SAS Catching the Criminals S01E05 (2024)
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00:00Covert surveillance, reconnaissance, deception, stealth, and disruption.
00:07These are the skills I learned on the military front line.
00:11And they can be used to combat a different enemy.
00:15Britain's criminals.
00:20That's the team thrown into position now.
00:22My name is Billy Billingham, and I spent over 20 years in the SAS.
00:29Now, I'm going to show you how SAS tactics are helping to crack down on anti-social crime across Britain.
00:37All teams now in position.
00:39Strike, strike, strike.
00:40Some enforcement agencies are already using SAS tactics to hunt criminals.
00:45Check this out. This is exactly what they were looking for.
00:49Hey, presto.
00:51And I want to find out how much the police are doing too.
00:54Go, go, go.
00:57She's going to pick up a target right now.
00:59You're lying, aren't you? And you know very well it's illegal.
01:02Let's go. You need to move quick. Stand by.
01:04Banged up. Job done.
01:18In order to climb the ranks in the SAS, you need to be cross-trained in a multitude of skills.
01:24This you can then call together at any given time when required to deal with any situation.
01:33Law enforcement agencies in the UK also employ multi-skilled individuals.
01:40And nowhere is this more commonplace than in the NCA.
01:44So this morning we're in London working with the NCA, National Crime Agency.
01:48We're going after suspected people smugglers.
01:51It's going to be rapid. No messing around. We're going to put a stop to this. Stand by.
01:58The National Crime Agency operates both nationwide and internationally,
02:03dealing specifically with serious and high-profile organised crime.
02:07I'm joining a team of NCA officers on Operation South
02:11as they attempt to bring down the main players of an intercontinental people smuggling ring.
02:17Due to the covert nature of their work, these officers wish to remain anonymous.
02:22We'll roll out of here, so with the MOE team, so the lead vehicle will be the boat,
02:27followed by the carry van, second MOE vehicle.
02:31We will then lay up, so we will have a full lock point.
02:34Do you have surveillance on the actual location right now?
02:37On some of the addresses we do.
02:39So this is a simultaneous raid? Yeah, there's six.
02:42Six raids going on. We're going for six people. Fantastic.
02:45People smuggling can have fatal consequences,
02:48and only last year, 39 men, women and children were found dead
02:53in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Essex.
02:56Bringing the perpetrators to justice is a top priority for the NCA.
03:01And today's simultaneous strikes are the culmination
03:04of a year's worth of intelligence gathering and surveillance.
03:07Basically, this task is a simultaneous attack taking down the whole of the gang,
03:11six people in fact.
03:13We're going for one of the main guys today.
03:15What's going to happen now, very much like a good old SAS raid that we do.
03:19Orders given, confirmative brief just done.
03:21We'll get into a point, they'll shake out on foot, get an order of march,
03:25lead into the door, and it should run pretty smooth.
03:28Very, very much like a good old military raid.
03:32With five members of the gang already convicted so far,
03:36NCA branch commander Chris Hill is hoping these final six arrests
03:40will put an end to their criminal endeavours.
03:43So, it's totally organised crime. How did it come about?
03:46This particular gang are profiting from people from North Africa
03:50who want to get into Europe, and they can't get a Schengen visa.
03:54Right.
03:55So, they can't get a Schengen visa,
03:58and they can't get a Schengen visa.
04:00But what they can do is they can get into the UK
04:03legitimately on a visit visa.
04:05It's before they get into a lorry to get over to Europe.
04:08Right.
04:09It's not often you hear about people wanting to be smuggled out of the UK.
04:14But wherever there's an opportunity to make illegal cash,
04:17you'll find organised crime.
04:19In 2023, more than 8,000 deaths were recorded on migratory routes worldwide.
04:25But despite these alarming figures, people smuggling is still big business.
04:30There was an estimated 45,000 people smuggled between Europe and the UK
04:35last year, with criminals reaping massive profits on each person transported.
04:40What sort of money are we talking about that these people are making off this?
04:44Because it's all about money, right?
04:46So, the people smugglers can charge anything up to £20,000
04:51to smuggle someone.
