Rio de Janeiro’s most wanted drugs baron who controlled the drug trade in South America’s biggest favela with fear and intimidation for 30 years has been arrested

Rio de Janeiro’s most wanted drugs baron who controlled the drug trade in South America’s biggest favela with fear and intimidation for 30 years has been arrested after a high risk undercover police operation.  Photo: AP

Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, known as Nem, was captured after being discovered hiding in the boot of a car stopped at a roadblock, as police surrounded the sprawling Rocinha shanty-town in an attempt finally to wrest back control of the area.

Pictures showed Lopes, 35, looking anguished in handcuffs as he was led to an armoured vehicle by heavily-armed police following his arrest at around midnight on Wednesday.

Brazilian police said the man driving the car had claimed to be a Congolese diplomat in an attempt to avoid the vehicle being searched before the occupants offered a bribe of one million Brazilian reais (£357,000) for police to let them go.

Residents of Rocinha and wealthy neighbouring districts alike were gripped by fear amid concerns that the operation could lead to open street battles between police and criminal gangs armed with machine guns, assault rifles and grenades.

Twelve families were reportedly forced from their houses in the night by gang members who wanted to use them as hideouts, while children who attend schools in the area were being excused from lessons.

Wife of murdered Liverpool gangster Colin Smith appeals for information four years on

 

THE wife of a Liverpool gangster who was shot dead outside a gym four years ago today called for his killers to be brought to justice. Caroline Smith made a public appeal for information on the anniversary of the death of husband and dad-of-six Colin Smith. He was gunned down as he left Nel’s Gym, in Alderwood Road, Speke, on Tuesday November 13, 2007. Caroline, who was with her husband for 13 years and had four sons aged between seven and 12 with him, said: “It has been four years since Colin was murdered and I cannot rest until the people who carried out this cowardly attack on my husband are caught and put before the courts. “I am convinced there are people out there who know who killed Colin and I cannot understand how they can stand by and say nothing. They are as cowardly as the person who pulled the trigger. “Our worlds were turned upside down the night Colin was killed and I ask anyone who has any information which could lead to the arrest of those responsible to contact the police, so we as a family can find some closure.” On the night of his death, 40-year-old Mr Smith, a passionate Evertonian, took his eldest son to football training. Police believe he was “lured” to the gym, in Alderwood Avenue, for the attack. As he left the gym at about 8pm to return to his black Ford Galaxy car, he was shot twice at close-range in the stomach. It was believed to be a gangland hit. Officers today appealed to anyone who was in the area at the time who may have seen anything which could help inquiries to come forward.

UK border checks are 'a bad joke', whistleblower claims

 

Under-pressure staff are said to be relying on false data and "massaging" official figures to mask the full extent of the immigration chaos at Britain's borders. The whistleblower, a middle manager who does not want to be identified, said UKBA staff lack the resources to track down asylum seekers. As a result, it is claimed, complicated immigration cases are being abandoned to save time, while detention centres employ a "one in, one out" policy that sees low-risk detainees released to allow more dangerous foreigners to be locked up. The whistleblower said British border checks had become "haphazard" and "a bad joke". "The whole place is a basket case," he told The Sunday Times (£). "Asylum seekers run rings around us and we are virtually powerless to do anything about it. It is depressing."

Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

 

former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described the case as an unprecedented attack on the Revenue. "The case has taken 25 man-years to investigate." Cranswick was recruited to play his role in the MTIC (missing Trader intra-community) fraud by others. Also known as carousel fraud, it involves importing goods from other EU states which are then sold through contrived business-to-business transactions. Cranswick, of Danby Road, Kiveton, Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC at a hearing last month. After the sentencing, Exchequer Secretary David Gauke said: "This Government will not tolerate dishonest people stealing public money. "This sentence shows that those who try to commit fraud need to think again - HMRC will find you and the courts will punish you. "The additional £917m we have invested in HMRC will see more cases like this successfully prosecuted, sending a clear and powerful message." The judge said the sentencing exercise was to punish the offending and deter others. "The figures in this case are astonishing, they reveal the blatant nature of the fraud," he said. Between June 2005 and February 2006, I2G supposedly carried out almost 6,000 deals, with a turnover of £2.4 billion. Sentencing Cranswick, the judge said: "You were immediately before this fraud a serving police officer. Almost unbelievably you retired from the police force and became the organiser of this fraudulent operation. "You set up the company, you clearly accepted the direction of others - the organisers who are not before this court." Outside court, HMRC said Cranswick went "from rags to riches" soon after retiring, having been heavily in debt as a police officer. A spokeswoman said: "He made lavish improvements to his home, rented a luxury apartment in the Spanish town of Marbella and paid for private schooling and tennis lessons for his children. "Cranswick claimed that in the first six weeks of trading Ideas 2 Go had turned over more than £527 million. "The company had traded over £47 million before they even got round to opening a bank account for the business." HMRC assistant director for criminal investigation Paul Rooney said: "As a police officer Cranswick knew full well that he was breaking the law, yet, motivated by greed, he chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money. "He now has to pay a very high price for his poor judgment and lack of integrity. "This was a sophisticated fraud designed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds of tax, but it started to unravel when our investigations identified sales for more than 50,000 mobile phones, which the manufacturers hadn't even begun producing in their factories." Cranswick nodded as the judge passed sentence, and gestured to members of his family in the public gallery as he was led away. Also sentenced after admitting conspiracy to cheat the Revenue were Thomas Murphy, 27, of Dinnington, who was jailed for four and a half years; Cranswick's brother-in-law, Darren Smyth, 42, from Beech Road, Maltby, and Brian Olive, 56, from Buttermere Close, Doncaster, who were sentenced to three years and four months each; and former housing officer Andrew Marsh, 28, from Sheffield, who was jailed for two years and eight months. Cranswick's 44-year-old sister, Clare Reid, married to Smyth, was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work after admitting two counts of false accounting. Cranswick styled himself as a singer-songwriter and can be seen on his website strumming a guitar to a song called Hit And Miss with the opening lines: "I'm in trouble, falling down a hole. How I got here, I won't ever know." He was lead singer with an indie band called Not The Police.

