gold continues. And with a new generation of gangsters looking for it, police believe the death toll will rise.

Most of the bullion is believed to be buried, with only a few old lags knowing the whereabouts.

Most believe it is only a matter of time before the curse of the Brink's-Mat gold claims its next victim.

CAUGHT IN THE CURSE




BRIAN PERRY Brink's-Mat gang associate shot dead in Bermondsey, South London, in 2001.

JOHN FORDHAM Undercover policeman who was stabbed to death in 1985 by Kenneth Noye.

SOLLY NAHOME Bullion smelter was gunned down in 1998 outside his North London home.

KEITH HEDLEY Money launderer was shot dead by three men on his yacht off Corfu in 1996.

CHARLIE WILSON Great Train Robber shot at home in Spain in 1990 along with dog.

GILBERT WYNTER Enforcer who disappeared in 1998 is believed to be in foundations of the O2 Arena in South East London.

NICK WHITING Suspected "grass" stabbed nine times and then shot twice with a 9mm pistol in 1990.

PAT TATE Associate of Noye shot dead with two other men in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995.

STEPHEN CAMERON Stabbed to death by Kenneth Noye in 1996 road rage incident on the M25.

LEAH BETTS Died in 1995 aged 18 after taking ecstasy thought to have been imported using Brink's-Mat money.

DAN MORGAN Ex-cop found dead in South London in 1987.

DONALD URQUHART Money launderer who was shot by a hitman in West London in 1995.

GEORGE FRANCIS Publican who handled gold, shot in Bermondsey in 2003.

JOHN MARSHALL Associate of Noye shot in Sydenham, South London in 1996.

DANNY ROFF Gangster mown down in Bromley, Kent, in 1997.

SIDNEY WINK Gun dealer believed to have supplied the guns for the Brink's-Mat raid committed suicide by shooting himself in 1994.

ALAN DECABRAL Witness due to give evidence against Noye ended up peppered with bullets in a car park in Ashford, Kent, in 2000.

JOEY WILKINS Vice king who grassed on Noye died mysteriously in 2007 after an apparent robbery on the Costa del Sol.

ALAN TAFFY' HOLMES Brink's-Mat detective shot himself in 1987.

MICHAEL OLYMBIOUS Drug dealer ended up dead in 1995

[Jan Klimkowski]

And another one, again linking the brutal murder of Morgan with Brinks-MAT.

Again, lots of photos here.

The curse of Brink's Mat: An ex-cop with an axe in his head - and a Great Train Robber shot dead in Marbella

By Wensley Clarkson

PUBLISHED: 22:00, 5 May 2012 | UPDATED: 14:19, 6 May 2012

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It was pitch black and icy cold when security guard Richard Holliday arrived to open Unit 7 on a scruffy trading estate near Heathrow Airport.

Inside this nondescript warehouse was one of Britain's biggest secure vaults, used to store currency, precious metals and other high-value consignments.

Four colleagues joined him, but the fifth man rostered for duty, 31-year-old Tony Black, was late and when he finally showed up he looked pale, unkempt and apprehensive.

Aladdin's cave: Unit 7 on the Heathrow trading estate, where the £26 million Brink's-Mat robbery took place in November 1983
Black disappeared, mumbling something about the toilet, but instead went to the front door, where his brother-in-law Brian Robinson and fellow robbers Mad' Mickey McAvoy, Brian Perry and three other men were armed and waiting in a stolen blue Transit van.

Thanks to Black, the robbers knew the vault contained gold, cash and jewellery worth up to £3 million.

They even knew which of the two security guards had the combination numbers for the safes inside.

It was Saturday, November 26 1983, and what followed on that chilly morning still reverberates today.

The Brink's-Mat bullion remains the biggest and most notorious heist ever to take place on these shores.

Worth a staggering £500 million at today's gold prices, the robbery transformed not just Britain's criminal underworld but the face of Britain itself, its tentacles helping to unleash a tide of illegal drugs and accompanying violence.

