The identification of a violent gang of armed robbers started with a exceptional little bit of detective work by Scotland Yard’s elite Flying Squad.
It led to the seize of 10 members of a extremely organised gang who used weapons, knives, hammers and crowbars to assault safety guards refilling money machines in London and elsewhere.
Six of the robbers had been jailed for greater than 100 years.
The investigation started as detectives picked over the few clues left by two robbers who pounced at midnight on guards getting into a Nationwide financial institution in Tooting, south London, in June 2018.
The guards had been carrying £120,000 to place right into a cashpoint, the financial institution’s automated teller machine (ATM).
The robbers wore nondescript black garments, physique armour, masks and gloves. They left no DNA or fingerprints.
Internal CCTV cameras revealed no distinguishing options. CCTV exterior the High Street financial institution confirmed nothing of the robbers in any respect, or any getaway car.
The facet door
The entrance of the financial institution was hidden from cameras by the parked money van. Also obscured was a door proper beside the financial institution’s entrance. Puzzled detectives concluded the robbers will need to have arrived and departed on foot by that different door.
The door led to a block of flats and, through a hearth escape, to a grocery store automotive park and a community of facet streets. CCTV cameras there picked up the 2 suspects strolling at across the time of the theft.
Another digicam additional away confirmed them arriving in a darkish sport utility car (SUV), however the image high quality was poor, the quantity plate was unreadable and the automotive’s make and mannequin unsure.
Detective Constable Stephen O’Connell stated: “It looked like an Audi Q7 or similar type vehicle, but you can see it’s not an Audi from close inspection of the wing mirrors, the types of alloy wheels on it and the shape of the bonnet, badge and the grille.”
In a bid to determine the automotive, he requested for footage from all visitors cameras with computerized quantity plate recognition (ANPR) inside a four-kilometre vary of the financial institution.
DC O’Connell explains how the investigation progressed: “We’re confident that it’s a Skoda Kodiaq SUV, but we can’t read the number plate.
“The ANPR digicam search reveals that there’s a Skoda Kodiaq travelling in one of many facet streets near the financial institution minutes after the theft.”
The Birmingham connection
The visitors digicam confirmed a transparent quantity plate which belonged to a Skoda Kodiaq marketed on the automotive gross sales web site AutoTrader from a showroom in Birmingham.
DC O’Connell stated: “I speak to the manager there, and he’s certain that his vehicle hasn’t been in London, it’s sitting in his dealership and is locked in. He’s got the keys at home.
“So the gang have clearly seen his advert in AutoTrader they usually’ve copied the index plate and put it onto one other Skoda Kodiaq.”
The reason the gang copied a genuine number plate from a registered blue Skoda Kodiaq, instead of say a white Ford Focus, was in case the car was stopped by police for any reason.
A check on the number plate would show police it belonged to a blue Skoda Kodiaq and that should be enough to allay any suspicion.
Of course, a more detailed check on the gang’s Skoda would reveal it had the wrong number plate, but that was a calculated risk.
The next thing the Flying Squad did was to trawl through local crime logs to find a Skoda Kodiaq that had been stolen. They planned to search back two months, but they quickly found one stolen in Wimbledon a fortnight before the robbery.
ANPR cameras showed the car being driven around for an hour after it was stolen, but then it disappeared.
The Prague connection
Police contacted Skoda headquarters, in the Czech capital Prague, where the company keeps a record of every car it manufactures.
Skoda gave detectives the unique code for the stolen car’s satellite navigation system. The code allows the satnav to work by connecting to telecommunications masts, rather like a mobile phone.
Detectives asked the satnav’s telecoms provider for the car’s data history.
The data wasn’t as precise as they hoped, but it showed the satnav was turned off somewhere in Wimbledon, not far from where the Skoda was stolen.
Going underground
The squad flooded the realm with undercover officers, however they could not discover the automotive parked on the road. Then they knocked on the door of the concierge at a brand new block of flats with a safe, shuttered underground automotive park.
In the automotive park was a blue Skoda Kodiaq, however it had a distinct quantity plate from the one on the Skoda used within the theft. A verify on the Vehicle Identity Number (VIN), or chassis quantity, contained in the automotive confirmed it was the stolen Skoda they had been searching for.
“So, we’re thinking, why have they changed the number plates on it again? They haven’t just abandoned this car. They’ve parked it up, they’ve re-plated it, they must be going to use it again.
“So somewhat than simply seize it and take the chance to get DNA and fingerprints from it, we’ll depart it there and maintain observations on it, and we’ll see who involves it.” But they didn’t have to wait for that.
Not quite clever enough
When they checked the recent car park CCTV it showed a man drive in, park in resident’s bay 248, appear to change the Skoda’s number plates and then climb the stairs to the flats above.
A check with the block’s manager showed the resident with parking bay 148 was a man called David Tesfaalem in flat 30.
“We take a look at the identify David Tesfaalem and, lo and behold, he has earlier convictions for armed theft,” stated DC O’Connell.
The gang had been intelligent, however not fairly intelligent sufficient.
A giant surveillance operation on Tesfaalem ultimately led the detectives to the opposite gang members and their wave of violent robberies was stopped.
Source: information.sky.com”