04:53Per person?
04:54Yeah, they can, at the top end, and that would be a VIP smuggle.
04:58So, they won't be in the load hiding,
05:01they'll be in the cab behind the driver in the bed.
05:03OK.
05:04Yeah, so you'll pay a higher amount for that.
05:06It's a bit like when you get on a plane and business class.
05:09Yeah, business class.
05:10Yeah, so you're paying business class rates.
05:12The harsh truth is the vast majority of people can't afford the VIP option
05:17and are instead smuggled like cargo in the back of lorries,
05:20where they're at risk of suffocation.
05:23And the crimes carry lengthy prison sentences
05:26for both the organisers and the drivers responsible.
05:30So, we have locked up six lorry drivers who are corrupt.
05:34So, basically, they're human couriers?
05:36Yeah, they potentially can face life imprisonment as well.
05:39Wow.
05:40And quite rightly so, because of the dangers imposed.
05:42The suspect we're going after today, where does he sit in this chain?
05:46He is a significant individual, one of the main...
05:48He's pretty high up in the chain? He is, yeah.
05:50We have names for these people,
05:51but we believe that they're using false documentation.
05:54So, what their true identities are, we're not quite sure.
05:57We've got a lot of forensic stuff stood up when they go into Cascadie
06:03to find out who they are
06:05and whether they've got any international convictions.
06:07Right.
06:08It's gathering the evidence and then putting it together, you know?
06:13With over 12 months of evidence gathered,
06:15the final pieces of this puzzle are about to be identified.
06:20So, what's happening now?
06:21We've just arrived at the forming-up point,
06:23or the final RV, as we'd know it in the military.
06:26At this point, it's still very covert and quiet.
06:39So, as you can see, the guys are in the forming-up point now.
06:41And, again, a last-minute brief on the target just to confirm he is there.
06:45Very military style.
06:46As soon as we get to the target, lock it down.
06:48There are people covering the windows, people covering the rear,
06:51so there's no chance of any runners.
06:53We've got the thumbs-up to go, yeah?
06:556.30, yeah.
06:57We're going? Yeah, let's go.
06:59Again, coordinated strike.
07:01That's moving to target now for a 06.30 strike.
07:09Will the months of surveillance and evidence-gathering finally pay off?
07:19On active operations in the SAS,
07:22months and years of training and planning
07:25all boil down to those few seconds when we strike.
07:29But when you go through that door,
07:31a good soldier remains calm and focused on the job at hand.
07:39As a branch commander of the NCA,
07:41Chris Hill knows a thing or two about planning large-scale police operations.
07:46And the people-smuggling case of Opps Out is by no means the first of its kind.
07:52My name's Chris Hill.
07:53I was a senior investigating officer in charge of Operation Symbolry.
07:57Operation Symbolry was a large-scale people-smuggling case
08:01involving multiple members of a serious organised crime group.
08:06People-smuggling is a huge crime at the moment
08:09and it's extremely profitable, especially in this case.
08:12This case involved HGVs that were going backwards and forwards
08:15between Europe and the UK.
08:17Now, those lorries carrying legitimate loads were also carrying migrants.
08:22But this wasn't the familiar type of people-smuggling that makes the headlines.
08:26At the time, the most fascinating thing about the case
08:29was that they were moving migrants out of the UK,
08:32which at that point was unheard of.
08:34In this particular case, there were a whole heap of reasons
08:37why people were getting on the back of those lorries and leaving the country.
08:41Some of the people that were transported out of the UK were wanted fugitives.
08:47The NCA dug deeper,
08:49and after multiple arrests of lorry drivers carrying migrants,
08:52their investigation led them to one man.
08:55So the head of this organised crime group we identified as Mohammed Moqta Hussain.
09:00He came to the UK in 2005 with his wife.
09:04They were both unemployed, but at the time of his arrest,
09:07he had a property in Woodford Green,
09:10which was worth a significant amount of money.
09:13He also had a restaurant in Whitechapel.
09:16He ran three motorcars, and he had a rental property as well.
