Jailed, passport gang who helped Scottish gangland assassins dodge justice for years
‘The passports were seen as golden tickets’
A GANG who gave dozens of Britain’s most wanted criminals a ‘golden ticket’ to flee justice have been jailed for a total of 17 years.
Ringleader Anthony Beard, 61, spent 20 years tricking the Passport Office to help feared villains become untouchable fugitives abroad.
By the time his operation was finally dismantled, it had led to the unmasking of 50 top fugitives, including Stephen Lawrence murder suspect Jamie Acourt who was captured in 2018 after two years on the run from £3million drug-smuggling plot charges.
Among those supplied with passports were Scots killers Jordan Owens, who fled the country after shooting a man in Glasgow in 2017, and Christopher Hughes, who lured a Dutch gangland figure to an Amsterdam sex club where he was assassinated.
Several suspected Scots drug traffickers including Barrie Gillespie, who may have since been killed along with his brother
James in Brazil, were also customers of the gang, which was snared after a covert operation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
In a scandal which raises serious questions for the Passport Office, Beard recruited drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless people who resembled the wanted criminals. He persuaded them to hand over their expired passports for as little as £100.
Beard then renewed them in the donor’s name but with the fugitive’s photo, charging criminals up to £20,000 for a passport.
Incredibly, passport staff accepted the applications despite the photos showing different people, as it was assumed appearances had changed in the ten years since the document was last renewed.
Beard’s long list of customers reads like a Who’s Who of the criminal underworld, with infamous killers, drug barons and gun smugglers among those evading justice with his help.
The NCA began probing Beard’s operation in 2017 and their efforts eventually provided a jackpot of intelligence which identified 50 fugitives including the two Glasgow killers, 35 drug traffickers and two gun runners.
Beard also provided passports to Irish crime kingpin Christy Kinahan Snr, who is suspected of running an £800million drug cartel. He was aided by a notorious London gangland enforcer, Chris Zietek, who brokered the deals and introduced him to murderous Scottish gangs.
Zietek, 67, obtained passports for Owens and Hughes as well as the suspected traffickers.
Owens, 28, fled after gunning down new father Jamie Lee, 23, and a UK passport was created featuring his photograph but in the name of Lee David Bowler. He was arrested in Portugal in 2019 and was later jailed for life after being convicted of murder.
Fellow Scot Hughes was given a Latvian passport in December 2019 as it had become harder for Beard to get British passports.
Hughes was caught in Italy in 2020 and jailed for life last year after being convicted of the murder of Martin Kok after a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
But it was not only British and Irish crooks who used the service.
Nelson Pablo Yester-Garrido was another customer. The Cuban drug lord had been in hiding since 1997. His story was featured in a Netflix show before he was jailed for five years in 2020 for conspiracy to distribute dope in Florida.
Zietek and Beard were arrested in NCA raids in October 2021.
In total, investigators traced 108 British passports supplied to criminals but they believe Beard got many more after he boasted to associates he had spent two decades fooling authorities. Judge
Nicholas Ainley yesterday told Reading Crown Court: ‘This type of fraud subverts the whole system of passport issuing.’
He added: ‘It was to enable violent criminals to escape justice by providing them with documents that, because they were genuine, would deceive the authorities.’
Beard was jailed for six years and eight months for the passport scam. Zietek was given eight years for conspiracy to make a false instrument and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Another associate Alan Thompson, 72, was jailed for three years for the same charges.
NCA chief Craig Turner said: ‘The passports were seen as golden tickets by criminals.
‘We have dismantled a crime group that enabled drug and firearm traffickers, murderers and fugitives to evade justice.’