Drug Smuggling Accused Border Guard Baljinder Kandola At Loss For Words At Trial

 

While one former Indo-Canadian border guard got five years for his part in a drug smuggling ring – another is currently on trial for his part in a different operation that brought millions of illicit drugs into Canada. Baljinder Kandola, a former Canadian border guard who was charged with being part of a cocaine-smuggling ring, was at a loss for words during much of his testimony on Tuesday to explain why he risked so much to help a millionaire auto-parts importer for nothing in return. Under cross-examination by Crown counsel James Torrance, Kandola said he agreed to wave his co-accused Shminder Singh Johal and associates in his three automotive companies through the border, helping them avoid inspection, reported the Province newspaper. Kandola — who worked at the Pacific Highway crossing from July 2001 until his arrest on Oct. 25, 2007 — admitted he made unauthorized use of Canadian Border Services Agency databases to come to the conclusion Johal had been subjected to inspections over the years unfairly. “He asked if I was able to wave him through,” Kandola told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly, who is hearing the case without a jury. “It would save him time and money, and he wouldn’t be harassed.” Torrance reminded Kandola of his testimony a day earlier, when he said he was risking his job, his pension and his standing in the Sikh community by breaking his oath to protect Canada’s borders. “What was [Johal] offering you in return?” asked the prosecutor. “He didn’t offer me anything,” replied Kandola. “In my mind he was bringing auto parts into Canada.” Torrance asked, “This [waving Johal through] was definitely something you shouldn’t do?” “Yes,” agreed the witness. “Then why would you want to help a successful millionaire businessman?” Kandola replied: “I don’t know, I’ve asked myself the same question.” Torrance turned to Kandola’s illegal use of the databases to come to the conclusion Johal was unfairly harassed. A “lookout” had been placed on Johal’s border crossings after a tip from the RCMP. “Did you not consider [Johal] was previously suspected of smuggling cocaine?” asked Torrance. “No,” said Kandola. “That was all cleared up by your queries [into the databases]?” “I guess so,” replied the defendant. Torrance then meticulously went through Kandola’s phone, text and CBSA database records to show that he called Johal to let him know when he was in position to wave him through the border and when the “lookout” was on or off during the wee hours of Feb. 10, 2007. Asked if he was paid by Johal when they met at a 7-Eleven store the next day, Kandola denied it. Kandola was arrested on Oct. 25, 2007, shortly after he waved through a car driven by Herman Riar that contained 208 kilograms of cocaine. Riar pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison. Kandola and Johal have pleaded not guilty to charges of drug smuggling, illegal firearms, conspiracy and bribing an official. The trial in New Westminster is scheduled to last three more weeks.

jailed for 30 years for gunning down a rival drug dealer outside Wandsworth Prison in South London

Last week Rupert Ross, son of a Kings Road boutique owner, was jailed for 30 years for gunning down a rival drug dealer outside Wandsworth Prison in South London. In the days that followed the killing – with the police on his trail and his best friend already dead in a revenge shooting – 30-year-old Ross befriended investigative journalist Wensley Clarkson and in a series of videotaped interviews talked about the murder, his privileged background and the terrifying world of drugs, guns and gangs.

Holding court: Waring a T-shirt for his interview with Wensley Clarkson, Rupert Ross seemed since but described the gang world with cold relish

On the face of it, the young man who strode into a restaurant near my house in Fulham, West London, in early summer 2009 couldn’t have been further from the stereotypical gang member.

Casually dressed in jeans and a faded T-shirt, Rupert Ross had neatly cropped hair, an athletic build and a soft voice that veered between the well modulated tones of the privately educated middle-class boy he once was and the multi-racial street slang of the inner city. 

Ross had approached me out of the blue through a contact to discuss being filmed for a TV documentary on street gangs. He earned his living running the drug trade on Fulham’s Clem Attlee council estate.

I was wary at first. But the fact that he was a near neighbour of mine fuelled my curiosity.

A week of promised meetings followed, but Ross never materialised. Through a go-between, I was accused of being an undercover policeman – a tricky situation only remedied when I was given a ‘clean bill of health’ by local criminals I’d written about in the past.

Eventually, I met Ross and the ‘middle man’. Ross insisted on sitting with his back to the wall of the restaurant with a clear view of the front entrance ‘in case anyone I don’t like walks in’. 

Fulham had been abuzz with talk of the gangland execution of 20-year-old drug dealer Darcy Austin-Bruce and a retribution killing a few days later. 

 

 

It was only when Ross began to talk that I gradually realised he could be Austin-Bruce’s killer.

He was calm and eloquent and looked very different from the hard-nosed criminal mugshot that was released after his Old Bailey conviction last week. He seemed thoughtful, likeable and sincere, but veered alarmingly from talking about going straight to describing the gang world with cold, almost detached relish.

Chameleon: Ross looked like the ex-public schoolboy he was, when dressed in a smart shirt on his way to court

‘It’s kill or be killed out here in the real world,’ he told me. ‘Anything I’ve dealt with, I’ve dealt with myself. Death is part of my business. I’m the one selling drugs on that estate. No one else had the right to do so and sometimes people have to die if they get in the way.’

I shifted a bit uncomfortably as Ross spoke about murder and gang ‘law’. Not through any fear for my own safety – I’d already been assured I was nothing more than a harmless ‘civilian’ – rather by the proximity of this ruthless subculture to my own middle-class neighbourhood.

‘Without a gun, I feel naked. I feel vulnerable,’ he told me. ‘There is a bullet out there with my name on it. What will be, will be.’