The double-strength Ecstasy that killed schoolgirl Leah Betts in 1995 was almost certainly brought into Britain using the Brink's-Mat proceeds.

The consequences have been devastating, too, for the gangsters who took part in the crime of the century'.

The Brink's-Mat gold has claimed more than 20 lives so far, with countless more lives ruined. Some have been shot dead as a warning to the rest of the underworld; others disappeared without trace.

As the 30th anniversary of the robbery approaches, there is no sign that the killings are going to stop.

Fugitive: Kenneth Noye, who was jailed for handling the Brink's-Mat bullion, being arrested in Spain in 1998 over the 'road-rage' murder of Stephen Cameron

Only one third of the bullion has been recovered and the case remains open.

Even today, a new generation of British gangsters are locked in a vicious battle for the remaining ingots which, they believe, now lie secreted in the lock-ups of South-East London or the fields of Kent.

One by one those involved have been being picked off like targets in a funfair shooting gallery,' says one of the police detectives involved in the original investigation.

No wonder so many of those touched by the robbery believe they have been cursed.

The first the security guards inside Unit 7 knew of the raid was when a man in a yellow balaclava pointed a semi-automatic pistol at their faces and told them all to hit the floor.

Believing it to be a colleague playing a practical joke, Peter Bentley continued to make the tea.

Without a word, the gunman coshed Bentley with the Browning Automatic and he fell to the floor.

The guards were cuffed and bound at the shins with heavy-duty tape. Cloth bags with strings were then pulled down over the their heads.

The two security men who held the combinations were soon identified.

One of them had his trousers pulled down and petrol poured in his lap. He was warned a match would be lit and a bullet put in his head.

The double-strength Ecstasy that killed schoolgirl Leah Betts in 1995 was almost certainly brought into Britain using the Brink's-Mat proceeds

Terrified, one guard punched in his half of the combination to the vault before his colleague was pushed forward to complete the sequence, but the numbers had just been changed by the company.

Only after 20 terrifying minutes with a gun in his back did he get the code right.

It was shortly before 7am when the gang finally stepped inside the vault, where fluorescent lighting revealed a carpet of drab grey containers, no bigger than shoeboxes.

Inside each container were 12 perfectly formed bars of pure gold. The robbers prised off a few more lids to reveal the same awesome sight.

There were a total of 6,800 gold bars, weighing three-and-a-half tons and worth £26,369,778.

They also found hundreds of thousands of pounds, travellers' cheques and rough diamonds it was an Aladdin's cave of treasure.

The atmosphere was electric as the thugs hurriedly began passing bars of gold to their battered Transit. It was not long before the vehicles axles were bending under the weight.

More than one eyewitness later reported seeing an old van with a wheezing engine riding very low on its suspension through the streets of Hounslow.

Rather than disappear in the days following the robbery, McAvoy a Bermondsey-born crook and the leader of the gang told the others to make sure they were seen around their usual haunts. If they went to ground it would be sure to alert the police.

None of the gang had experience with gold.

So it was not surprising, as word spread across the underworld, that various top London villains, or faces', let it be known that they would be pitching for the rights' to turn all that gold into ready cash.

The robbery was the simple bit,' one criminal said.
Now the real fun begins.'

The police soon made the connection between Tony Black, the inside man' and Robinson, his brother-in-law. Eight days later, Black admitted his involvement and fingered three of the gang:

Robinson, McAvoy and another South-London hood called Tony White.


Initially, McAvoy was cautious but he then made a classic error by leaving his council house in Dulwich, South London and moving into a mansion on the Kent border.
He also bought two rottweilers and named them Brink's and Mat.

Other gang members were irritated by his clumsiness'.

Eleven days after the robbery, Robinson, McAvoy and White were arrested and later charged with robbery.

Black was sentenced to six years' imprisonment with a warning from the judge: Never again will you be safe . . . You and your family will forever be fugitives from those you so stupidly and so wickedly helped.'