09:21Living beyond your means whilst unemployed
09:24will always raise eyebrows with authorities.
09:27But the prime suspect in this case was no ordinary run-of-the-mill criminal.
09:32I wouldn't call it a military operation,
09:34but it was a very slick operation that he employed,
09:38and that's borne out by his resilience.
09:40He provided a bespoke service,
09:43and it wasn't just about moving the migrants in and out.
09:46He provided them with accommodation both in Paris and in London
09:50at safe houses where every single room had multiple bunk beds in it.
09:55He was able also to provide some false documents in terms of passports,
09:59and equally we believe he was taking theory tests
10:02so that people were able to get driving licence whilst he was in the UK.
10:06It just shows the lengths that he'd gone to
10:09to make this almost a professional operation,
10:12very similar to a travel agent.
10:14The leader of this criminal gang may have been resilient,
10:18but ultimately it was up against the NCA,
10:21who, much like the SES,
10:23are made up of individuals with very specific skill sets.
10:27There's certain things that we can do in the covert world
10:30that aren't readily available to other law enforcement agencies.
10:33In terms of the techniques that we used
10:36during the course of this investigation,
10:38I'm precluded from discussing them in any detail,
10:41but needless to say, we possess some very talented individuals
10:45and niche capabilities to do covert activity,
10:49predominantly around surveillance.
10:52With the main suspect in their sights,
10:54Chris Hill and his team of multi-skilled NCA officers got to work.
11:00The investigation started by targeting the minicab drivers.
11:03We followed them to the lorries
11:05where the migrants were seen to climb into the back of those lorries.
11:08One, two.
11:10Two males, three.
11:12We then followed the lorries for a very short distance of time.
11:15Stay with the convoy, please. Stay with the convoy in here.
11:18And then we did a controlled stop on those lorries.
11:23This footage shows NCA officers apprehending one of the lorries
11:28carrying migrants to the coast.
11:30Those lorries then became our crime scene
11:32and we secured the driver who was arrested
11:35and they were all subsequently prosecuted.
11:37In those lorries, there was evidence for us,
11:39so we had the drivers' telephones, their tachograph,
11:42and also the migrants, they had mobile phones as well.
11:46We solved the case really by examining their mobile telephones.
11:49Like most of the cases I've been on with UK law enforcement,
11:53mobile phones play a vital role in investigations.
11:57At the end of the operation,
11:59we'd accrued somewhere just shy of 300 mobile phones,
12:03but from that data, we identified a number of numbers
12:06that were common both to the lorry drivers and the migrants,
12:09and those numbers we were able to attribute to Moqta Hussain.
12:14On 21 May 2021, after almost a year of investigation,
12:19the NCA made their move and arrested the prime suspect.
12:24As leader of the gang, he was jailed for 10.5 years.
12:29On the same day, the NCA also arrested its trusted lieutenant
12:34who received a 2.5-year prison sentence.
12:37The lorry drivers associated with the gang
12:40were all convicted of people smuggling offences
12:43and received between one and six-year jail terms.
12:47Ultimately, Operation Symbolry was a complete success.
12:51This investigation completely dismantled
12:54Mohammed Moqta Hussain's organised crime group,
12:57taking it from top to bottom.
12:59So he was imprisoned, the lorry drivers were imprisoned
13:02and the minicab drivers were arrested as well.
13:05Mohammed Moqta Hussain was driven purely by profit.
13:09He had no regard for the people that he was transporting or their safety.
13:13It was all about him.
13:15He was able to amass a significant amount of wealth.
13:19They're estimated in excess of £2 million
13:22and he has realisable assets that we can seize just shy of a million.
13:28This man may have thought he had the perfect criminal business model,
13:32but when he came up against the NCA, it cost him his freedom.
13:41Back on the ground in north London,
13:43Chris and the NCA team are in position
13:46and ready for the first knock of Operation Salt.
13:52Police! NCA! Come to the door!
13:57So that's the team in position now.
13:59Now it's going noisy, the team around the back covering the rear.
14:02Police! Come to the door!
14:12Police officers, speak to these people.