His mother, I learned, is Diana Lank, the hard-working and popular 55-year-old owner of the quirky Kings Road boutique Ad Hoc, who doted on Rupert and paid for him to go to a series of expensive private schools – including the £30,000-a-year Dulwich College. His grandfather is Herbert Lank, a retired Cambridge don and internationally renowned art restorer. A step aunt is the eminently respectable barrister Susan Rodway QC.

Quirky: Ad Hoc, the Kings Road boutique run by Ross' mother Diana Lank

Ross told me he wanted to speak out as a warning to youngsters. But it became clear that he really wanted to unburden himself about the murder of a former drug-dealing friend turned mortal enemy.

He said: ‘The word is that I’ve killed the guy. People are saying I was the shooter. I’ve got people out to kill me. Apparently it is my fault he’s dead. But he had many enemies. He was out of control. He didn’t really care whose feet he trod on.’

People may wonder why I didn’t go to the police after I met Ross, but he had made it clear to me from the start that he was not running away from them and he would face up to what he had done when they charged him.

I don’t believe my interviews with him would have made any impact on their investigation at the time, as a contact told me murder squad detectives were seeking tangible, forensic evidence of his involvement rather than the content of a filmed interview.But I would have been more than happy to help them with their enquiries if they had come to me, as any law-abiding citizen would have been.

As his trial revealed, a few days before our meeting, but unknown to me at the time, Ross had dressed in a smart suit to look like a visiting lawyer and gunned down his rival in front of a crowd of women and children outside Wandsworth Prison.

He was clearly troubled by the incident, depsite the fact that in the months before the shooting, Austin-Bruce had kidnapped, stabbed and tortured Ross and fired shots at his car.

During that first meeting, Ross made it clear that the execution – Austin-Bruce was shot five times – was intended to send out a clear message. ‘I was the main man – the guy in charge,’ Ross boasted.

‘I controlled all the drugs on the estate. Nothing went in or out without my say-so. Sure I was motivated by money and power. I had a twisted sense of right and wrong but I knew that it was an unfair world. Some were born with a silver spoon like me and others had nothing.’

Now he knew the police were on his trail. He believed he’d either be arrested or would die at the hands of a rival gangster. ‘There’s no point in running from the law. They’ll find you in the end,’ he told me.

Privileged: Teachers at Dulwich College told Ross' mother he was 'highly intelligent but often played truant', his friends described him as a a 'wannabe gangster'

The Clem Attlee estate is a brutalist Sixties council project, just a stone’s throw from the million-pound houses of the well-heeled Fulham middle classes – including his own childhood home, where his mother still lives.

Friends say that when Ross was ten his father committed suicide, and that this had a ‘profound effect on him’, making him unruly and difficult.

But the Rupert Ross I met steadfastly refused to blame the tragedy on a chain of events that friends and family later claimed left him acting a ‘fantasy’ life as if he was a character from gangster films.

Ross himself told me: ‘Knowing my mum thinks I am a killer is so hard. She brought me up well but I was my own man from a very young age.

‘All the advantages in the world would never have stopped me from going on this path. It’s not her fault I am what I am.’

Chilling: Ross' mug shot, he told Wensley Clarkson he felt 'naked and vulnerable' without a gun

One relative said: ‘His mother probably knows in her heart of hearts that Rupert’s guilty, but it’s hard for any mother to accept. She has tried her hardest to bring up Rupert responsibly but he was often on his own while she was out working, and inevitably he started to hang out with kids from the Clem Attlee estate.

‘She tried to make sure any man she had a relationship with would be some sort of role model to him, which makes his career in crime all the more surprising. It’s hard to equate the vicious gangster with the polite, gentle character we all know.’

Teachers at Dulwich College told Ross’s mother that her son was highly intelligent but often a truant. Contemporaries remember him as a ‘wannabe gangster’ who was expelled for taking drugs.

Ross himself told me that he hated school. ‘I just didn’t need it. I was ready to be out on the streets working for myself from a very young age.’

Before he had even hit his teens, Ross had started a gang, and was walking the streets of West London with a knife ‘for self protection’. They stole and sold car radios.

‘That was my first taste of crime and I liked it,’ he said. ‘It seemed easy to me. I had found myself a new family on the estate and they were from a much harder world than I was used to but I mixed easily with them. It was as if I had found my place in life.

‘Sure, there was rage in me. I wanted to be someone. I started using violence to get my way and it was kind of infectious. Then I started having guns, and everything just went crazy from there.’

At the age of 17, Ross took over an empty flat on the Clem Attlee estate and set himself up as the area’s main drug supplier, ruthlessly controlling the estate’s burgeoning drug trade. He had already become addicted to cocaine and cannabis and had been convicted of the first of a series of crimes which was to include burglary, theft and drugs possession.

It was a world where mobile phones were changed every week to avoid detection. And guns were also an everyday part of that lifestyle.

Respectable: Eminent barrister Susan Rodway QC is Ross' step aunt

‘I always had a piece on me and in that flat I would watch any customers approaching with them in the sights of my gun – just in case they turned out to be the enemy. I even shot at one guy I didn’t know when he came up to my front door. Dunno if I hit him but he never came back. That sent a message out to my enemies.’

Following his murder of Austin-Bruce, Ross had decided not to carry a weapon because he was under constant police surveillance.

He told me: ‘Without a gun, I feel naked. I feel vulnerable. If someone walked in here now, I’d be a sitting duck. But the police are watching me as we speak.’ He pointed. ‘They are there, across the street.’

Sure enough, there were two men in a Vauxhall estate car just opposite the restaurant.

‘I can’t afford to be found with a gun now. At the moment, they have no evidence to link me to the killing.’

It would be almost another year before Ross was charged with the murder of Austin-Bruce. Yet the murder had clearly affected him. He admitted in one candid moment: ‘It’s made me rethink everything. It’s madness out there and I got caught up in it all. I wouldn’t want anyone to take my path. It can only end in death and destruction.’

