Tonight:
4°c
Police use JCB to ram-raid home of 'cocaine kingpin'
Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent13 Feb 2008
Police used a mechanical digger to smash into the home of the suspected kingpin of a £100 million cocaine empire today.
In an extraordinary dawn raid, 30 officers in body armour swarmed through the hole made by the digger.
Officers resorted to the military-style tactic after discovering the £3 million house, in a suburban Hillingdon street, was heavily fortified.
Twenty-two people were arrested in simultaneous raids to dismantle one of Britain's biggest cocaine and cannabis rackets. More than 500 police swooped on some 30 addresses in London and the home counties.
They recovered about £1 million worth of cocaine and two firearms.
The JCB was used to break down a brick and steel wall surrounding the Georgian-style gated home in Vine Lane. CCTV cameras were attached to the outside walls of the property and the windows were covered in metal bars. Police had to use an angle grinder to get through a fortified door.
A 40-year-old man - an Egyptian national who is suspected of leading the drugs ring - was arrested at the address. His son, who is in his twenties, was also detained.
Detective Superintendent Steve Richardson, in charge of the operation, said: "We want to go into properties as quickly as possible to ensure no evidence is destroyed. If it takes us 15 to 20 minutes to get in, you can imagine how computer hard drives and other evidence could be wiped."
Mr Richardson said today's raids were the final blow to dismantle the drugs network.
"Today's operation has been hugely successful. We have targeted the key players in a criminal-network, culminating in a huge blow to the illegal drugs industry in the UK," he said.
The operation followed more than six months of surveillance by Scotland Yard's Specialist Intelligence Section. It targeted the heads of several well-established gangs who came together to create a "clearing house" to launder profits.
Detectives said some of the men lived lives of wealth similar to Premier League footballers, driving sports cars, frequenting expensive restaurants and travelling the world in style.
In the drive of the Vine Lane property was a Porsche Cayenne 4x4, a white Humvee, a BMW and two Mercedes.
Mr Richardson said more than 20 people had been arrested prior to today, causing "chaos" in the gang. Police have already seized almost £3 million in cash, 70kg of cocaine and four guns, including one with a silencer.
He added that criminals laundered more than £100 million through one central London bureau de change office in less than a year. Undercover officers watched as gang members exchanged suitcases containing £20,000 for small shoeboxes of 500-euro notes - the world's highest value note - that were easy to carry and conceal. The cash was taken to the Continent and invested in property and put in bank accounts.
Police said the gang used a taxi business, based in a shabby corrugated iron and breezeblock building, as their headquarters. Up to £4 million passed through it every week.
Officers would not say where the cocaine and cannabis were imported frombut that the supply was sold across Britain.
As the raids took place, police moved to freeze bank accounts and access to properties across mainland Europe. Among those arrested were men with British, Israeli, Iraqi, Egyptian and Irish backgrounds. All of the gang were resident in Britain.
The raids were concentrated in west and north-west London and Surrey. In one terrace home in Buckingham Avenue, East Molesey, more than 30 officers entered a home believed to be used by a financial middleman of the gang. A 53-year-old man of Egyptian origin was arrested.
Mr Richardson said: "These criminals have been living the lives of wealthy businessmen and today we have put a stop to this.
"We believe this network has been supplying drugs around the country, earning millions of pounds every week.
"This investigation and today's operation, with the assistance of officers from the Territorial Support Group, will have succeeded in taking out a group of ruthless and determined criminals who sought to profit from the sale of illegal drugs."
