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By Tony Whitfield By Jon Austin and Mike Parker IN LOS ANGELES
DAVID SMITH may not sound like the most arresting of names.
But a Ministry of Justice study reveals Smith is the most common surname among British prisoners and David the most common first name.
The figures for white inmates show 844 Smiths, while David is the top forename with 1,825.
David Smiths currently behind bars include a super-tout who used bots to harvest tickets for concerts by artists such as Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift – and then made £11million by reselling them online.
Other top surnames are Jones, Williams,taylor and Brown, and other top first names are Michael, John, Paul and Daniel. Kelly Smith is the top name among white women prisoners, with 55 inmates sharing the surname and 74 having the same forename.
One notorious prisoner with that name was jailed for life for organising a robbery which led to the murder of home-owner David Corridon in Liverpool in 2012.
The MOJ figures study detailed the names of black prisoners, revealing that the top surname iswilliams. There are 147 behind bars.
For female black prisoners, it is a tie between Smith,williams and Grant – each shared by just five inmates.
LOCKDOWN: Even TV’S Sopranos crime family would have struggled
GLOBAL shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic are hitting the activities of some of the world’s biggest organised crime groups – including the Mafia in Italy and the United States.
Closures of borders and businesses are making it harder for the smuggling of people, drugs, firearms and tobacco.
At the same time the closure of small businesses and sporting events have decimated protection rackets and illegal gambling.
So far, shipping routes have not been badly affected but moving drugs across land borders in Europe has become much harder.
The Sicilian mafia and the Calabria-based Ndrangheta smuggle drugs on cargo vessels but with lockdowns across Europe and police monitoring people’s movements, it has become harder to get them picked up at the other end, said the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Anna Sergi, a criminologist at the University of Essex, said: “Certain types of drugs are still on the move.
“The problem is, who is going to pick them up?”
In some places Mafia elders are enforcing local lockdowns, as they are in the most vulnerable age group.
But those lockdowns are also exposing Mafia safe houses due to increased police vigilance.
Meanwhile, New York’s five Mafia crime families are said to be suffering the biggest “hit” in their bloody histories.
Illegal gambling has been wiped out, small firms paying “protection” money are now shuttered and work on all construction sites – a source of huge income for the Mob – has been halted.
A New York City Police Department spokesman confirmed the impact of the virus on organised crime but added: “We remain ever vigilant and alert.”