He even claimed (and I believe him) that he’d presented himself at a local volunteer centre where he wanted to help teenagers to escape a culture of drug-dealing, robbery and violence.

‘I want to help these kids avoid the pitfalls,’ he said. ‘I know better than anyone how easy it is to get sucked in. It really was a case of kill or be killed. I want to get away from that world now but I fear I may have left it too late.’

A week after that first meeting, I got a panicky call from the ‘middle man’ saying that Ross wanted me to film him immediately ‘because he’s not sure how much longer he will be around’.

By now he was so afraid of meeting in public that I agreed he could come to my home. It was there, with a camera rolling, that he told me of the revenge killing of his best friend Anthony Otton on the night of Austin-Bruce’s funeral.

‘I was sitting inside a friend’s house when my best friend went outside to go home. I heard gunshots followed by a loud panicked knock on the door. I opened the door and my best friend fell to the floor. He’d been shot in the chest.

‘The shooter then came behind him, shot through the door and ran off with no mask on. My best friend died there in the hallway. He only got hit once in the chest but it hit his main artery and it killed him.’

Much to the frustration of police investigators, Ross refused to identify the man who shot dead his best friend. The case remains unsolved.

Ross’s family include pillars of society from high-flying lawyers to academics, a hypnotherapist and even a Government drugs adviser. Contrary to some reports, his grandfather and step aunt Ms Rodway have rallied round his mother and given their full support.

His family is deeply worried that Ross may be a target in prison. ‘Rupert has a price on his head. We all know that,’ a relative told me.

Ross himself told me: ‘Prison doesn’t scare me. I’ll make it work for me just like everything else in my life.

‘I don’t really fear anything any more. Not even death.

‘I suppose in some ways I am emotionally dead. But the life I’ve led has made me that way. I wouldn’t have survived even this long if I’d let it all get to me.’

The last time I saw Rupert Ross was a couple of days before he was arrested. He knew it was coming. His voice shook as we talked briefly on a street corner. He wore a hood and looked a haunted man. He told me: ‘I can’t help you any more.’

With that he walked away. I knew I’d never see him again.

small-time drug dealer was tortured, killed and his body dismembered into six pieces 'behind closed doors' by a brutal drug gang

small-time drug dealer was tortured, killed and his body dismembered into six pieces 'behind closed doors' by a brutal drug gang, a court heard yesterday. 

Adam Vincent, 33, was shot with air rifle pellets and savagely punched and kicked in the weeks before his gruesome death.  

The gang then scattered his body parts in waterways across Lincolnshire, Sheffield Crown Court was told. 

Discovery: Adam Vincent's head, right arm and right leg were found in the River Ancholme, near Brigg in June, pictured

His severed leg was found sticking out of the water by birdwatchers at Tetney Lock near Cleethorpes on March 3 this year. 

After a police investigation two other parts were recovered and his head, right arm and right leg were found in the River Ancholme, near Brigg in June. 

Prosecutor Tom Bayliss QC said the five-strong gang believed Mr Vincent had stolen £5,000 from them and 'grassed' them up to the police.

The court heard Mr Vincent was a heroin addict and sold 'wraps' for the gang in return for using some of the drug himself.

 

 

At the time of his death he was living with the gang whose headquarters was based in a small bungalow in Scartho, Grimsby. 

Grimsby men Lee Griffiths, 43, his sons Thomas, 22, and Luke, 19, Lee's stepson Mark Jackson, 27, and Matthew Frow, 32, all deny murder between February 26 and March 4. 

They also deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by concealing Mr Vincent's dismembered body between the same dates along with Andrew Lusher, 43, also from Grimsby, who is alleged to have hired the van used to dispose of the body. 

Mr Vincent's severed leg was found sticking out of the water by birdwatchers at Tetney Lock near Cleethorpes, pictured, on March 3 this year

The three Griffiths and Mark Jackson further deny conspiracy to supply heroin between December 1, 2010 to March 7, 2011. 

Frow admits conspiracy to supply the Class A drug. 

Mr Bayliss said Mr Vincent was a close associate of the five men charged with murder. 

He did small-time drug dealing on their behalf and 'it was the gang he was associated with that killed him.' 

Three weeks before Mr Vincent's body was found three of the gang were arrested for drugs offences by police then released.

'Birdwatchers chanced on the leg just hours after it had been dumped'

Officers searched the bungalow, which is owned by Lee Griffiths, and where Mr Vincent had been living. 

Mr Bayliss said Lee Griffiths believed Mr Vincent had given information to the police and had stolen £5,000 and drugs from them. 

The gang began a 'sustained physical assault' on Mr Vincent and the violence continued for a fortnight ultimately leading to his death.

A post mortem showed Mr Vincent died from a blunt force trauma to the head. He had been struck at least three times with a weapon. 

Mr Vincent was last seen alive on February 27 and the following day it is claimed that one of the gang sent a text to his girlfriend which implied Adam Vincent had been killed. 

His body was dismembered after his death and a van, organised by Lusher, was allegedly used to dispose of it. 

The birdwatchers chanced on the leg just hours after it had been dumped.

Prosecutor Tom Bayliss QC told Sheffield Crown Court, pictured, the five-strong gang believed Mr Vincent had stolen £5,000 from them and 'grassed' them up to the police

 

Mr Bayliss said: 'Adam Vincent was killed behind closed doors by this gang. 

'All five of the defendants were participating in a joint enterprise which led to Adam Vincent's death.'

He said it was difficult to identify individual acts of violence but the prosecution claim anyone involved in it is guilty of murder even if they were not present when the fatal blow was delivered.

The court heard three of the gang were arrested for suspected drugs offences and the bungalow was searched. Drug paraphernalia was seized along with an air rifle on February 11.

Pellets matched to the rifle were found in Mr Vincent's body. 