14:15OK, entry made, soft approach, so in they go for the arrest.
14:22I don't have clearance to go inside on this arrest,
14:25so I'll be observing from this public space.
14:28But I've got a direct line of comms with Chris, who's heading up the operation.
14:32Yeah, we've got him. Is that the guy?
14:34Subject's in the room down on the right-hand side.
14:37Just want to try and find out how many of the others we've got.
14:41Right.
14:43So right now, that's definitely got the suspect that we're looking for at this target.
14:47Chris is now just getting an update on the other simultaneous strikes
14:50to see how that's gone.
14:54A swift and smooth result for these NCA officers.
14:58The method of entry team weren't needed at this address,
15:01but with a further five strikes still planned,
15:04their tools aren't going back in the box just yet.
15:07Morning. How many have we got so far, do you know?
15:11Oh, is that our one?
15:14OK, has anybody else gone through?
15:17So what's the update, mate, with the rest of the strikes?
15:20So we've got four so far, and we've got surveillance wrapped around another two premises,
15:24and we're just waiting for them to come out.
15:26So hopefully we'll get all six.
15:28Brilliant. Good start to the day.
15:30Four arrests out of the six so far,
15:33with the wider team still in position for the remaining two suspects.
15:37And word comes down the wire
15:39that the MOE team might well be needed to assist.
15:43Have you been diverted somewhere else? Not yet.
15:45Not to my knowledge. All right.
15:47They might need you somewhere else.
15:49Because there's one guy who's looking through the letterbox,
15:52but he won't open the door, so... Right.
15:54You want to shout on the air that you're done and get to the other address.
15:59What's going on now, we're going to the second phase,
16:01which is really collecting all the evidence.
16:03The suspect is detained inside, that's all under control.
16:06Yes.
16:09With his phone already seized, the main suspect is led away to custody.
16:14And after a year's worth of investigation and intelligence gathering,
16:18he'll face a lengthy interview process.
16:21How do you feel about that awakening this morning?
16:23Who, me? Yeah, you.
16:25I haven't been doing anything, so... Yeah, we'll see.
16:29So, that's one in the bag from this address overall.
16:33Great job.
16:40In the regiment, you are trained to track and hunt down the enemy
16:45and bring them to justice.
16:47And it's the same with criminals.
16:50Just like in the military, when the criminals are hard to catch,
16:54just like in the military, when the criminals are hard to catch,
16:58you have to take a different approach.
17:04Avebury and Wiltshire is a World Heritage Site,
17:07famous for its historic monuments and arable farmland.
17:11But unfortunately for Benjamin Butler, a fourth-generation farmer,
17:16it's not just ancient relics that are present on his land.
17:21We've had a report of some fly-tipping
17:25in amongst some trees on our land.
17:28We're heading out now to investigate.
17:30Sadly, it's not a surprise when you get a phone call
17:34about fly-tipping these days.
17:36We're probably seeing fly-tipping in one of our fields
17:39probably monthly at the moment.
17:41Despite there being a household waste recycling centre
17:44only four miles down the road,
17:47the secluded lane on Benjamin's land has become a hotspot for fly-tippers.
17:52So here we are. We've just arrived at the site.
17:55We're parked on a byway, which is obviously public access.
17:58As you can see on the right here,
18:00this is some previous fly-tipping from a few weeks ago.
18:03Someone's dumped some tyres here.
18:06We're also getting people coming here of an evening.
18:09There's a lot of cider beer cans, other alcoholic waste.
18:12And then if we step over the log into the field,
18:16you can see amongst the other debris on the edge of the field,
18:19this is the recent report of the fly-tipping in this field,
18:22which can be distinguished, I suppose, as plumbing waste.
18:25Two baths stacked together from someone doing a bathroom fit-out.
18:29So, deeply frustrating.
18:32And to add insult to injury,
18:34Benjamin must front the cost of clearing this mess up
18:37because it falls on his land.
18:39It's just mindless, mindless behaviour.
18:43I just don't understand it.
18:45And people wouldn't like it
18:47if I wouldn't tip my rubbish in their back gardens,
18:50and this is what it is paramount to.
