Britain has a long history of intimate involvement with armed criminality. As one of the worlds leading arms dealers it has willfully used politics and subterfuge to breach ethical guidelines violating its stated commitment to the EU Code Of Conduct on Arms Exports, signed in June 1998. Royal Ordinance, which is now part of BAe Systems has supplied many of the weapons used to fight civil, colonial and neo-colonial wars in Africa and across the world.
It is therefore unsurprising that ownership of weapons in the UK is not illegal if accompanied with a license or certificate issued in accordance with the Firearms Acts 1968-1997 and other associated Acts. Home Office minister Vernon Coaker argues; “Firearms controls have to be proportionate. There are legitimate uses for firearms, for example vermin control and recreational pursuits.”
Less than ten years ago 141,900 firearm certificates were issued to cover civilian ownership of 418,300 firearms, whilst 638,000 shot gun certificates were issued to cover 1,335,000 shotguns. A breakdown of statistics in any single region can give a good idea of the spread of armed citizens in the UK. For example, Thames Valley Police annually licenses 6,000 firearms and 30,000 shot guns. Only Devon and Cornwall and the Metropolitan Police Service issue more firearm licenses across the UK.
Nationwide Britain’s twenty four police forces have records relating to half a million people on its national firearms licensing management system. These figures exclude military and police personnel.
It is believed that the majority of firearms used in homicide cases by young Africans are modified or converted to use poor quality, home-made or inappropriate ammunition. Whilst 9mm firearms are typically coveted for ease of concealment shotguns have gained popularity for robberies because of the difficulty the police face in obtaining ballistic evidence from the spent pellets. In 2005 alone, Home Office figures indicated that over 400 licensed shotguns were reported as having been ‘misappropriated’ in England and Wales. Despite this it is worth noting that the top tier of criminal gangs purchase military grade weapons and it is these minority gangs that are believed to be responsible for a large percentage of all armed criminality.
The government’s introduction of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 made it an offence to manufacture, import or sell realistic imitation guns and doubled the maximum sentence for carrying an imitation gun to 12 months. This has had little effect in reducing gun enabled crime.
In a Home Office report published in 2006, the authors stated that shotguns were available for between £50 to £200, more concealable purpose built handguns were said to be priced at around £1000 brand new or between £150 - £200 if previously used. Converted imitation firearms were recognised as the most widely available on the streets and could even be purchased legitimately from Army Surplus shops and mail order vendors in a pre-conversion form for as low as £20. Although imitations are known to be unreliable once converted they still manage to attract a £400-£800 street price. The most expensive of all firearms are automatic weapons which can cost anywhere between £800 to £4000. Many of these weapons are available for repeat hire. £50 would typically entitle you to the use of a 9mm and associated magazine.
On 17 July, 2006, police officers from Southwark Borough's Operation Hamrow seized a Fiat Punto car in Peckham. In the boot was a black rucksack containing a MAC 10 machine gun capable of firing up to 1000 rounds per minute, three pistols, silencers and ammunition including 62 ‘hollow point’ bullets which are designed to explode on impact. Alongside this haul there was also a quantity of gunpowder, 60,000 fake ecstasy pills, a solid block of cocaine worth £5,200 and a Halloween mask, gloves and a balaclava. Forensic evidence led to the arrest of 25 year old, African named Marlon ‘The General’ Grandison of Nutt Street, Peckham. In September 2007 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for possessing firearms and ammunition. So where did the guns and drugs come from?
During the early 1990’s the Metropolitan police often deployed African infiltrators and prolific criminals into the community to disrupt African people from organising for self empowerment. Britain’s ethnic majority was scared of a repeat of the numerous African uprisings which had successfully challenged the blatant racism prevalent throughout the 1970's and 80’s. Many believed a substantive 'rogue' element in both the British government and UK’s police forces deliberately introduced, cheap alcohol, cocaine, an anti-African education and more devastatingly; crack cocaine into vulnerable communities across the UK.