Mr Bayliss said: 'Even before this one of the things that was happening was that Mr Vincent had been shot in the body by this a air rifle.

'It would have caused pain and injury. It was an indication of how he was being treated. 

'Mr Vincent's father Keith visited his son who was in hospital with pneumonia in late January. Mr Vincent told his dad he had had enough of his drug-taking lifestyle.'

'He said: ''I want to get away but they won't let me. I need to sort some issues out first.'

'He later added: 'You don't know these people. I'm trying to get it all sorted.''

Mr Vincent discharged himself against medical advice and was probably killed three weeks later. 

Mr Bayliss said witnesses spoke of how Mr Vincent would tell of being beaten up and how 'they couldn't let him go because he knew too much.' 

When Mr Vincent stole the money from the gang he was given 'a bit of a kicking' and was tied up in the house, it was alleged. 

Another witness said Lee Griffiths was becoming 'paranoid' about heroin going missing from the house and suspected Mr Vincent had been stealing it. 

The court heard that as early as January Mr Vincent was seen with a black eye and Thomas Griffiths was bragging he had shot him. 

A few days before Mr Vincent was killed Thomas Griffiths was seen to punch him in the face in the house and Luke Griffiths kicked him in the side while his father held a knife to Mr Vincent's throat. 

The victim was later seen in pain and by February 26 was described as having a 'shocking' appearance by a witness at a supermarket.

He was walking with a limp and had cuts all over his face.

'His facial expression according to a security guard was one of terror,' said Mr Bayliss. 

The hearing, which is expected to last at least six weeks, continues.

IT’S prison or death out there. I’ve seen people get stabbed and my friend was shot dead last year... I was lucky it didn’t happen to me

“IT’S prison or death out there. I’ve seen people get stabbed and my friend was shot dead last year... I was lucky it didn’t happen to me.”

These are the chilling words of a 19-year-old Birmingham gang member who once roamed the streets of Lozells, selling drugs and fighting with rivals over territory.

He has since left that dark and dangerous life behind him and is on course to become a PE teacher.

Now he has helped make an award-winning film aimed at warning the next generation of the dangers of gangs.

It is being shown in schools across Birmingham to children the same age he was when he became involved.

Today, the teenager lifts the lid on the closed world of gang culture in our second city.

But even now he cannot be named for fear of retribution from the people he once saw as ‘family’.

“It started when we were at high school,” he told the Sunday Mercury.

“I was part of a group of friends who came together and decided no-one would trouble us if we had any problems. There were probably about 20 of us in Lozells and Aston.

“Back then, it felt more like a family than a gang.

‘‘You do everything with your gang.

“If you go to the city centre or something like the bonfire at Pype Hayes, you wouldn’t go on your own, you’d go with 20 or 30 people so you were safe.

“If we saw other gangs there would be a fight. And that could escalate really easily.

“Luckily, I was never a person to get stabbed but I’ve seen things like that and it’s not nice.

‘‘My friend was also shot and killed last year. He was just in a car; it was a long-term rivalry; they pulled up next to him and shot him.

“In the back of your mind you know you don’t want to be in that environment, but you’re probably safer with your friends than without them.

“If you get caught slipping by going somewhere and another gang sees you, you’re liable, They don’t care whether you’re still in the gang or not.”

Criminal

Yet what started out as friends sticking up for each other quickly changed into criminal behaviour as the teen’s gang began selling drugs to make money.

The wannabe teacher, who was once cautioned for possession of cannabis, added: “The aim was just to survive and to make money to live life.

“Everyone was selling it for someone else and just trying to make a bit for themselves.

“We would sell whatever drugs the buyer wanted really, if people want something you’ll end up trying to sell it.”

And he claimed his young gang members were led further astray by older kids who thrive on street violence.

“Peer pressure plays a big part,” he added.

“There were older figures but we never saw them as leaders. We saw them as older brothers. That’s the influence they had on us.

“There was loads of people our age with nothing to do. We were all young and easily influenced by the older generation.

“They used to say it was ‘robbery season’ where everything you want, you get. If you want a phone, you go and rob a phone.

‘‘It was callous and evil.”

And as the gang got older, the trouble they got into became more serious.

“I think half of our gang ended up in jail,” added the 19-year-old.

“That’s for everything from drugs to violence to robbery.

Police wrest control of Rio's largest slum

 

