A MAN who admitted supplying a fraudulent passport to Irish crime boss Christy Kinahan has been jailed in Britain for providing similar documents to a raft of dangerous criminals.
Anthony Beard, 61, from Lewisham in London, was sentenced to six years and eight months at Reading Crown Court on Tuesday.
He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to make fraudulent documents on the first day of his trial in January.
Beard's co-defendants Christopher Zietek, 67, of Sydenham, London and Alan Thompson, 72, of Sutton, Surrey were jailed for eight years and three years respectively.
"The service provided by the defendants in this organised crime group enabled serious criminals, including drug and firearm traffickers and murderers, to go on the run as fugitives to evade detection and conduct criminal business internationally under false identities," said Giorgina Venturella, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Vulnerable targeted
The defendants were involved in a criminal enterprise which provided fraudulent British passports and ID documents to criminals trying to evade justice, enabling them to cross borders and conduct illegal business undetected.
The alleged crimes of those they assisted ranged from drug trafficking to murder.
The group specialised in supplying fraudulently-obtained genuine passports (FOGs) that are issued authentically but have been applied for using false information.
The group would source individuals — often vulnerable people willing to sell their personal details — who were around the same age as the group's clients and had similar facial features.
They were paid for providing their expired passports and their details were used to apply for new ones with photographs of the criminals.
The gang also paid others to countersign passport applications.
Christopher Zietek and Anthony Beard (Images: NCA)Beard was an expert in FOGs and National Crime Agency (NCA) officers believe he had been procuring them for 20 years.
He was involved in every aspect of organising and applying for the passports, including collecting application forms and planning the details to be provided by the applicant and the counter-signatory.
His fingerprints were found on many of the forms, while contact numbers he included were for numerous 'burner' phones he operated.
Handwriting experts established he completed most of the application forms and a voice recognition specialist determined Beard called HM Passport Office to chase up applications pretending to be the people named on the forms.
As well as pleading guilty in January to the charges he faced, Beard also admitted supplying over 70 FOGs used by criminals including Kinahan, Stephen Lawrence murder suspect Jamie Acourt and firearms trafficker Richard Burdett.
'Under-the-radar conspiracy'
Craig Turner, Deputy Director of the NCA, described the FOGs as 'golden tickets' for criminals.
"We have identified a chronic, under-the-radar conspiracy that enabled drug and firearm traffickers, murderers and fugitives to evade justice, and we have worked across borders to dismantle it and to bring the masterminds to account," he added.
"The NCA continues to protect the UK from the serious and organised criminals who present a threat to our security, people and economy."
