Catching the Kingpins

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Gangster: Catching the Kingpins: Catching the Kingpins: 2. Threat to Life

What happens when the police crack an encrypted phone network favoured by criminals?

Gangster

Podcasts

Factual: Crime & Justice: True Crime

The boxer turned bouncer who was gunned down on Tyneside in 1993

Viv Graham ran a pub and club protection empire which spanned Newcastle and beyond.

How did he build his fearsome reputation, and what led to his brutal, unsolved murder?

A new series of Gangster tells the story of Viv Graham, a man who ran a protection empire which spanned Newcastle and beyond.

Viv Graham, a 17-stone man mountain, a man feared and revered in equal measure, came to dominate Tyneside’s nightlife through brutal and uncompromising violence.

His murder, in an organised hit on New Year’s Eve 1993, sparked recriminations and repercussions which echo to this day. It remains one of the country’s most notorious unsolved murders.

BBC Radio 5 Live

The UK’s home of live news and live sport.

The UK’s home of live news and live sport. With live Premier League and FA Cup football, and Formula 1, Olympics and cricket coverage.

Gangster: Catching the Kingpins

Factual: Crime & Justice

The inside story of the biggest organised crime bust in British policing history. It happens in 2020 when police penetrate an encrypted phone network favoured by criminals.

A 6-part true crime podcast documenting inside story of the biggest organised crime bust in British policing history. It happens in 2020 when police in France penetrate an encrypted phone network called Encrochat. According to police, the phones were used exclusively by criminals.  
 
For over two months, police forces across Europe were reading the secret communications of major league criminal networks.  The Metropolitan Police, working with the National Crime Agency and other forces, used this information to uncover the workings of organised crime groups. 
 
"It was like being in a room with them and they are talking freely, and they don't see you there," says DCI Driss Hayoukane, the Senior Investigating Officer who led the Met's Encrochat operation. 
 
Police went public about the Encrochat hack in July 2020. This is the first time that the inside story of some of the Met's biggest Encrochat cases has been told to a broadcaster. 
 
Talking exclusively to BBC Sounds, police officers reveal how they used the gangsters' messages to uncover arms dealing and expose murder plots as well as major drug trafficking and money laundering operations. Stories featured in the series include: 
•	A murder plot unearthed by the Met in a joint operation with South Wales police. 
•	Two apparently legitimate businessmen, living in a Buckinghamshire village, whose wealth really came from cocaine trafficking and major league money laundering, 
•	A corrupt police officer who was working for a notorious London crime group. 
 
At a time when the Metropolitan Police Service has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, it's a rare story of an extraordinary success: nearly 1000 arrests; over 400 convictions; the seizure of £19 million in cash, three tonnes of Class A and B drugs and 49 guns.  
 
But presenter Mobeen Azhar does not shy away from what have been difficult issues for the Met police: an officer from the Met's anti-corruption unit speaks for the first time about how hacked Encrochat messages helped to expose the worst case of police corruption he had ever seen; and Mobeen asks the officer leading the Met's Encrochat investigation about the experience of being an ethnic minority officer in a force found to be institutionally racist.   
 
Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

Catching the Kingpins: 2. Threat to Life

BBC Radio 5 Live - Gangster, Catching the Kingpins, Catching the Kingpins: 2. Threat to Life

A murder plot. A London gun dealer. A Cardiff career criminal.

A murder is being planned with a gun bought via the EncroChat encrypted phone network. Will the police uncover the plot in time?

It's April 2020, and the Metropolitan Police are overwhelmed with messages hacked from the EncroChat network.  

Buried among the millions of texts and photographs, are the outlines of a murder plot. An anonymous EncroChat user is trying to source a gun and some ammunition for a drive by shooting.  

Will the police discover the messages before it’s too late? And will they be willing to risk the secrecy of the entire EncroChat operation by arresting someone on EncroChat evidence alone? 

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar  
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken  
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen 

Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

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Gangster

Catching the Kingpins

Catching the Kingpins: 2. Threat to Life

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