Three men jailed after investigators smashed 20-year global passport scam for criminals on the run
Three men who ran a bespoke global passport service for top criminals on the run have been jailed after investigators smashed their 20-year operation.
The documents were genuine, but fraudulently obtained from lookalike individuals who resembled Most Wanted murderers, gun smugglers and drug traffickers.
The gang simply removed the true passport holder’s photograph and replaced it with a picture of the fugitive.
Anthony Beard, 61, supplied 108 UK passports by targeting vulnerable individuals with drug and alcohol problems he had met at rehab centres and homeless shelters during his own struggles with addiction.
He chose people whose passports were running out because unlike fresh applications, renewals do not require an in-person interview. He was jailed for six years and eight months.
From left: Anthony Beard, Christopher Zietek and Alan Thompson. Pic: NCA
Investigators from the UK’s National Crime Agency secretly filmed Beard meeting passport holders and persuading them to co-operate in the scam.
They also recorded him calling the Passport Office, chasing up applications in a number of voices and aliases.
Christopher Zietek, 67, was a go-between who collected the passports from Beard and supplied them to the notorious Adams family, a North London crime group, who then sold them to the desperate fugitives. He was jailed for eight years.
UK passport issued to Jordan Owens in the name of Lee Bowler
Stephen Lawrence suspect among customers
The gang’s customers, who paid up to £15,000 for a passport, included cannabis supplier Jamie Acourt. He was one of the original Stephen Lawrence murder suspects and spent two years on the run in Spain.
Acourt, 47, was arrested after Mr Lawrence’s death in Eltham, south east London, in 1993, but has always denied being involved.
Beard was seen meeting an accomplice of Acourt, who investigators followed and led them to discover him hiding in Spain under a false name.
Acourt, from southeast London, was arrested on a European arrest warrant outside a gym in Barcelona in 2018. He was extradited to the UK and jailed for nine years for masterminding a two-year conspiracy to sell cannabis resin.
Among the other customers were Glasgow murderers Jordan Owen and Christopher Hughes, Liverpool drug trafficker Michael Moogan, Manchester fugitive David Walley and suspected Scottish drug trafficker Barrie Gillespie.
Even when Hughes and accused gangland leader Gillespie were arrested after a bar fight in Portugal their real identities did not come to light.
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Latvian passport in the name of Aleksejs Rustanovs issued to Christopher Hughes
Alan Thompson, 72, was Zietek’s gofer, driving him to meetings with villains and transporting the passports. He was locked up for three years.
The NCA swooped on the gang, arresting a total of 24 suspects in raids in London, Kent, Essex and Merseyside, two years ago.
They were held on a variety of crimes including making and receiving false passports, counter-signing false passports and perverting the course of justice.
Beard pleaded guilty, while Zietek and Thompson denied the charges, but were found guilty by the jury at Reading Crown Court. Some 74 other offences relating to fraudulent passports were taken into consideration by the judge.
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NCA on ‘closing loophole’ in passport scam
Turned to crime because they were bored
Defending the trio, their lawyers said they had been driven to crime by boredom and old age.
Craig Rush, for Thompson, said he had been forced to retire on medical grounds in 1999, and by 2017 was so bored that he turned to crime.
Describing Thompson meeting Zietek, he said: “These days from 1999 to 2017 or 18 watching Homes Under The Hammer, daytime TV, totally bogged down in a world of ennui and boredom, were lightened by a man who could spin an interesting story.”
Thompson had become a gofer for Zietek “not for money but because it gave him something to do”, Mr Rush told the court.
Sentencing the three men, deputy circuit judge Nicholas Ainley said the scheme “enabled very wicked, sophisticated, violent criminals to escape justice”.
“Of course these passports are going to work because they’re genuine,” he added.
“They will pass any security test that any border official tends to throw their way. Thus it can be seen that this particular type of fraud subverts the whole system of passport issuing.”
A Home Office spokesperson said the NCA worked with the passport office to secure the convictions, but did not comment on how the defendants were able to exploit the system.
“This sentence demonstrates the government’s commitment to tackle and dismantle these despicable criminal gangs who seek to exploit and threaten public safety for profit,” they said.
NCA deputy director Craig Turner added: “The investigation demonstrates the NCA’s unique role in tackling the most serious and complex crime threats facing the UK.
“We have identified a chronic, under the radar conspiracy that enabled drug and firearm traffickers, murderers and fugitives to evade justice, and we have worked across borders to dismantle it and the bring the masterminds to account.”
