Four senior British police officers are under investigation over allegations of misconduct for partaking in a gangland killing case, news reports said.

Staffordshire Police launched an inquiry into the murder of amateur footballer Kevin Nunes, 20, who was gunned down in a country lane in 2002, British media reported. 

Nunes, a drug dealer who had been on the books of Tottenham Hotspur, was shot dead in an execution style killing after a gang dispute. 

His killers, Levi Walker, Antonio Christie, Adam Joof, Michael Osbourne and Owen Crooks were all jailed for life after being found guilty of murder by a jury at Leicester Crown Court. 

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will look into the handling of the investigation into case of the four officers, including the lead on police ethics. Five men were jailed in connection with the killing in 2008. 

The IPCC confirmed that formal notice of investigation had been served on “a number of former and serving Staffordshire Police officers”. 

Meanwhile, Northamptonshire Police Authority confirmed that its force's chief constable Adrian Lee and deputy chief constable Suzette Davenport were being investigated. 

Lee is also the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers' ethics portfolio.

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teenager who murdered a 16-year-old schoolboy outside a pub in Stretford has denied his motive was revenge for another gangland killing.

 

A teenager who murdered a 16-year-old schoolboy outside a pub in Stretford has denied his motive was revenge for another gangland killing. Moses Mathias told Manchester Crown Court he intended to commit a robbery but instead fired at a vehicle carrying Giuseppe Gregory out of "fear for my life". He said he did not learn of the death in May 2009 until the next day. Àt the age of 15 he later went on the run. Mathias, now 18, remained at large until he was arrested in Amsterdam earlier this year on a European Arrest Warrant after a joint investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and GMP. He was flown back to the UK in June and four months later admitted the murder of the youngster who was gunned down in the early hours of May 11 in a car outside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. In March 2010, Mathias's associates Njabulo Ndlovu and Hiruy Zerihun, then aged 19 and 18, were jailed for life and ordered to serve minimum terms of 21 years and 23 years respectively after they were convicted of Giuseppe's murder. Their trial heard the pair carried out the attack in revenge for the murder of Zerihun's boyhood friend Louis Brathwaite, also 16, who was shot dead in a betting shop in Withington, south Manchester, in January 2008. They were affiliated to Fallowfield Man Dem, a splinter group of the notorious Gooch Gang, who targeted Giuseppe and his friends because of their association to the rival gang the Longsight Crew. Mathias, of no fixed address, also admitted possessing - with Zerihun and Ndlovu - an imitation firearm, a self-loading pistol, a .32 pistol and six .32 bullet cartridges. But now he has argued the basis of his plea and claimed he did not know Louis Brathwaite, saying in evidence that the plan was to enter the pub and "rob the tills".

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Spanish, Italian police smash drug smuggling ring

 

Spanish and Italian police made five arrests while busting a drug-trafficking ring that for years smuggled cocaine from South America to Europe, investigators said on Friday. The group arranged for narcotics to be put on merchant ships headed to Europe. Just before the vessels arrived at their destination, the smugglers would dump cocaine packages overboard, Spanish police said in a statement. Members of the gang waiting in inflatable boats would then pick up the cocaine and take it to shore, from where it was distributed to customers in Spain and Italy, officials said.Two members of the group were detained in the Italian port city of Genoa in March in a joint operation by Spanish and Italian police. Police detained another three members of the group, including its leader, three months later in the northwestern Spanish coastal region of Galicia. "During the search of the home of the ringleader, police found a vault camouflaged behind the wall of the cellar, which housed security cameras that monitored the rest of the house as well as two large safes, cash, valuable watches, computer equipment and documents," police said in the statement. Police also seized 55 kilos (120 pounds) of cocaine, three cash-counting machines and five cars. Spain is the main gateway to Europe for cocaine from Latin America and for cannabis from north Africa

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father of three was killed in bed near his sleeping wife and children when his house was sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting

 

Oakland police say a father of three was killed in bed near his sleeping wife and children when his house was sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting. Officer Kevin McDonald said one of many bullets passed through a wall and hit 46-year-old mechanic Thourn Nhep, who was pronounced dead at the scene when police arrived Saturday. Neighbors say a mid-size sedan sped away after the shooting. McDonald tells the Oakland Tribune (http://bit.ly/s7iXXn) the shooting was not random, but did not give further details of who was targeted and why. No one had been arrested. Nhep's 18-year-old daughter Sok told the Tribune it was the third time the house had been shot at recently. Sok said her father was a "good guy" who had nothing to do with violence.

