'Fagin' made £100,000 from van robberies

Ali Lwanga, 21, made more than £100,000 while paying his teenage accomplices a pittance for robbing Securicor vans.

The gangs - some as young as 14 and dressed in their school uniforms - robbed their targets while playing truant from school.

Lwanga, from Canning Town, was caught after undercover officers trapped his gang using new forensic technology during a raid on a van carrying £3,000 in Enfield.

As police watched, two youths tried to wrestle the cash box from the security guard while a third waited in a car and Lwanga directed operations with a fourth youth from another vehicle.

The three boys tried to escape but as they drove away the cash box exploded. It had been planted with a special tracking substance - SmartWater - that is only visible under UV light.

They were detained and the fourth boy was held when he turned up to meet them at a fast food restaurant in Barking.

Lwanga got away but was arrested in February after he was seen dumping red dye-stained clothes in a wheelie bin near his home.

The clothes, plus a glove stained with blue dye, were found in the bin and sent to SmartWater scientists for testing.

Wood Green grown court heard that detectives were alerted to Lwanga's activities when he began attempting to launder hundreds of pounds in cash using gaming machines at branches of Ladbrokes' in Canning Town in November last year.

The SmartWater results revealed that the money Lwanga was using in Ladbrokes had been stolen during a £25,000 security van robbery at NatWest in Enfield.

Cash found under a mattress at his aunt's house was part of a £25,000 haul stolen during a cash-in-transit robbery at Barclays in Barking in January and a second robbery of £25,000 at Opal Money Transfer in Leytonstone.

Lwanga was found guilty of conspiracy to rob and concealing criminal property in July and will be sentenced today.

Boys aged 14, 15, and two aged 16 - who cannot be named - pleaded guilty to the first charges and will be sentenced at a later date.