History has proven this not to be myth or conspiracy but instead fact. Britain modelled its own counter intelligence programme (COINTELPRO) on monitor and "neutralise" strategies deployed by the FBI in the US which targeted progressive African Americans deemed a threat to national security. This included community activists such as Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Omowale Malcolm X, Martin Luthur King and the Black Panthers.
Today the African community is targeted by SCD8 code name Operation Trident. This initiative was set up in March 1998 by amongst others, Detective Superintendent Peter Camiletti, headed by Commander Michael Fuller and advised by Lee Jasper. With the help of colluding Africans, SCD8 targeted Africans with Jamaican heritage under the excuse of tackling armed criminality caused by so called ‘Yardie’ gangs. Part of the Trident initiative was to encourage use of racist stop and search policies such as SUS which has continuously led to the widespread demonisation of innocent Africans. However before Tridents inception the Metropolitan Police force had paid gangsters on the books of Scotland Yard's criminal intelligence division code name ‘SO11’.
So called ‘yardie’ gangsters Eton Green and Delroy "Epsy" Denton were two such agents on the police 'informant' payroll despite Denton being known to immigration officials as a"..dangerous Jamaican criminal, given 16 years in Jamaica for firearms/aggravated burglary offences". Described as a "premier-league danger to the public" and a "sex-fuelled psychopath" Denton who had fled Jamaica for the murder of seven women was allowed by the British government to remain in the UK and run amok within the African community.
Their close police connection meant that drugs and firearms charges were dropped and both were able to sell crack cocaine enforcing their trade with guns without fear of arrest or prosecution. Protected by Scotland Yard, Green and Denton also used their impunity from the law to embark on a serious organised crime spree for personal gain. Collectively they terrorised the African community in London and Nottingham robbing hundreds of people at gunpoint.
While in the service of SO11, Denton committed several violent crimes including the sexual assault of a 15-year-old schoolgirl. Less than a year after being recruited as an informant he raped and then murdered 24-year-old trainee beautician Marcia Lawes by stabbing her 18 times after breaking into her Brixton residence.
Since the publication of the book, Untouchables—Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard, by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn, which describes corruption within Scotland Yard the Metropolitan police have disclosed the fact that that operatives like Denton are commonplace. A Guardian newspaper article published in 1999 states the Met has finally revealed that “it had thousands of informants helping officers, with about 25% from the black community.”
Today those who supply the lethal weapons to young Africans are varied. The criminal armourers range from officers working for the British army to european vets and Asian drug dealers.
- In 2000, an arsenal of weapons was reported ‘stolen’ from a Ministry of Defence armoury at Larkhill barracks in Wiltshire and sold to criminal gangs across the UK. Two of the army issue handguns from the haul of 28 Browning handguns and 12-bore shotguns were found alongside a silencer fitted Mach 10 submachine gun in the possession of a violent criminal gang dubbed the ‘African Crew’ by the media.
- In 2003, two Asian drug dealers were jailed for running a weapons factory in Birmingham. Shabir Hussain, 29, of Fladbury Crescent, Selly Oak, Birmingham, and Mohammed Shabir, 31, of Park Lane East, Tipton used the basement of their homes to convert blank firing pistols into fully-working guns and supplied weapons to criminals across the UK in areas such as Manchester and Bristol.
- In January 2004, father and son William Mitchell Greenwood, 76, and Mitchell Verne Greenwood, 42, from South Wingfield, Derbyshire were found guilty of supplying criminals with hundreds of deactivated guns and "kits" to convert them into live weapons. During 1998 and 1999, the Greenwoods offered an array of sub-machine guns and pistols to detectives. The Police who secured the arrests of 40 other people and recovered a total of 420 firearms following their investigations estimate as many as 3,000 weapons sold by the family were likely to still be in the hands of criminals.
- In December 2004, former IT specialist Michael Patrick, 42, of Halter Slade, Wigston, was jailed after being filmed by Sky News selling an Uzi 9mm gun to an undercover journalist for £2,000 in Chiswick, west London.
