Prosecutions

08.09.09 Accountant jailed for eight years for tax fraud

John Warman who holds no qualifications to be an accountant, operated a sole practitioner practice dealing with the affairs of a number of clients. He conspired to steal £2.5m from HMRC was told by the Judge that he lived in a ‘fantasy world’ as he jailed him for eight years. John Warman drove a £165,000 Bentley Arnage and led a lifestyle of the pretence that he had substantial capital in the bank.

3 June 2009 36 million spliffs incinerated as international crime gang is convicted

Over 12.5 tonnes of cannabis resin – enough to produce 36 million spliffs – has been incinerated after an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The drugs seizure, from the tug boat ‘Abbira’ which had docked at Southampton, represents one of the largest seizures of cannabis resin in the UK. It was destroyed in a specialist incinerator and needed 6 separate burnings to cope with the volume.

08.04.09 Liverpool drug gang hit with £140,000 Proceeds of Crime action by Serious and Organised Crime Agency

A LIVERPOOL gang behind a massive Scottish drugs farm was stripped of thousands of pounds. John Fitzgibbon, 60, and Michael Fairhurst, 44, ran the sophisticated cannabis operation for more than two years. The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) raided the farm on the north-east coast of Scotland in the spring of 2007. Officers took the pair and a third man, Richard Ford, 60, to Liverpool crown court to claw back as much money as possible using the Proceeds of Crime Act. The three were stripped of a total of almost £140,000 during the two-day hearing.

31.03.09 SOCA Issues Warning To Drug Traffickers

The Serious Organised Crime Agency is warning drug traffickers they will face a long time behind bars if they attempt to import drugs into the United Kingdom.

Tobagonians Owen Alfred and Oswin Moore were jailed for 18 and 15 years respectively in London today for their roles in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy. Ten other members of the organised crime gang, which has been completely dismantled by SOCA, were previously sentenced to a total of 144 years.

30.03.09 Wirral drug baron’s wife’s Champagne lifestyle comes to end

SHE enjoyed a life of the most vulgar excess, once joining her husband for a £600 chauffeur ride to Claridges for a £345 meal at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. But yesterday the glamorous wife of a Liverpool drugs baron was locked up for laundering his ill-gotten gains. Former beautician Sara Shea used her university-educated husband Keith’s drug money to pay for an enviable lifestyle of luxury.