Crack police forces were Sunday in full control of Rio's largest favela after launching a dawn assault to eject narco-traffickers who had been ruling the area for 30 years. "I have the pleasure to inform you that Rocinha and Vidigal (a neighbouring favela) are under our control. There were no incidents and no shots were fired. We don't have any information on arrests or weapons seized," Alberto Pinheiro Neto, chief of the military police, told a news conference. "The communities have been our control since (1900 AEDT) and we are withdrawing our armour and, in 45 minutes, we will reopen the streets," which had been closed since 0400 GMT ahead of the operation. Advertisement: Story continues below Built on a steep hillside overlooking the city and located between two wealthy neighbourhoods, Rocinha is home to 120,000 people. The long-anticipated operation in a city that has one of the highest murder rates in the country is part of an official campaign since 2008 to restore security in Rio before the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, which Brazil will host. Backed by navy armour and commandos and with two helicopters flying low overhead, hundreds of special forces police and 200 navy commandos punched their way into Rocinha and Vidigal at dawn. "The arrival of the UPP (a police unit set up to pacify the favelas) will be positive for the new generations to put an end to narco-trafficking. I want my sons to stay away from trafficking," said 51-year-old Carlos Alberto, who was one of the few Rocinha residents willing to speak to the press. But not everyone supported the police operation. A few women were seen crying. All access to the two favelas has been blocked since 2.30am (1102 AEDT). Earlier three vehicles blocked one of the avenues in the upper part of Rocinha. Dozens of policemen in the perimeter asked journalists present in the area to remain behind as they fanned out in the narrow alleys. Streets were deserted, with only a few residents watching from their windows as the troops made their advance. "We hope the pacification will not be just about ejecting the drug traffickers but also to bring sanitation, education, health," said community leader Raimundo Benicio de Souda, 4known as Lima. "There are people living (here) among cockroaches, urinating and defecating in a can," Lima told AFP, adding that for this reason "the pacification must have these people as a priority". William de Oliveira, president of the Favelas People's Movement, wearing a shirt with the inscription "I love Rocinha, said: "We want the people to be treated with dignity, respect, that those who have been involved in crimes be jailed but not assassinated" by police." Authorities estimate that about 200 criminals remained inside Rocinha following last week's capture of local drug kingpin Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, also known as Nem. Nem was caught hidden in the trunk of a car, along with several accomplices and a few corrupt policemen who were protecting them. Nem was a model employee of a telecom company who "stumbled" into organised crime after getting a loan from a former Rocinha drug baron to pay for medical care for one of his daughters. To pay back his debts, he reportedly began dealing drugs and later took over as chief of the gang which controls Rocinha. The capture of Rocinha, the 19th favela to be pacified by police, recalled the huge operation launched by joint police and military forces to seize control of Rio's Alemao favela, home to 400,000 people in November 2010. Alemao was retaken after three days of clashes that left 37 people dead. Since Friday, heavily armed police had been besieging Rocinha, checking all cars going or leaving the area. Endemic and chronic urban violence has long tarnished the image of Rio, where more than 1.5 million people live in 1,000 slums spread throughout the city.

Raids blunt medical marijuana season

 

Members of the local medical marijuana community gathered Saturday at a Medford venue to celebrate a harvest season like no other. The party was held at The Venue on Narregan Avenue and included live music, information booths and speeches dealing with the raids conducted in October by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents that have left many medical marijuana providers reeling. "The raids are definitely a topic of conversation," said Lori Duckworth, the executive director of the Southern Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, or SONORML. Duckworth said eight raids were conducted this season. DEA agents descended on gardens on Table Rock Road, East Gregory Road, Tolo Road and Old Stage Road — pulling hundreds of plants and loading them into dump trucks for disposal.

Cody Lumpkin is a 7-4 soulja till da end

 

Cody Lumpkin is a 7-4 soulja till da end. Or, in gangster-speak, he’ll be a Gangster Disciple until he dies. That’s how the 21-year-old Athens man shows himself to the world on his Facebook page, replete with photos of him flashing gang signs, posing with guns, bragging about money and disrespecting women. Whether or not he’s a genuine member of the notorious Gangster Disciples street gang, Lumpkin played the part last weekend when, police say, he killed a man with a gunshot to the head. The shooting happened Sunday night at Rolling Ridge Apartments off Kathwood Drive, where Jeremy Sean Buchanan was shot and killed by Lumpkin in an apparent robbery, which police said also was drug-related. “Cody Lumpkin gives every appearance of being a gang member,” said Robert Walker, a nationally-known gang expert who analyzed Lumpkin’s Facebook page Friday. He never directly states he’s a member of a gang, but Lumpkin uses what gang investigators call alpha-numeric code to tell people who he is. According to Walker and other gang experts, when Lumpkin wrote he is “7-4,” the corresponding letters are G and D, for Gangster Disciple. Also on his Facebook page, Lumpkin lists a well-known Gangster Disciple “prayer” as his favorite quote: “When i die $how no pity $end my $oul 2 6angsta city, dig a hole 6 feet deep and lay 2 $taffs acro$ my feet, lay 2 $hotguns acro$ my che$t and tell King Hoover i did my be$t.” He replaces the “G” in gangster with a six, because the Gangster Disciple’s symbol is a six-pointed star. The ode also pays tribute to the Chicago-based gang’s founder, Larry Hoover. “I see pictures of him with his friends, and everybody’s flashing signs, there’s weapons involved, so, yeah, I’d say he’s a gang-banger,” said Walker, a former agent with the U.S. Border Control and Drug Enforcement Administration who trains law enforcement agencies and others in gang awareness. Walker’s consulting firm, Gangs Or Us, maintains a website to educate the public, and another that only can be accessed by law enforcement officers to share gang intelligence. Just because a group calls itself the Gangster Disciples, Crips, Bloods or Latin Kings doesn’t mean they are affiliated with those national criminal synidicates, according to Sgt. Christopher Nichols, an Athens-Clarke police gang investigator. “The criminal street gangs most prevalent in the state of Georgia, to include Athens, are hybrid gangs or, as I like to call them, homegrown gangs” that adopt the names of the well-known gangs, Nichols said. They can be just as dangerous. “Though hybrid gangs may not pay dues to larger organizations, it does not mean that they are not the ‘real deal,’ ” Nichols said. “Hybrid gangs commit the same types of crimes as the traditional street gangs, but not on as large of a scale.” Some young men band together in gangs for a sense of belonging, a feeling they don’t get from their own families when there’s no parental guidance, Nichols said, or they bow to peer pressure. “They may have been exposed to it by other family members, they may have friends that are associated with criminal street gangs, or it may start out as youth without proper direction becoming involved in criminal activity,” Nichols said. Once a young man joins a gang, starts carrying guns, covers his body with tattoos and adopts the other trappings of a gangster, he might be on a path where violence is inevitable. “There is a saying, ‘You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?’ ” Nichols said. “No one likes to be called out or challenged. If a person portrays that they are ‘hard,’ then they cannot allow someone to embarrass them, especially in front of a group. “The person feels obligated to fulfill whatever image they have presented so that they are not all show,” he said. The violence sometimes turns deadly, according to Walker. “People who never thought they’d be killing someone find that once in a gang they are expected to kill,” he said. People have banded into small gangs for generations in Athens, usually groups that identified themselves either with the Eastside or Westside. But technology has made it easy for teens to learn the lingo of the big-time gangs, according to Nichols. “If a person wants to know something about gang culture, they can simply look it up on the Internet, view videos, print pictures and download reading material,” he said. “Technology has increased the rate of learning for those wanting to delve into the criminal street gang world.” Athens-Clarke police didn’t publicly acknowledge the community had a gang problem until 2004, when a duplex off North Avenue was raked with gunfire in a drive-by shooting to settle a beef between rival Hispanic gangs. But Jean Turner Horton literally saw the writing on the wall as early at 1999 when, as a state probation officer, she began snapping photos of gang graffiti on public housing. One photo depicted a six-pointed star with a “G” in the middle, a tag associated with the Gangster Disciples. Horton brought the photos to the Athens Housing Authority, which immediately adopted a zero-tolerance policy for gang activity. Since that drive-by, which wounded three men, Athens-Clarke police began taking measures to fight back, including graffiti eradication, collecting gang intelligence and requiring officers to undergo gang recognition training. “I’m really glad that Athens finally recognized it had a problem,” Horton said. “I can drive through Athens and not notice graffiti on the walls anymore.” Last year, an officer on patrol came across strange writings on the wall of a vacant house in West Athens that would be mumbo-jumbo to a lay person, but he recognized it for what it was. In one message on the wall, the tagger referred to a “Slob” — a derogatory term for a Bloods gang member — and replaced the “ck” in a profane word with “cc,” since the letters CK mean Crip killer in gang graffiti. Police didn’t believe the writings were made by genuine Crips, but found it disturbing nonetheless. “Anytime there’s gang tagging going on it’s of concern to the police department because it means they are trying to identify certain areas of the county and claim it as their territory,” Athens-Clarke Assistant Police Chief Tim Smith said. Walker was impressed with how far Athens-Clarke police have come in identifying gang activity and learning ways to suppress it. “Gangs are here to stay, and that’s why it’s important for police departments to take action, like getting proper training and arresting gang members,” he said. “We’ll cure cancer before we solve the gang problem.” Police will not discuss Cody Lumpkin’s possible gang ties while his murder charge is pending. But his gangster lifestyle shows how the problem can be just out of sight, until a tragic crime again brings it into the forefront. “There will always be things happening that the police do not know about,” Nichols said. That’s why the police need the help of others, including the schools, churches, community organizations and individual residents, he said. “Only by working together as a community can problems such as theft, drugs and gang violence be curtailed,” Nichols said. People who are suspicious of gang activity should report it immediately, he said. Athens-Clarke police also offers a gang-awareness presentation, and Nichols urged people who have questions about street gangs to call the police department.