Then, in November 1984, after a month-long trial, McAvoy and Robinson were found guilty of robbery and each sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. White was found not guilty.

The sheer size of the Brink's-Mat haul of gold bullion had created a huge problem because the gang needed a conduit through which the gold could travel. It had to be smelted, disguised and sold back into the gold industry before it could be turned into cash.

The robbers had to look outside their close circle of associates to find people to handle the gold, and here they made a big mistake.
Villains who had known each other for years were now having to put their trust in people such as Kent crime boss Kenneth Noye, who had convinced McAvoy and Robinson he was the best man to help them turn the gold into cash.

The other main player was a 31-year-old businessman' from Bath called John Palmer. He was dubbed Goldfinger' after he was accused and cleared of dishonestly handling gold from the Brink's-Mat robbery.

At first, Noye was as good as his word. His mob generated a torrent of money for the gang.

In the four months following the robbery, one bank handled transactions of more than £10 million, mainly held in grubby plastic bags.

But it was while Noye was plotting how to convert yet more of the Brink's-Mat gold into cash with a South London crook called Brian Reader that the Brink's-Mat villains hit their second major setback.

By January 1985, Noye, already under suspicion, was being watched by undercover officers, including Detective Constable John Fordham.

When he and a colleague moved on to the grounds of Noye's isolated home in West Kingsdown, Kent, dressed in camouflage gear, disaster struck.

Noye's dogs started barking and Fordham found himself fighting their knife-wielding owner. Fordham suffered at least ten stab wounds and died two hours later. Reader fled.

After Fordham's death, his colleagues discovered a hugely significant piece of evidence linking Noye and Reader to the Brink's-Mat case. Lying in a shallow gully beside the garage wall, were 11 gold bars wrapped in red-and-white cloth.

Some of the same red-and-white material was later discovered in Noye's Ford Granada, and operating instructions for a smelting furnace were also found in Noye's apple store.

Officers were astonished to discover that Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey was primed to play on the stereo system whenever anyone walked into Noye's lounge.

Around this time another of the suspected Brink's-Mat robbers, George Georgie Boy' Francis, was shot in his pub by a gunman who escaped on a motorbike.

Francis survived after an operation to remove a 9mm bullet from his shoulder, but the message had been sent loud and clear to all those connected with Brink's-Mat who had not yet been sent to prison. Keep your trap shut.

By this time, police believed that at least half the gold had been smelted and sold back to legitimate dealers, including Johnson Matthey, to whom, ironically, it belonged in the first place.

Meanwhile the remaining gold, worth at least £10 million, was, they believed, buried and undiscovered.

Detectives eventually traced the proceeds of the robbery to the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Spain and Florida.

Increasing amounts continued to be invested in property in the London Docklands redevelopment boom of the mid-Eighties.

A portion was even used to buy a former section of Cheltenham Ladies' College, which was then converted into flats that eventually sold for £1.6 million. Brink's-Mat money was poured into property developments on the Costa del Sol.

Noye and Reader were found not guilty of the murder of DC Fordham but five months later both were jailed in 1986 for handling stolen bullion.

It was in jail that Noye became convinced that there was a fortune to be made from Ecstasy. The days of armed robberies were numbered.

Security vans were monitored with radar by the police, and it was virtually impossible to rob a bank.

As a result, drugs were emerging as the main criminal currency. Ecstasy could be sold to teenagers as user-friendly, although its known side effects, including panic attacks and heart problems, soon became evident.

Noye and the Brink's-Mat team could smell a real earner with E. It had the potential to give them a return of ten times on the gold bullion money they would invest in it.

Moreover, the investigation into Brink's-Mat was progressing; bank accounts and assets were steadily being frozen.

Inside Swaleside Prison in Kent, Noye soon spread the word. From the late Eighties to early Nineties, Brink's-Mat cash would deluge Britain with Ecstasy.

One of the detectives involved in the Brink's-Mat inquiry explained: There is absolutely no doubt that the flood of Ecstasy into Britain started largely because of the Brink's-Mat cash that was floating around.'