- In May 2005, Lance Corporals Michael White and Anthony Creswick bought and sold illegal pistols and ammunition while on a tour of duty with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment based at Warminster, Wiltshire. Corporal Darren Clemie is said to have offered them 30g of cocaine for two pistols, which the British soldiers intended to sell on for a profit. Lance Corporal White has admitted charges relating to the buying and selling of weapons and ammunition and supplying cocaine. Lance Corporal Brent Campbell has admitted a single charge of attempting to buy two semi-automatic pistols.
- In 2006, a gang of european gun smugglers were jailed after their weapons factory was broken up by a police investigation code named Operation Carbon. Robert Paul Tyrer, aged 51, of Hyde Road, his brother Jamie Richard Tyrer, aged 36, also of Hyde Road and 55-year-old Kenneth Lloyd of Stockport Road imported blank-firing and gas pressure pistols from Germany and took them to British firm, DMC Engineering on Pollard Street, Ancoats, where Qualified engineer David McCulloch converted them into live-firing weapons.
Detective Inspector John Lyons from the Armed Crime Unit, said: "The firearms imported were bought for between £50 to £80 each and by the time they were converted were sold on for up to £700… They were used across the country and a number of them have been linked to criminal incidents in Merseyside, Manchester and further afield."
- In December 2007, Lance Corporal Ross Phillips, Lance Corporal Ben Whitfield and Private Shane Pleasant were jailed their role in an illegal gun smuggling syndicate run by British troops in Iraq. The soldiers were from the 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment. Sentencing, Judge Advocate General Colin Burn said the offences were "very serious" and that the men “to a greater or lesser degree were at the end of a chain which started with smuggling lethal weapons out of Iraq for profit.". The money-making plot to smuggle guns out of Iraq to organised crime syndicates in Germany saw at least one British soldier trade handguns such as Glock pistols for drugs on at least six occasions. The drugs were then sold onto other British soldiers serving in Iraq.
- In May 2006, three Lithuanian men caught smuggling an "assassin's armoury" of converted tear gas guns into Britain. Andrius Gurskas, 26, of no fixed address, Orestas Bublilauskas, 34, of Chigwell, Essex and Darius Stankunas, 34, from Sheffield had hidden twelve Baikal semi automatic pistols fitted with silencers and a large amount of ammunition in the modified fuel tank of a Vauxhall Astra.
- In August 2006, Andrius Rauba, 36 was arrested after his house was raided and evidence found proving he had been buying low-powered Baikal "alarm pistols" permitted by Lithuanian law for £10 and then converting them and even fitting silencers before selling them on for £300. By the time they reached the UK, British police believe they were retailing for around £1,500 a time.
- In June 2007, registered gun dealer Michael Shepherd, 56, was found not guilty at the Old Bailey of 13 charges involving vintage guns advertised on the internet. He was arrested after police from Operation Mokpo raided his home in Dartford, Kent in September 2006, where they found about 900 guns. The Elvis fanatic and former carpenter was charged after selling guns to two undercover officers and providing bullet components. A legal technicality meant that his defending QC, Ian Glen, could successfully argue that selling components for bullets was not against the law because all the parts were freely available. Mr Shepherd's firearm's registration has been suspended by Kent police.
- In July 2007, two men were jailed for trying to smuggle two Czech assault rifles along with 460 rounds of ammunition into the UK. The guns which had been broken down into components were discovered during the search of a car at Dover docks.
Also in July 2007, officers from the Thames Valley Police force seized weapons, ammunition and gun-making tools during a two-week long search of outbuildings and land behind a Berkshire property on Basingstoke Road, Three Mile Cross, south of Reading. Police said two outbuildings at the rear of the house appeared to have been used as a workshop and testing centre to manufacture both ammunition and firearms.
External Links
Police face no charges over Yardie informer who killedHow guns get into the hands of crooksBBC - Men jailed over gun factoryGun crime: the market in and use of illegal firearmsMPS - Gun runners jailed
It is therefore unsurprising that ownership of weapons in the UK is not illegal if accompanied with a license or certificate issued in accordance with the Firearms Acts 1968-1997 and other associated Acts. Home Office minister Vernon Coaker argues; “Firearms controls have to be proportionate. There are legitimate uses for firearms, for example vermin control and recreational pursuits.”
