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Gang that supplied fake passports to Christy Kinahan Snr get another 22 years in prison

‘The increase in their prison sentences adequately reflects the severity of their offending and the harm it did in the UK and beyond’

Today at 16:30

Two members of an organised crime group who supplied fake passports to Christy Kinahan Snr and other criminals have had their jail sentences increased by 22 years.

The passports which were issued authentically but applied for using false information, were sold to criminal clients for up to £20,000 by Christopher Zietek (67), Anthony Beard (61) and Alan Thompson (73).

Zietek, also known as Christopher McCormack and Beard both from Sydenham, London, and Thompson from Sutton, Surrey, were jailed in relation to the supply of fraudulently-obtained genuine passports (FOGs) at Reading Crown Court on May 16 of this year.

Among their customers were the Irish cartel boss Kinahan as well as Glasgow murderers Jordan Owens and Christopher Hughes, Liverpool drug trafficker Michael Moogan, and Manchester fugitive David Walley.

Zietek was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, Beard to six years and Thompson to three years but at a hearing today, the Court of Appeal ruled that Zietek and Beard’s previous sentences were unduly lenient.

Zietek’s prison term was raised to 12 years and Beard’s to 10 years and two months. Thompson’s three-year sentence was not increased.

Jacqueline Beer, NCA Regional Head of Investigations, said: “These men ran a lucrative illegal enterprise that enabled some of the UK’s most heinous criminals to evade justice in the UK and cross international borders undetected.

“The increase in their prison sentences adequately reflects the severity of their offending and the harm it did in the UK and beyond.

“This case demonstrates our commitment to dismantling all types of organised crime groups that pose a threat to the UK public.”

Beard and Christopher Zietek were caught after a covert surveillance operation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) found they provided fraudulently obtained genuine passports (FOGs) to organised criminals over a five-year period.

Beard, a minor fraudster from Sydenham, in South London, obtained real passports in other people’s names then added the photographs of criminals, including two fugitive murderers.

The documents they supplied, costing up to £15,000, enabled criminals to cross borders and conduct business undetected.

Speaking at a press briefing before the sentences were handed down at Reading Crown Court, NCA officers who led up the investigation told Sundayworld.com how Kinahan was a “significant” figure whose name “stood out” among the other dangerous criminals who benefitted from the false documents.

“Christy Kinahan is obviously believed to be part of a very significant organised crime group in the Irish Republic,” Senior Investigating Officer Paul Green, said.

“For the purposes of our investigation, the FOG holders, by and large, were not our remit. But once we identified them we could gain evidence from the fact that some of them were fugitives.

“(While) the investigation of people like Mr Kinahan wasn’t part of my remit I recognised the name, having spent 23 odd years now in the realms of investigating serious organised crime, but it wasn’t a feature of our investigation specifically.”

NCA Deputy Director Craig Turner added: “Kinahan’s was one name that obviously stood out but there are a bunch of others as well.

“Obviously, it makes this quite an unusual job, to take away this enabler from organised criminal networks who want to travel abroad. That’s the golden ticket for last criminal networks, who obviously want to deal abroad.”

Beard would find vulnerable people in rehab centres and veterans’ shelters, many of whom had drug or alcohol problems, and persuade them to lend him their identity in exchange for very little money.

He would then apply to renew the vulnerable person’s expired passport, but the photo he submitted would be a recent picture of a wanted criminal in need of a new identity.

Zietek, meanwhile, who was formerly known as Christopher McCormack was believed to be an enforcer for the Adams crime family in London. He split his time between Sydenham, Ireland and Spain. He acted as the FOG broker and exploited his criminal connections to obtain clients for the crime group.

Senior Investigating Officer Paul Green said there were some indications that there was an interest in acquiring FOG Irish passports.

“Zietek does of course have connections in Ireland,” he said. “You could (understand) the interest from British and Irish criminals in having an alternate identity in a language that they spoke.

“Irish FOGS alongside UK FOGS are of interest to British and Irish criminals. Maybe following the changed arrangements with Europe that we now have it may be that Irish FOGS have increased in benefit, given the limitations on the British passport holders.”

“So you may well be aware that typically when you book into your hotel in Spain you need to provide some identification. A passport is usually the method for that, but these fugitives obviously could not do that with their own passports, because perhaps that would then come to the attention of law enforcement.

“So the FOG passports enabled them to continue in their criminal activities and remain at large, for some of them, for a period of amounting to a number of years.”