National Crime Agency (NCA)

Seen something suspicious at a small airfield or airport? Project Pegasus is a joint law enforcement operation tackling aviation border crime around the UK. Find out more ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e7PdvChC

A gangland boss who armed organised crime groups around the UK after sending a notorious weapons list on the encrypted platform EncroChat has been brought to justice following an NCA investigation. In 2020, NCA officers and colleagues in policing worked relentlessly to protect the public when it was discovered an unidentified British crime boss was advertising a list of military grade weapons to UK crime groups. The information was discovered in Operation Venetic – the NCA-led response to the takedown of EncroChat by European partners. An offender using the handle Aceprospect, who was operating from abroad, offered: two AK47 firearms, a Skorpion machine gun, an Uzi machine gun, a range of pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. NCA investigators worked tirelessly to unmask and trace Aceprospect. And on 12 September last year they joined colleagues from the Spanish National Police to arrest Philip Waugh at a villa he rented in Benahavis, Malaga. He was extradited last month and remanded to custody. Today, Waugh, from Warrington, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court and admitted a range of firearms offences and a count of conspiring to inflict grievous bodily harm in which he instructed an accomplice to throw acid in a victim’s face. He will return to court for sentencing on 27 June. The NCA will continue to do everything we can with partners at home and abroad to prevent organised crime groups trafficking firearms. FULL STORY ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eWSnBEJB

Operation Machinize: Hundreds of barbershops targeted in NCA-coordinated crackdown. 265 barbershops and other cash-intensive businesses were visited by police and other law enforcement officers during a three-week crackdown on high street crime in Operation Machinize. They seized: 💰 £40,000 in cash 🚬 200,000 cigarettes and 7,000 packs of tobacco 🚫 over 8,000 illegal vapes 🚗 two vehicles ⚠️ two cannabis farms found ❄ more than £1m in freezing orders were also secured The NCA estimates that £12bn of criminal cash is generated in the UK each year, which is typically smuggled out of the country or integrated into the legitimate financial system using a variety of laundering techniques. The crackdown was led by the NCA but involved 19 different police forces and Regional Organised Crime Units, as well as national agencies including HMRC, Trading Standards and Home Office Immigration Enforcement. It was supported by NPCC. Read the full story ➡️ https://lnkd.in/enWhw6E7

A man from Preston has been charged following a National Crime Agency investigation into people smuggling. Iranian national, Anjan Ahmadi, was originally arrested in July 2024 as part of an enquiry into the activities of Amanj Hasan Zada. Zada was convicted of a series of people smuggling offences in November 2024, when he was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Investigators believe he is part of the global people smuggling network moving migrants from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) into the UK and Europe. Ahmadi, who is accused of working with Zada, today answered bail and was charged by NCA investigators with five counts of facilitating illegal immigration, involving the movement of migrants into both the UK and EU. Full story ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e-BueZqp

A member of an organised crime group posing as a lorry driver in an attempt to smuggle more than £2 million worth of cannabis from England to Northern Ireland has been sentenced following a NCA investigation. Kirk Hackett was stopped driving a lorry on the A1 near Doncaster on 3 May 2024. He had travelled to Sheffield where he had picked up a large amount of drugs. Officers removed the floor of the trailer unit and found an area known as a coil well, designed to safely carry cylindrical items. Instead, this had 70 large bags of cannabis concealed inside it, each weighing a kilo. This amount would have a street value of £2.1 million. Hackett pleaded guilty on 24 October 2024 and was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison today. The NCA will continue to pursue the gangs who prey on our communities and cause harm to society. Read the full story ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eMmn5WiP

A Belgian drugs trafficker tried to smuggle cocaine to the UK in a coverload of dry ice and pretended it was destined for a London hospital. Bart Verschueren has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after NCA investigators proved he was behind at least one drugs run that contained 285kg of cocaine with a street value of around £22.8 million. The drugs were discovered by Border Force officers when an innocent part-time driver Verschueren recruited was stopped at the Coquelles border controls in France. The driver’s paperwork said his consignment of dry ice was for St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. But Verschueren invented the recipient to avoid checks during the first Covid lockdown and the hospital was in no way connected with the dry ice. Under the dry ice were blocks of cocaine. The driver was arrested and later released without charge when it became clear he was innocent. Verschueren denied drug smuggling but was convicted by a jury at Canterbury Crown Court in March this year and was sentenced today. The NCA works at home and abroad to protect the public from the threat of Class A drugs which wreck lives and our communities. FULL STORY ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eTk92CtA

The drugs threat in the UK is rising. Cocaine, cannabis, ketamine and new synthetic drugs are all increasing in use with a rising death toll to match. However, the number of arrests for importation has also significantly increased, and new legislation will allow for more targeted interventions by border agencies. Learn more ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eQNyakwr

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov, the former Russia appointed Governor of the illegally annexed Ukrainian city of Sevastopol, has become the first person to be convicted for breaching the UK’s Russia sanctions. Ovsiannikov was found guilty of circumventing sanctions regulations and money laundering after receiving £76,000 from his wife and a new Mercedes from his brother. His brother Alexei Owsjanikow was also found guilty of circumventing sanctions regulations. These are the first convictions for enabling a designated person. This demonstrates not only that designated individuals are on our radar, but so are those who enable breaches of the regulations. FULL STORY ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ekJX7D-7

📺 Don't miss Kinahan: The True Story of Ireland's Mafia streaming now on BBC iPlayer. The four-part series explores the Kinahan Organised Crime Group and how it went from a small-time street-dealing gang to its status today as one of the world's most significant drug trafficking networks. You will hear from NCA officers on how we worked with international law enforcement to disrupt the OCG and help convict key members. The first three episodes are available now ➡️ https://ow.ly/FGZU50Vxl5y

A drug dealer convicted for supplying cocaine has been jailed after his seized encrypted phone showed he had imported more than half a tonne of the class A drug. Kurtis Hoyte was investigated by the Organised Crime Partnership (OCP) – a joint NCA and Metropolitan Police Service unit. Officers arrested him in 2020 after he was observed handing over five kilos of cocaine with an estimated street value of £180,000 to the driver of a flat-bed truck near Beckenham Hill Station. They seized three phones from him, one of which was an encrypted EncroChat device. Subsequent forensic examination of messages showed he had used this to orchestrate the importation of 540 kilos of cocaine worth £17million between June 2019 and March 2020, using the handle ‘retroblade’. Hoyte was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in November last year for the five-kilo seizure, and to 18 years imprisonment at the same court today for the importations shown on his EncroChat phone. The sentences will run concurrently. The OCP investigation formed part of Operation Venetic, the UK NCA-led law enforcement response to the takedown of the EncroChat service in June 2020. The crucial partnership between the National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police has helped put a high-harm offender behind bars for a very long time. Our fight against the organised criminal networks behind the drugs trade will never slow down. FULL STORY ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eJPskQs5