Less than ten years ago 141,900 firearm certificates were issued to cover civilian ownership of 418,300 firearms, whilst 638,000 shot gun certificates were issued to cover 1,335,000 shotguns. A breakdown of statistics in any single region can give a good idea of the spread of armed citizens in the UK. For example, Thames Valley Police annually licenses 6,000 firearms and 30,000 shot guns. Only Devon and Cornwall and the Metropolitan Police Service issue more firearm licenses across the UK.
Nationwide Britain’s twenty four police forces have records relating to half a million people on its national firearms licensing management system. These figures exclude military and police personnel.
It is believed that the majority of firearms used in homicide cases by young Africans are modified or converted to use poor quality, home-made or inappropriate ammunition. Whilst 9mm firearms are typically coveted for ease of concealment shotguns have gained popularity for robberies because of the difficulty the police face in obtaining ballistic evidence from the spent pellets. In 2005 alone, Home Office figures indicated that over 400 licensed shotguns were reported as having been ‘misappropriated’ in England and Wales. Despite this it is worth noting that the top tier of criminal gangs purchase military grade weapons and it is these minority gangs that are believed to be responsible for a large percentage of all armed criminality.
The government’s introduction of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 made it an offence to manufacture, import or sell realistic imitation guns and doubled the maximum sentence for carrying an imitation gun to 12 months. This has had little effect in reducing gun enabled crime.
In a Home Office report published in 2006, the authors stated that shotguns were available for between £50 to £200, more concealable purpose built handguns were said to be priced at around £1000 brand new or between £150 - £200 if previously used. Converted imitation firearms were recognised as the most widely available on the streets and could even be purchased legitimately from Army Surplus shops and mail order vendors in a pre-conversion form for as low as £20. Although imitations are known to be unreliable once converted they still manage to attract a £400-£800 street price. The most expensive of all firearms are automatic weapons which can cost anywhere between £800 to £4000. Many of these weapons are available for repeat hire. £50 would typically entitle you to the use of a 9mm and associated magazine.
On 17 July, 2006, police officers from Southwark Borough's Operation Hamrow seized a Fiat Punto car in Peckham. In the boot was a black rucksack containing a MAC 10 machine gun capable of firing up to 1000 rounds per minute, three pistols, silencers and ammunition including 62 ‘hollow point’ bullets which are designed to explode on impact. Alongside this haul there was also a quantity of gunpowder, 60,000 fake ecstasy pills, a solid block of cocaine worth £5,200 and a Halloween mask, gloves and a balaclava. Forensic evidence led to the arrest of 25 year old, African named Marlon ‘The General’ Grandison of Nutt Street, Peckham. In September 2007 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for possessing firearms and ammunition. So where did the guns and drugs come from?
During the early 1990’s the Metropolitan police often deployed African infiltrators and prolific criminals into the community to disrupt African people from organising for self empowerment. Britain’s ethnic majority was scared of a repeat of the numerous African uprisings which had successfully challenged the blatant racism prevalent throughout the 1970's and 80’s. Many believed a substantive 'rogue' element in both the British government and UK’s police forces deliberately introduced, cheap alcohol, cocaine, an anti-African education and more devastatingly; crack cocaine into vulnerable communities across the UK.
History has proven this not to be myth or conspiracy but instead fact. Britain modelled its own counter intelligence programme (COINTELPRO) on monitor and "neutralise" strategies deployed by the FBI in the US which targeted progressive African Americans deemed a threat to national security. This included community activists such as Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Omowale Malcolm X, Martin Luthur King and the Black Panthers.