The Ecstasy tablet that killed 18-year-old Leah Betts after an evening out in Raquel's nightclub in Basildon, Essex in November 1995 had been supplied by a gang controlled by Pat Tate, Noye's associate and minder' when the pair were in jail.

Leah's friend Stephen Smith had obtained four tablets and gave one to Leah because it was her birthday. Neither had realised the tablets were double-strength.

The gang's contacts inside Kent Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police remained invaluable.

While still in prison, Noye was tipped off that, together, the police and the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were targeting him along with other members of the Brink's-Mat gang.
Noye was told that they almost had enough evidence to implicate him in a huge drug deal. Noye pulled out of the deal and a costly six-month investigation was abandoned.

On his release from jail, Tate ran Essex's main Ecstasy supply route after getting financial backing from Noye and other Brink's-Mat gang members.

The gold from the heist was almost single-handedly helping finance the huge influx of the designer drug into Britain.

In 1995, Tate was one of three men found shot in a Range Rover in the Essex countryside. They had been lured there by another Brink's-Mat associate to inspect a landing site for aircraft carrying Ecstasy.

Interviews with the police and criminals suggest that Tate wasn't averse to horse-trading with the police. Was the Brink's-Mat gang's involvement in the Ecstasy trade one of the titbits' that he offered them?

The death toll of those linked to the Brink's-Mat robbery continued to climb as the years went on. In 1987 ex-policeman Daniel Morgan was found with an axe embedded in his skull in a South London car park.

It was known that he had encountered Noye and his associates. The Brink's-Mat curse even touched on the Great Train Robbery gang of 1963.

One of them, Charlie Wilson, found himself in trouble when £3 million of Brink's-Mat investors' money went missing in a drug deal.

In April 1990, he paid the price when a young British hood knocked on the front door of his hacienda north of Marbella and shot Wilson and his pet husky dog before coolly riding off down the hill on a yellow bicycle.

Over the next three years, four more shootings were connected to the Brink's-Mat raid.

Noye was released from prison in the summer of 1994 but in March 2000 was jailed for life for the M25 road-rage' murder of motorist Stephen Cameron, committed four years earlier.

From 1994 to 1997, five more gangland deaths were attributed in some way to Brink's-Mat.

The murder of a witness in the Noye road-rage case in October 2000 left another bloody mark.

In November 2001, the shooting in broad daylight of Brink's-Mat robber Brian Perry, 63, as he got out of his car in Bermondsey, South-East London, sent a shiver of fear through the underworld. Perry had been murdered right in the heart of his home territory'.
One source close to the gang told me: Certain people wanted their share of the gold and when it wasn't there waiting for them, they started getting very upset.'

The cycle of death continued. A few months after Perry's murder, two of his oldest associates were murdered separately near the Kent ports of Chatham and Rochester.

Then, on May 14, 2003, Brink's-Mat gang member George Francis, 63, was gunned down at point-blank range as he sat in his car outside the courier business he ran in South-East London.

When, more recently, a bodybuilder confessed to being the dismemberer' for the notorious Adams family, it became clear that some of the bodies he had disposed of were murdered because of their links to Brink's-Mat.

Stephen Marshall, 38, had originally been arrested after stabbing a former work colleague to death and cutting his body into pieces. When the body was first discovered it led to the case being known as the Jigsaw Murder.

Marshall stunned detectives by alleging that he'd hacked up four other bodies while working for Terry Adams one of the men responsible for laundering the Brink's-Mat gold.

As one senior detective who worked on and off on the Brink's-Mat investigation for more than 20 years commented: Nothing really surprises us any more when it comes to Brink's-Mat.
These villains were out of control, many of them off their heads on drugs bought with their new-found riches.

The trouble was that when that money either ran out, or in the case of some of them, never materialised, there was only one way to respond and that was to kill people to show others that even 25 years after the robbery was committed, if they dared to cross the gang they would still pay for it with their life.'