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The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking

Suspects accused of selling guns and drugs.

Authorities collared 38 Bronx and upper Manhattan gangbangers Wednesday after a two-year probe into a notorious crew, officials said.

The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking, authorities said.

The undercover investigation — which involved officers from the NYPD, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Homeland Security — netted about $25,000 worth of drugs and 12 firearms in Wednesday’s raid, police said.

One weapon recovered, a Mac-11 machine gun, was painted the same shade of green the gang uses in its colors.

Federal prosecutors said the crew committed and planned violent acts, including murder, to protect its turf from rival gangs that include the Bloods, Crips, the Latin Kings and Dominicans Don’t Play.

“We believe we put a big dent in the Trinitarios gang,” said Capt. Lorenzo Johnson, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Bronx gang squad.

Six people who were connected to the gang members were also arrested, police said. Authorities were still looking for about 12 other members of the gang.

Prosecutors said the Trinitarios sold firearms, including semiautomatic rifles, a shotgun and handguns, and transported them across state lines.

Numerous members of the Trinitarios who were arrested are also members of a smaller splinter gang, the Bad Boys, prosecutors said.

Johnson said most of suspects were already “known to the department in some manner,” and had long terrorized several blocks in Washington Heights and parts of the Bronx, including Marble Hill.

“Anytime we can help the community feel safer is a good day,” he said.

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co-defendant in the Hells Angels trial last week was found not guilty on several charges.

 

co-defendant in the Hells Angels trial last week was found not guilty on several charges. Timothy David Hill, 45, of Rock Hill was acquitted on charges of attempted murder, attempted armed robbery, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy by a York County jury Friday. Hill was represented by public defenders Harry Dest and B.J. Barrowclough. The main defendant, 58-year-old William "Spook" Sosebee of Rock Hill, was convicted of attempted armed robbery, kidnapping, possession of a knife during a violent crime and first-degree assault and battery, according to a news release from the 16th Circuit Solicitor's Office. Judge John C. Hayes sentenced Sosebee to 10 years in prison with no parole. Sosebee was accused of stabbing Jim Moye of North Carolina at Wall Bangers Social Club on East Main Street. Moye, 58, is a member of Iron Order, another motorcycle club, and had stopped at Wall Bangers, according to the solicitor's office news release. Evidence at the trial showed that Moye, who had never been to the bar before, did not know that the Hells Angels considered Wall Bangers "their bar," according to the release. After Moye arrived, Sosebee approached him and beat him in the head with the handle of a Bowie knife, according to the solicitor's office. Sosebee put the knife to Moye's throat and demanded he hand over his Iron Order motorcycle vest. Moye refused and repeatedly asked to be allowed to leave. Sosebee then stabbed him in the abdomen. Moye survived after undergoing surgery at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. Officers were called to the hospital after the stabbing, but Moye would only say "it was a motorcycle thing," according to reports. A witness identified Sosebee to officers. At the time of the stabbing, Hill also had been arrested and charged and was called a member of the Red Devil, a support group of the Hells Angels, in a Rock Hill Police report. However, Hill was found not guilty last week by a York County jury and was released.

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The Rise of the Dark Souls, the Black Mask, the Thunder Bikers and the Iron Beast are a sure sign the feared gang is trying to reclaim lucrative territory

The Hells Angels, decimated by a series of raids, are reorganizing under the guise of four so-called puppet clubs, QMI Agency has learned. The emergence of the Dark Souls, the Black Mask, the Thunder Bikers and the Iron Beast are a sure sign the feared gang is trying to reclaim lucrative territory, say experts. Three of the four new Hells puppet clubs in Quebec have quietly announced their presence on the Internet. The Black Mask Facebook page says it has a base in Scott, east of Quebec City. Newly established in four regions of the province, the puppet clubs sport colours inspired by the Hells as well as jackets adorned with distinctive logos and marked "MC" for Motorcycle Club. Undercover Montreal police officers gathered information on the clubs by infiltrating a biker meeting at a Montreal bar in November, sources tell QMI Agency. Sixty aspiring bikers were met by three members of the Nomads, the select Hells chapter once run by Maurice (Mom) Boucher and now based in Ontario. Police gathered evidence, but didn't make any arrests. Montreal police and Quebec provincial police declined to comment for this story. But a provincial police investigator last month confirmed the Hells' push-back into Quebec. "The Ontario Nomads have some influence in Quebec that they had not had before 2009," said Insp. Michel Pelletier. He added that Quebec's Hells leadership needed reinforcements to run their rackets because nearly all of its members were nabbed in Project SharQc, a sweeping 2009 biker roundup. Hells clubs virtually disappeared following Operation Springtime 2001, the first of a set of massive raids that crippled Quebec biker gangs and ended a bloody 10-year war that claimed 150 lives, including those of bystanders. A 2003 report by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada said biker proxy clubs allow higher-ups to stay out of the spotlight. "The outlaw motorcycle gangs will use clubs ... for criminal acts in order to avoid prosecution," said the CISC report. "However, it seems that the clubs are becoming increasingly rare because it is difficult to control and because of the success of (raids)."