Today the African community is targeted by SCD8 code name Operation Trident. This initiative was set up in March 1998 by amongst others, Detective Superintendent Peter Camiletti, headed by Commander Michael Fuller and advised by Lee Jasper. With the help of colluding Africans, SCD8 targeted Africans with Jamaican heritage under the excuse of tackling armed criminality caused by so called ‘Yardie’ gangs. Part of the Trident initiative was to encourage use of racist stop and search policies such as SUS which has continuously led to the widespread demonisation of innocent Africans. However before Tridents inception the Metropolitan Police force had paid gangsters on the books of Scotland Yard's criminal intelligence division code name ‘SO11’.
So called ‘yardie’ gangsters Eton Green and Delroy "Epsy" Denton were two such agents on the police 'informant' payroll despite Denton being known to immigration officials as a"..dangerous Jamaican criminal, given 16 years in Jamaica for firearms/aggravated burglary offences". Described as a "premier-league danger to the public" and a "sex-fuelled psychopath" Denton who had fled Jamaica for the murder of seven women was allowed by the British government to remain in the UK and run amok within the African community.
Their close police connection meant that drugs and firearms charges were dropped and both were able to sell crack cocaine enforcing their trade with guns without fear of arrest or prosecution. Protected by Scotland Yard, Green and Denton also used their impunity from the law to embark on a serious organised crime spree for personal gain. Collectively they terrorised the African community in London and Nottingham robbing hundreds of people at gunpoint.
While in the service of SO11, Denton committed several violent crimes including the sexual assault of a 15-year-old schoolgirl. Less than a year after being recruited as an informant he raped and then murdered 24-year-old trainee beautician Marcia Lawes by stabbing her 18 times after breaking into her Brixton residence.
Since the publication of the book, Untouchables—Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard, by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn, which describes corruption within Scotland Yard the Metropolitan police have disclosed the fact that that operatives like Denton are commonplace. A Guardian newspaper article published in 1999 states the Met has finally revealed that “it had thousands of informants helping officers, with about 25% from the black community.”
Weapons of Death (clockwise from top left): Delroy Denton (S011 agent for Met Police), Assortment of handheld firearms, Marlon Grandison, British soldiers with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment based at Wiltshire, the Mac 10 submachine gun
So who are these merchants of death?
Today those who supply the lethal weapons to young Africans are varied. The criminal armourers range from officers working for the British army to european vets and Asian drug dealers. - In 2000, an arsenal of weapons was reported ‘stolen’ from a Ministry of Defence armoury at Larkhill barracks in Wiltshire and sold to criminal gangs across the UK. Two of the army issue handguns from the haul of 28 Browning handguns and 12-bore shotguns were found alongside a silencer fitted Mach 10 submachine gun in the possession of a violent criminal gang dubbed the ‘African Crew’ by the media.
- In 2003, two Asian drug dealers were jailed for running a weapons factory in Birmingham. Shabir Hussain, 29, of Fladbury Crescent, Selly Oak, Birmingham, and Mohammed Shabir, 31, of Park Lane East, Tipton used the basement of their homes to convert blank firing pistols into fully-working guns and supplied weapons to criminals across the UK in areas such as Manchester and Bristol.
- In January 2004, father and son William Mitchell Greenwood, 76, and Mitchell Verne Greenwood, 42, from South Wingfield, Derbyshire were found guilty of supplying criminals with hundreds of deactivated guns and "kits" to convert them into live weapons. During 1998 and 1999, the Greenwoods offered an array of sub-machine guns and pistols to detectives. The Police who secured the arrests of 40 other people and recovered a total of 420 firearms following their investigations estimate as many as 3,000 weapons sold by the family were likely to still be in the hands of criminals.
- In December 2004, former IT specialist Michael Patrick, 42, of Halter Slade, Wigston, was jailed after being filmed by Sky News selling an Uzi 9mm gun to an undercover journalist for £2,000 in Chiswick, west London.
- In May 2005, Lance Corporals Michael White and Anthony Creswick bought and sold illegal pistols and ammunition while on a tour of duty with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment based at Warminster, Wiltshire. Corporal Darren Clemie is said to have offered them 30g of cocaine for two pistols, which the British soldiers intended to sell on for a profit. Lance Corporal White has admitted charges relating to the buying and selling of weapons and ammunition and supplying cocaine. Lance Corporal Brent Campbell has admitted a single charge of attempting to buy two semi-automatic pistols.