UK
Resident doctor strikes: I don’t want people to suffer but we have to walk out again, says BMA chief
The British Medical Association (BMA) has defended a new round of resident doctor walkouts starting on Friday, insisting medics’ pay is still “way down” compared with 2008 and that the government has failed to finish “a journey” towards restoring it.
BMA chair Dr Tom Dolphin told Sky News the dispute remains rooted in years of pay erosion that have left resident doctors far behind other public sector workers.
“When we started the dispute, […] the lowest level of the resident doctors were being paid £14 an hour,” he said.
“There were some pay rises over the last couple of years that brought that partly back to the value it should be at, but not all the way.
“The secretary of state (Wes Streeting) himself called it a journey, implying there were further steps to come, but we haven’t seen that.”
Resident doctors outside Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary during a five-day strike in July. File pic: PA
When asked if the row ultimately “comes down to money”, he replied: “In the sense that the secretary of state doesn’t want to or isn’t able to fund the pay increases to match the value that we had in 2008.”
Dr Dolphin argued that while “the general worker in the economy as a whole” has seen pay catch up since the 2008 financial crash, “doctors are still way down”.
The government points out that its 29% settlement last year was one of the largest in the public sector and was intended to draw a line under two years of walkouts.
But Dr Dolphin said the deal still fell short: “The gap was biggest for doctors and needed the biggest amount of restoration, and that’s what we got.”
He defended the BMA’s use of the Retail Price Index (RPI), a metric rejected by the Office for National Statistics, saying it “better reflects the costs people face”.
Should resident doctors get a pay rise? Have your say in the poll at the bottom of this story.
Dr Tom Dolphin says resident doctors are still underpaid
‘Who do you think is treating the patients?’
With Chancellor Rachel Reeves preparing her budget amid warnings of deep cuts, Dr Dolphin said the BMA is not demanding an immediate cash injection.
“We’re quite happy for that money to be deferred with some kind of multi-year pay deal so that we can end the dispute and avoid having further industrial action about pay for several years to come,” he said.
“Money spent in the NHS is returned to the economy. For every pound you spend, you get several pounds back.”
When pressed on whether the £1.7bn cost of previous strike action could have been better spent on treatment and technology for NHS cancer patients, he hit back: “Who do you think is treating the cancer patients? It’s the doctors.”
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting has criticised the BMA for striking again. File pic: PA
Strikes will cause disruption, union boss admits
Dr Dolphin rejected suggestions that the dispute could destabilise the government, calling the idea “implausible”.
He admitted prolonged strikes have tested public patience, but said the government had left doctors with no choice.
“A prolonged industrial dispute makes people annoyed with both sides,” he said. “It is vexing to us that we are still in this dispute.”
“I don’t want patients to suffer,” he added. “I accept that the strikes cause disruption… of course that’s upsetting for them. I completely get that. And I’m sorry that it’s happening.”
Sir Keir Starmer has apologised to his health secretary after allies of the prime minister accused him of plotting a coup.
Sky News understands Sir Keir spoke briefly to Wes Streeting on Wednesday evening, though did not share details about the briefing campaign.
Politics Hub: Follow latest updates
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier in the day, he denied authorising the attacks on Mr Streeting, who was accused of planning a leadership challenge after the budget later this month.
Mr Streeting said the allegations are “not true”, telling Sky News’ Mornings With Ridge And Frost that whoever was behind the briefings had been “watching too much Celebrity Traitors”.
He insisted he was loyal to the prime minister, who has been under mounting pressure as he and the Labour Party flounder behind Reform in the polls.
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Health secretary insists he’s ‘a faithful’
Downing Street went on the attack on Tuesday night to ward off any potential challenge to Sir Keir after the budget, which could see the government announce manifesto-breaking tax rises.
Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves have refused to rule out raising income tax, national insurance, or VAT.
One senior figure told Sky News political editor Beth Rigby while a post-budget challenge is unlikely, it could come if next May’s elections – including in London and Wales – go badly for Labour.
Labour face a challenge from Reform on the right and parties like the Greens and Plaid Cymru on the left.
Read more: How No 10 plunged itself into crisis
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Starmer backs Streeting at PMQs
Also under pressure is the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, after Mr Streeting hit out at a “toxic culture” inside Number 10.
Sir Keir failed to say he had “full confidence” in him at PMQs in response to questions from Kemi Badenoch, but the prime minister’s political spokesperson later insisted to journalists that he does retain his backing.
Sky News understands Mr McSweeney was not discussed when Sir Keir and Mr Streeting spoke last night.
Labour chairwoman Anna Turley said the prime minister will investigate the source of the claims against the health secretary, telling ITV: “This is not what he wants to see and he’s determined to drive it out.”
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