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US agents laundered drug money

 

Anti-narcotics agents working for the US government have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds to see how the system works and use the information against Mexican drug cartels, The New York Times reported Sunday. Citing unnamed current and former federal law enforcement officials, the newspaper said the agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders. Some 45,000 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006, when its government launched a major military crackdown against the powerful drug cartels that have terrorized border communities as they battled over lucrative smuggling routes. According to these officials, the operations were aimed at identifying how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are, the report said. The agents had deposited the proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents, the paper noted. While the DEA conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years, The Times said. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests, the report said. According to The Times, agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations. But Michael Vigil, a former senior official who is currently working for a private contracting company called Mission Essential Personnel, is quoted by the paper as saying: "We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these operations so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren?t laundering money for the sake of laundering money."

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DRUGS baron Curtis “Cocky” Warren is serving 13 years behind bars – but his tentacles still stretch around the globe.

Curtis Warren

 

He is suspected of operating a £300million empire built on smuggling cocaine, heroin and cannabis in deals with criminal cartels in Latin America, the Middle East and Spain. And all from his jail cell.

But 48-year-old Warren faces the biggest challenge yet to his evil enterprise as police launch a double assault in the courts on his fortune.

Authorities in Jersey are set to haul him before a judge next month to face a £200million Confiscation Order after he was convicted of drug smuggling on the Channel Island in 2009.

And in a second attack the Serious Organised Crime Agency, in a rare move, is asking judges to impose a Serious Crime Prevention Order in the High Court in London to stop him in his tracks when he is released in 2015. Yesterday Warren’s legal team won an adjournment in the High Court to delay a hearing scheduled for this week so they can prepare the crime lord’s defence.

With typical arrogance he told his lawyers to fight the bid on the grounds it breaches his “human rights”.

The SCP order, signed by Alun Milford, the Chief Crown Prosecutor and director of the Serious Organised Crime Division, seeks to restrict Warren’s use of communication devices and public phones.

It demands that he never has more than £1,000 in cash, to “make it harder for him to buy drugs or reward criminal associates”. And a financial reporting requirement will “deter him from acquisitive crime and give law enforcement authorities the opportunity to investigate any wealth he comes into”.

A source said: “Curtis is almost untouchable. A mobile is vital to him. It’s all he needs to operate. There are thousands of mobiles smuggled into the prison system and he has the means to get one.”

Curtis Warren, from Liverpool, leaves The Royal Court in St Hellier

Warren is the only convicted criminal ever to appear on The Sunday Times rich list, which in 2005 described him as a “property developer” with an estimated fortune of £76million. But according to underworld sources his real wealth is four times that.

He appointed himself chairman and chief operating officer of a global operation to flood Britain with cocaine and heroin.

His criminal associates say Warren’s business philosophy was simple and effective – drugs are a product to buy and sell like oil and gold. He is a meticulous planner whose organisation resembles the layers of executives and managers you find in a City institution, said a police source who has followed Warren’s career.

Before the euro was introduced, he was said to be putting £1million a week in money-laundering scams after trusted couriers changed cash into German marks and Dutch guilders and moved it abroad.

Paul Grimes, a gangster turned supergrass after his son died from a heroin overdose, said: “Warren wanted to be the cock everyone looks up to. He loves the status.”

Even behind bars it is feared Warren still handles deals and keeps phone numbers in his head as he links supplies to smugglers.

Detectives believe he has villas in Spain, Turkey and Gambia, owned through an intricate web of associates who also operate a Spanish casino, Turkish petrol stations and 250 rental properties in the North West of England.

Warren says the claims are “ridiculous”, alleging that he only has a flat in Liverpool’s Albert Dock and a house on the Wirral.

Softly-spoken Warren started his criminal career at the bottom when he was just nine and living at home with his dad, sailor Curtis Aloysius, and mum Sylvia, a shipyard boiler attendant. He was recruited by a gang to climb through small windows and burgle homes. By 11 he was carrying out muggings and armed robberies in the tough estates of Toxteth, Liverpool.