The Brink's-Mat villains' epic conversion of gold into cash brought more money into this country than any other gang of criminals in history.

And when they spent it, they often helped keep legitimate businesses afloat in the poorer areas of South-East London, as well Spain's Costa del Sol.

At most detectives only ever laid their hands on about 30 per cent of the stolen gold. The rest of it has gone up more than one hundred-fold in value since the heist in 1983.

There remains a hard core of 250 premier league' criminals at the top of the British underworld, many of whom are constantly tracked by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).

This includes at least three members of the Brink's-Mat gang, still active after all these years.

But Brink's-Mat also marked the end of an era in British crime. Robbery was overtaken by far more lucrative, straightforward enterprises such as drugs, arms dealing and racketeering, even people smuggling.

One former detective, who spent five years working on the Brink's-Mat inquiry, is convinced that a large amount of gold from the robbery lies hidden, and that at least two of today's younger London gangs have started breaking a few arms' in a bid to locate it.

He said: It's well known that some of the gold is still out there and I understand a couple of really nasty gangs of younger villains have decided to do everything in their power to find it,' he said.

It's going to go on long after every single bar of gold has either been recovered or turned into cash because there are a lot of people out there who believe the Brink's-Mat robbery owes them a living.'

TURNING INGOTS INTO UNTOLD MILLIONS Melting pot: The smelter found at the home of John Palmer

The Brink's-Mat gang quickly realised that gold bullion is no use if you can't spend it, so Kenneth Noye had no difficulty in convincing them that he could help them turn the gold bars into hard cash.

It was a complex operation involving both money laundering and the melting down of the gold. But there seems little doubt that the money it generated helped the Kent crime boss turn his favourite Mediterranean haven in northern Cyprus into a smaller but much more dangerous version of the Costa del Crime.

Money from Brink's-Mat was used not only to set up timeshare resorts and build hotels in Cyprus, but also to help gangsters with links to the robbery to buy mansions on the island.


Along a five-mile stretch of the coast between the port of Kyrenia and the town of Lapta, South-East London villains adopted a champagne lifestyle behind the gates of their luxury homes, similar to that once enjoyed by British crooks in southern Spain.

Among them was the secluded £2 million villa of Dogan Arif, unofficial leader of the Arif gangland family who terrorised South London with their robbing and drug-trafficking operations in the Eighties.

They also played a role in handling much of the Brink's-Mat gold.

One of the problems with the gold was that its purity would quickly arouse suspicion if attempts were made to sell it to legitimate traders.

That's where Noye and his knowledge of the smelting trade came in.

The high-grade ingots were melted down and mixed with copper to disguise the quality.

The trick was so successful that the Assay Office in Sheffield even stamped its seal on some of the cleverly doctored gold.

A smelter was later found at the home of Bath businessman John Palmer, but he was cleared of any involvement.

Palmer, who often wore body armour, was eventually convicted of timeshare fraud and was jailed for eight years.

DEADLY ROLL CALLDONALD URQUART A money launderer who was taken out by a professional hitman in West London.


DANIEL MORGAN Ex-cop who delved too far into the Brink's-Mat aftermath and got an axe through his head.

CHARLIE WILSON
The Great Train Robber lost £3m of Brink's-Mat money on a drugs shipment and was shot.


NICK WHITING
It was claimed he had opened up' to police. His mutilated body was found stabbed nine times and he'd been shot.


JOEY WILKINS
Fraudster and vice king. Secretly acted on behalf of the police. Died mysteriously after an apparent robbery.



JON BRISTOW
Made the mistake of knowing one of the robbers and it cost him his life. Bought a boat shortly before his death.



JOHN FORDHAM
The detective constable was stabbed to death at Noye's Kent mansion in 1985.


STEPHEN CAMERON
Stabbed to death by Kenneth Noye in front of girlfriend Danielle Cable, pictured with him.


SOLLY NAHOME
Financial adviser to the notorious Adams family. Gunned down by a motorcyclist in London in 1998.

© Wensley Clarkson 2012.