Angry Birds” – which is basically a drone that has been specially developed to take down drug-running ultralight airplanes that are utilized by gangs in order to smuggle illegal substances

Everyone with a modern smartphone would definitely have heard of Angry Birds before, and hey, even if mobile gaming is not your cup of tea, surely the name Angry Birds has passed by your mind from time to time during a conversation? Well, the US Border Patrol might get the help of “Angry Birds” – which is basically a drone that has been specially developed to take down drug-running ultralight airplanes that are utilized by gangs in order to smuggle illegal substances at the south of US from Mexico.

The drone will fire a net which entangles the propeller of the ultralight airplane, which in return stops the engine. As for another drone, that is slightly more violent in nature – it will perform a kamikaze crash straight into the ultralight in order to break its propeller. I think the kamikaze version has far more anger issues, and it would require less accuracy than firing a net at a propeller – what do you think? One thing’s for sure – there will not be any green pigs aboard the airborne drug mules…

Britain's FBI 'abandoned chasing crime Mr Bigs because it's too difficult'

 

The elite unit set up by Labour to fight major criminals has failed to catch crime bosses because it is ‘too difficult’ and may even have been infiltrated by the underworld, says a whistleblower. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is supposed to be Britain’s answer to the FBI. When it was launched, Tony Blair pledged the organisation would ‘make life hell’ for the country’s ‘Mr Bigs’. It recruited from the cream of the police, immigration, customs and MI5 and had more than 4,000 staff in offices all over the world.  But Tim Lee, a former intelligence officer with SOCA, claims the agency has been blighted by corruption and bureaucracy. Mr Lee, 58, who joined SOCA in Nottingham when it was formed in 2006, paints a damning picture of his five years in the organisation. He claims: An investigation into a crime boss was mysteriously dropped when a SOCA officer with alleged links to the suspect took over the running of the case. Allegations of serious sexual misconduct made by a female SOCA worker against a male colleague were covered up. Hostility arose between police, customs and immigration officers when operational units were first formed in 2006.

B.C. skipper linked to cocaine shipment posed beside pile of cash

 

Just weeks before notorious B.C. skipper John Philip Stirling was caught near Colombia on a boat full of cocaine, he sent his neighbour in Chase — a community in B.C.'s Shuswap region — photos of himself lying on the floor beside a giant pile of money.

 

In the accompanying email, Stirling told Shawn Martin that he wouldn't repay cash he owed him despite being flush after a recent trip to the South American cocaine centre.

 

Bizarre details of Stirling's feud with his neighbours, Martin and his mother Myrna Beckman, over loans totalling $30,000 are laid out in a suit and counter-suit filed in August and September in Kamloops Supreme Court and obtained the Vancouver Sun.

 

Stirling was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard on Oct. 18 just north of Colombia with 400 kilograms of cocaine secreted aboard his sailboat. He is currently detained in a Miami Detention Centre where he told officials "there was nothing wrong with cocaine trafficking and that the United States should mind its own business."

 

"He further remarked that if Canada didn't have such high taxes, (he and his co-accused) could get legitimate jobs."

 

If allegations in the B.C. court documents are accurate, some in the town of 2,500 were aware of Stirling's plan to import cocaine.