18:52They would have to clear it up.
18:54Likewise, I've got to clear it up.
18:56They're obviously coming early morning, late evening,
18:59under the cover of darkness.
19:01I've yet to catch anyone actually doing it.
19:04I will report this to Wiltshire Council
19:06and see if they can build a case around it.
19:09Fly-tipping is illegal. These people are criminals.
19:12And it's a really lazy way of going about getting rid of rubbish.
19:16Wiltshire Council are taking fly-tipping seriously
19:19and rely on reporting from proactive members of the public like Benjamin.
19:24But if you thought fly-tipping was a solely rural issue,
19:27then you'd be wrong.
19:29The border of Lewisham in London
19:32is a far cry from the quiet lanes of Wiltshire.
19:36Well, this is fly-tip way, so you've got your classic black bag,
19:39which is the definition of fly-tipping,
19:41a black bag or more, and a mattress.
19:44And then you've got, you know, fabric,
19:47much loved by rats, as is food.
19:50So, yeah, just generally incredibly depressing and hazardous.
19:55It makes me angry.
19:57It's appalling that people should have to wake up
19:59to this kind of devastation.
20:02As CEO of the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy,
20:06Alison Ogden-Newton is all too aware of the damage done by fly-tipping.
20:12Fly-tipping is a crisis in the UK.
20:14It's absolutely catastrophic and it's very much on the increase.
20:18So we've got roughly about a million incidences
20:21that were reported last year
20:23and many of those were very significant in size.
20:26We estimate there's about over half a million tonnes
20:29of rubbish was fly-tipped last year,
20:31which the public purse had to pay to clear up.
20:34It's estimated that fly-tipping costs the UK
20:37over £100 million a year to clean up.
20:41These images show how the empty spaces of Lewisham
20:44have fallen foul of fly-tippers.
20:47Fly-tipping is contagious.
20:49So when you see a site that looks like it's unloved and uncared for,
20:52people will add litter to litter
20:54and they will add fly-tipping to fly-tipping.
20:57Much like the bathtubs that Benjamin found dumped on his land,
21:00these fly-tips are potentially the work
21:03of unlicensed rubbish removal companies.
21:05Fly-tipping is one of those things
21:07that actually connects cities to rural areas
21:09because a lot of the rubbish is collected in cities
21:12from individual households, particularly from flats,
21:15and then that rubbish will be brought together in a truckload
21:18and it will be taken out in the dead of night
21:21and often dumped somewhere along roads
21:23or heading out into rural land.
21:25We call them Facebook fly-tippers.
21:27They reach out through social media, they come to your home.
21:29They're not licensed waste carriers.
21:31They'll say they're going to take it away
21:33to the local recycling centre.
21:35They won't.
21:36They'll take it round the corner and they'll dump it.
21:38And what a lot of people don't realise
21:40is they'll still be responsible for that rubbish
21:42if it can be connected to them
21:44and they'll be prosecuted because it wasn't legally disposed of.
21:48Not just in Eysore, in a built-up urban environment like Lewisham,
21:52these fly-tips also have a negative impact on the community as a whole.
21:56Fly-tipping is devastating for communities
21:58waking up to rubbish on the doorstep.
22:01It really is upsetting for people
22:03and for communities that have to live with it on a regular basis.
22:06It undermines the value of their homes.
22:08It makes everybody feel unsafe.
22:11Fly-tip parks aren't used very much
22:13because women in particular identify them as potentially unsafe spaces.
22:18It affects people much more profoundly, I think,
22:21than we understand.
22:23And that's why it is so important to clear it up.
22:26But the residents of Comet Street, here in Lewisham,
22:30did more than just clean it up.
22:32After becoming fed up with the constant dumping of rubbish on their streets,
22:36the neighbourhood came together
22:38and turned this vacant corner into a beautiful community garden.
22:45The kind of initiative that we're looking at today is absolutely fantastic
22:49and I find pretty inspiring.
22:51It's wonderful communities to get together
22:53and be able to do lovely things like gardening and working together
22:56and kids can learn about how things grow.