- In 2006, a gang of european gun smugglers were jailed after their weapons factory was broken up by a police investigation code named Operation Carbon. Robert Paul Tyrer, aged 51, of Hyde Road, his brother Jamie Richard Tyrer, aged 36, also of Hyde Road and 55-year-old Kenneth Lloyd of Stockport Road imported blank-firing and gas pressure pistols from Germany and took them to British firm, DMC Engineering on Pollard Street, Ancoats, where Qualified engineer David McCulloch converted them into live-firing weapons.
Detective Inspector John Lyons from the Armed Crime Unit, said: "The firearms imported were bought for between £50 to £80 each and by the time they were converted were sold on for up to £700… They were used across the country and a number of them have been linked to criminal incidents in Merseyside, Manchester and further afield."
- In December 2007, Lance Corporal Ross Phillips, Lance Corporal Ben Whitfield and Private Shane Pleasant were jailed their role in an illegal gun smuggling syndicate run by British troops in Iraq. The soldiers were from the 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment. Sentencing, Judge Advocate General Colin Burn said the offences were "very serious" and that the men “to a greater or lesser degree were at the end of a chain which started with smuggling lethal weapons out of Iraq for profit.". The money-making plot to smuggle guns out of Iraq to organised crime syndicates in Germany saw at least one British soldier trade handguns such as Glock pistols for drugs on at least six occasions. The drugs were then sold onto other British soldiers serving in Iraq.
- In May 2006, three Lithuanian men caught smuggling an "assassin's armoury" of converted tear gas guns into Britain. Andrius Gurskas, 26, of no fixed address, Orestas Bublilauskas, 34, of Chigwell, Essex and Darius Stankunas, 34, from Sheffield had hidden twelve Baikal semi automatic pistols fitted with silencers and a large amount of ammunition in the modified fuel tank of a Vauxhall Astra.
- In August 2006, Andrius Rauba, 36 was arrested after his house was raided and evidence found proving he had been buying low-powered Baikal "alarm pistols" permitted by Lithuanian law for £10 and then converting them and even fitting silencers before selling them on for £300. By the time they reached the UK, British police believe they were retailing for around £1,500 a time.
- In June 2007, registered gun dealer Michael Shepherd, 56, was found not guilty at the Old Bailey of 13 charges involving vintage guns advertised on the internet. He was arrested after police from Operation Mokpo raided his home in Dartford, Kent in September 2006, where they found about 900 guns. The Elvis fanatic and former carpenter was charged after selling guns to two undercover officers and providing bullet components. A legal technicality meant that his defending QC, Ian Glen, could successfully argue that selling components for bullets was not against the law because all the parts were freely available. Mr Shepherd's firearm's registration has been suspended by Kent police.
- In July 2007, two men were jailed for trying to smuggle two Czech assault rifles along with 460 rounds of ammunition into the UK. The guns which had been broken down into components were discovered during the search of a car at Dover docks.
Also in July 2007, officers from the Thames Valley Police force seized weapons, ammunition and gun-making tools during a two-week long search of outbuildings and land behind a Berkshire property on Basingstoke Road, Three Mile Cross, south of Reading. Police said two outbuildings at the rear of the house appeared to have been used as a workshop and testing centre to manufacture both ammunition and firearms.
Merchants of Death (top, downwards): Kenneth Lloyd, Robert Tyrer and Jamie Tyrer, Shabir Hussain and Mohammed Shabir, William Mitchell Greenwood and Mitchell Verne Greenwood
External Links
Police face no charges over Yardie informer who killedHow guns get into the hands of crooksBBC - Men jailed over gun factoryGun crime: the market in and use of illegal firearmsMPS - Gun runners jailed
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Nationwide Britain’s twenty four police forces have records relating to half a million people on its national firearms licensing management system.
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