 

Martin and Beckman, who live down the road from Stirling and his wife Marlene, say in their court claim they heard at a barbecue last March "that the plaintiff John Stirling was in Colombia setting up a massive cocaine deal."

 

Martin and Beckman said their efforts to get repayment on several loans to the Stirlings were met with threats and harassment.

 

They also said accusations by the Stirlings that the neighbours were the aggressors in the dispute are ridiculous — Martin has dwarfism and gets around with crutches and a wheelchair; his mother, 63, is his caregiver.

 

Both Martin and Beckman declined to comment to the Sun because their case is before the courts. Marlene Stirling did not return calls.

 

The documents show that Stirling, a 60-year-old convicted cocaine trafficker, struck first against his neighbours, filing a suit on Aug. 29 asking for $10 million in damages.

 

Stirling said in a brief synopsis that over the last two years, his disabled neighbour and mom have threatened the Stirlings "with bodily harm and death."

 

"The defendants have written the plaintiffs blackmail letters for money," Stirling wrote. "The defendants have caused anxiety, depression, stress, loss of sleep requiring medical care to the petitioners.

 

"The defendants have caused travel to become necessary from Colombia for John Stirling at great expense and loss from work to protect his family . . . The defendants have or have attempted to hire Hells Angels to cause murder or physical harm to the plaintiffs and have made statements by phone and email of that intent," the Stirling claim said.

 

The neighbours fired back in a detailed defence filed Sept. 14, denying all the allegations and making a counter-claim.

 

They said that, unlike Stirling, they have no criminal record and no connection to the notorious biker gang.

 

"The defendants do not know any Hells Angels or Hells Angels associates and have never had dealings with them or hired them to do anything," Martin and Beckman said, adding the only information they have about the Angels came from the Stirlings themselves.

 

"The plaintiff Marlene Stirling also told the defendants that two Hells Angels members sat at her kitchen table and had coffee on multiple different times," the documents said.

 

They said they learned in an Internet search of Stirling's 2001 bust on his fishing boat, the Western Wind, with 2.5 tonnes of cocaine owned by the Hells Angels. He was never charged.

 

Tensions escalated between the former friends in August, when Stirling "was back from Colombia and was bragging that he had two suitcases full of money containing in excess of $200,000," the mother-son team said.

 

Martin fired off an email, "asking John to pay the rest of the money the plaintiffs owed the defendants for loans from June 1, 2007, to Feb. 23, 2011."

 

On Aug. 23, Stirling sent his neighbours "an email with a picture of him laying on the floor of his Adams' Lake residence with a pile of money in front of him, holding a piece of paper with Aug. 19, 2011, written on it," the claim said.

 

The email said: "I told you if you waited you would have got paid, but since you didn't, you will never receive a dime and everyone else has been paid back for their investment but you."

 

They said Stirling warned them that he would go to court and ruin them if they didn't back off.

 

"The defendants have videotape evidence of the plaintiff John Stirling threatening to kill more than one person at gunpoint," the documents said.

 

"On Sept. 10, 2011, the defendants were informed that the plaintiff John Stirling has been seeking to hire people to burn down the defendants' house and cause physical harm to them."

 

Martin and Beckman said "a man calling himself Ryan showed up at the defendants' residence wearing a black leather jacket with a Hells Angel patch and was looking for the plaintiff John Stirling because John apparently owed this guy Ryan money."

 

Martin said in the court statement that he called Stirlings' house and warned Marlene that someone was looking for John "and that he sounded really p—ed off."

 

 

ARRESTED 60-year-old, who is originally from Blackpool, but has been living in the Marbella area of Spain

Armed Naval and Gardai personnel with cocaine which was seized from a yacht off the west coast of Ireland

 

A BLACKPOOL man has been arrested for allegedly being part of a £250m international cocaine smuggling racket.

 

Police, acting under orders from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) – dubbed Britain’s FBI –swooped in the town to capture John Alan Brooks.

The 60-year-old, who is originally from Blackpool, but has been living in the Marbella area of Spain, was found at an address in Marton.

His arrest comes as part of a major investigation which was launched in 2008 when a 1.5 tonnes shipment of cocaine was seized off the coast of Ireland.

The luxury yacht Dances With Waves was carrying drugs with an estimated value of 300m euros or £250m.

Naval officers boarded her after she got into trouble 170 miles off the south west coast of Ireland.

Brooks is known to have had addresses previously in both the Commonedge Road area of Blackpool and in Lytham and St Annes.

It is believed he was visiting family members in Blackpool when police moved in.

A spokesman for SOCA confirmed: “A man allegedly linked to a plot to smuggle 1.5 tonnes of cocaine into the UK on board the boat Dances with Waves was arrested as part of a Serious Organised Crime Agency investigation.

“John Alan Brooks has been charged with conspiracy to import cocaine.

“He is originally from Blackpool, but has been living in the Benahavis area of Spain,

“He appeared at Birmingham Magistrates Court on Monday. He has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Birmingham Crown Court this coming Monday.”

The drugs seizure was reportedly the largest in Irish history when it was made in November 2008.

Dances With Waves – a 60ft ocean-going yacht – had set sail from Trinidad and was heading for the UK when it got into difficulties in stormy weather.

It was reported 70 bales of cocaine were on the verge of capsizing when Naval officers moved in.

Authorities were forced to board the ship in “horrendous weather conditions” to prevent evidence being lost in the seven-metre swells.

Experts said although the yacht could travel at high speeds, it was not designed for rough weather.

Under armed guard, the crippled yacht was sailed to Castletownbere, west Cork, where plastic-wrapped bales which filled the hull were unloaded and stacked on the quayside.

n Philip Doo, 52, from Brixham, David Mufford, 44, of Torquay, and Christopher Wiggins, 42, with an address in Spain’s Costa del Sol were arrested on the yacht.

They later pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply.

All received 10-year sentences at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in May 2009