22:58But there's also some quite ingenious measures here,
23:01like the bollards that stop criminals from backing up their vans
23:04and filling this space with fly-tipped waste.
23:07Not only is this garden visually pleasing and an asset to the community,
23:12it also serves a more cunning purpose,
23:15and the fly-tipping stopped overnight.
23:18These things are important
23:20and it's what makes communities wonderful
23:22as opposed to eyesores which, obviously, nobody wants to live with.
23:27In my opinion, this is a classic case of misdirection,
23:31straight from the SAS playbook.
23:41In North London, there are two arrests still outstanding on Ops Out,
23:46and branch commander Chris is eager for a clean sweep.
23:50We're just going to go to another address
23:52where we've got some surveillance wrapped around it.
23:54Let's go.
23:59The NCA team have covert surveillance set up on the remaining two properties.
24:04The aim of this stakeout is to get visual confirmation
24:08that the suspect is present at the address before they strike.
24:12And we're en route to the second rendezvous point
24:15to lie in wait with the method of entry team.
24:18There's a few people laid up here ready to go.
24:20On active duty with the military, we would sit for days,
24:24even weeks, in position,
24:26waiting for the opportune moment to engage a target.
24:29There's a lot riding on this strike, and timing is everything.
24:33We're off.
24:35They've just had an updated brief
24:37and they believe the suspect is still in the premises
24:40and they're now going to move forward
24:42to do, potentially, a breach on the door.
24:45Which is a forced entry.
24:53So that's the rebrief done. We've now moved on to the second task.
24:57It's the team forming up right now.
24:59Chris has just given the quick updating brief and we're going to roll.
25:07And that's the MOE team, method of entry team, forming up.
25:11They're getting ready, getting their equipment together.
25:13Quick shake-out, then the team will roll round the corner to the target.
25:42Police officers, open the door!
25:44Open the door, police officers, or the door comes in!
25:52Police officers, come back!
25:54Police officers!
25:57So entry's just been made.
25:58They've cleared the first room to the left.
26:00That is a dry hall.
26:01They've now gone right into the second apartment
26:04and that seems like that's where the suspect is.
26:07So the arrest is being made right now.
26:10The team are inside.
26:12They've detained the suspect in the right-hand room
26:16and they're just going through the arrest procedure now
26:19and also the evidence gathering.
26:23Open the door for us, yeah?
26:27A quick entry, followed by another swift arrest.
26:30The months of planning on Up South concludes in March.
26:35In the military, we use the acronym FFS,
26:39which stands for Find, Fix and Strike.
26:43And it's a fitting description for what I've seen here with the NCA.
26:49Up South's come to a conclusion this morning.
26:51We've still got one outstanding,
26:52but I'm confident we're going to get him in the next couple of hours.
26:55So we've arrested five out of the nine suspects.
26:57So we've found them, we've found two.
27:00Now it's time to move on to the next one.
27:02So that's the second suspect.
27:03Now, he's in the vehicle and he's on his way to custody.
27:06A great job.
27:09Up South has come to a conclusion this morning.
27:11We've still got one outstanding,
27:12but I'm confident we're going to get him in the next couple of hours.
27:15we're going to get him in the next couple of hours.
27:16So we're resting five out of the six?
27:18Yeah, we've got five out of the six.
27:19Brilliant.
27:20Today's operation had SES written all over it.
27:24A multi-strike approach carried out by a multi-skilled team.
27:29Upside concluded, absolute fantastic job.
27:31Five down, one to go.
27:33A live operation can often take you in an unexpected direction, but a skilled team of
27:48operators with niche capabilities will respond and react accordingly.
27:54The planning and execution of the NCA team paid off, and not long after, the final arrest
28:01was made.
28:02We're going to get him in the next couple of hours?
28:03Yeah, we've got five out of the six?
28:04Brilliant.
28:05Today's operation had SES written all over it.
28:06A multi-strike approach carried out by a multi-skilled team.
28:07Upside concluded, absolute fantastic job.
28:08The planning and execution of the NCA team paid off, and not long after, the final arrest
28:09was made.