At 18, he was sent to borstal for assaulting police. In an adult jail eh honed his talent for crime.

Warren started selling drugs on the street and rubbing shoulders with Liverpool’s biggest villains, who underwrote huge cocaine consignments with Columbia’s Cali mobsters worth millions.

GRAFTING

He does not drink or take drugs, allowing his photographic memory to be razor-sharp at all times – especially in jail. On the outside, he has always shunned flash cars and big houses and wears tracksuits instead of Armani suits so as not to attract attention.

“Cocky takes no unnecessary risks,” said an ex-associate.

Paul Grimes added: “Unlike me and my crew, he wasn’t out till all hours in the pubs and clubs. He wasn’t flash. If he was grafting it was all VW Golfs and Passats or a low-key Rover.” Streetwise Warren gave contacts nicknames, including The Vampire, The Egg On Legs and Cracker to throw eavesdropping police off the scent.

His methods developed a business worth hundreds of millions as the drug trade exploded in the 1980s. He became a trusted client of Colombian cocaine cartels, Turkish heroin producers and Spanish cannabis suppliers.

It enabled him to get huge ­quantities of drugs on credit.

As he left court on a technicality during a 1993 trial for smuggling cocaine worth £250million, he is said to have told Customs officers he was “off to spend my £87million from the first shipment and you can’t f****** touch me”. Grimes, who will be under witness protection for the rest of his life, said: “Warren is a parasite.”

As Merseyside turf wars worsened in the mid-1990s, Warren moved to Sassenheim in Holland.

When Dutch police intercepted 400kg of cocaine, the game was up – for the time being.

At other addresses controlled by Warren, officers discovered a £150million haul containing 1,500kg of cannabis, 60kg of heroin, 50kg of ecstasy, 960 CS gas canisters, three guns, ammunition and £400,000 in Dutch guilders. The bust put Warren behind bars for 12 years in 1997.

In 2005, Dutch police charged him with running a drug smuggling cartel from his cell but the case was dropped because of insufficient evidence.

On his release, Warren returned to his manor in Merseyside to take up his mantle as the King of Coke.

But within weeks he was busted plotting what he described as “just a little starter” to get himself re-established as the No1 drugs baron in Europe.

PROPERTIES

He was jailed again in 2009 for 13 years for trying to smuggle £1million of cannabis into Jersey – for which he is still behind bars at Full Sutton Prison near York.

Following his sentence at Jersey’s Royal Court, SOCA said Warren was on its Lifetime Offender Management List.

However, Warren could now have his vast fortune seized. After he was jailed, Jersey authorities said they were determined to force Warren to hand over his assets and are seeking a Confiscation Order for more than £200million.

Warren is determined to take his fight against the Confiscation Order – which could see police seize his properties purchased with proceeds of crime – all the way to the European courts.

His solicitor said his client will “fight it all the way”.

Last week, in a similar case that will strike fear into the London underworld, kingpin Terry Adams, 57, was jailed for eight weeks, for breaching a Financial Reporting Order, after authorities demanded details on his spending.

Officers are determined that this week’s application in the High Court will finally nail Warren’s sinister organisation.

It is understood that this is the first SCPO to be applied for through the High Court.

Breaching any SCPO can lead to five years in jail and an unlimited fine. But in true Cocky fashion, Warren laughs off the order as “a mere irritant” in his bid to remain the drug trade’s Numero Uno.

WARREN once killed a fellow prisoner in a fight.

Cemal Guclu, a Turk serving 20 years for murder, attacked him at Hoorn Prison, Holland, in 1999.

Warren punched Guclu to the ground and kicked him in the head four times. Incredibly, Guclu got up but Warren struck him again. He hit his head on the ground and later died.

Warren was convicted of manslaughter and had four years added to his sentence.

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Hector Morales, 38, is president of the motorcycle gang "No Remorse,"

Hector Morales, 38, is president of the motorcycle gang "No Remorse," according to a police report. (Orange County Jail / December 2, 2011)

Hector Morales, 38, is president of the motorcycle gang "No Remorse,"His stepson, a juvenile, was charged with burglary to an occupied dwelling.

A third suspected gang member, Jose Juan Velez, 22, was also arrested on a charge of resisting arrest. Police say he failed to comply with their commands during the investigation.

Records show Morales has now been jailed more than a dozen times in Orange County since 2005, on charges including burglary and assault on a law officer

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