How an iPad beneath the Thames solved museum thieves’ homicide plot

A Ming vase stolen from a Swiss museum. A capturing at a comic’s home in Woodford, east London. The theft of a luxurious condominium in Sevenoaks, Kent.

These seemingly unconnected occasions are all a part of an internet of worldwide organised crime that police have untangled after a six-year-long investigation.

The important thing? An iPad, discovered beneath an inch of sand on the foreshore of the River Thames.

Its discovery was pivotal to the investigation that has led to 3 folks being discovered responsible on the Outdated Bailey of the near-assassination of one in all Britain’s most infamous armed robbers.

When found by a police officer with a steel detector on a chilly November morning final yr, the iPad was discovered caked in mud having been underwater for greater than 5 years.

Forensics have been in a position to clear it and open the Sim tray – which nonetheless contained a pink Vodafone Sim card.

Name knowledge that was subsequently salvaged supplied damning proof on three males – Louis Ahearne, Stewart Ahearne and Daniel Kelly – who have been all additionally concerned in a heist at a museum in Switzerland a month earlier.

“I’ve questioned this quite a bit,” Det Ch Insp Matthew Webb ponders. “Is it calamitous blunders tripping them up or was it simply they have been so blasé they would not get caught?”

The Ahearne brothers and Kelly first caught the eye of police after gunshots pierced the silence of a late summer time night in an prosperous Woodford space on 11 July 2019.

Six bullets tore via a glass conservatory at a luxurious property owned by comic Russell Kane that had been rented out to Paul Allen.

One severed one in all Allen’s fingers, the opposite went via his throat and have become lodged in his spinal wire, leaving him struggling to breathe and bleeding profusely.

“He is been shot, he is been shot!” Allen’s companion, Jade Bovington, screamed.

As she frantically known as an ambulance, neighbours and a non-public safety guard heard the cries and rushed to render first assist. One eyewitness described seeing an unidentified man vault a low wall, run between some bushes and get straight right into a ready automobile which instantly sped off.

To this present day, Allen stays confined to a wheelchair paralysed under his higher chest.

Allen gained notoriety as one of many ringleaders of what stays Britain’s greatest ever armed theft. In 2006, Allen was a part of a balaclava-wearing gang toting weapons together with an AK-47 assault rifle who threatened to kill workers on the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent. They stole £53m in Bank of England cash notes – abandoning £154m which might not match into their lorry.

Allen fled to Morocco 4 days later, however was arrested in Rabat alongside pal and fellow robber Lee Murray, who stays in jail in close by Tiflet. In January 2008, Allen was extradited to the UK and subsequently sentenced to 18 years in jail.

Allen was launched in 2016 and moved again to his roots in south-east London. However he relocated to Woodford together with his companion and two youthful youngsters after a gunman opened hearth at him and his pregnant daughter within the doorway of their Woolwich home in September 2018.

Ten months later, Allen virtually died after these two bullets hit him as he stood within the kitchen of his Woodford haven.

Prosecutors argued the Ahearns and Kelly have been equally culpable within the plot to homicide Allen – which concerned a employed automotive, surveillance and unregistered pay-as-you-go telephones.

“This was a meticulously researched and deliberate assassination try by a staff of males nicely versed within the stage of criminality to drag it off,” prosecutor Michael Shaw KC mentioned.

In discovering how the three knew the place to search out Allen, police would uncover their criminality stretched into mainland Europe.

Only one month earlier than the capturing, the Ahearne brothers and Kelly stood exterior the Museum of Far Japanese Artwork in Geneva geared up with a sledgehammer, angle grinders and crowbars.

Inside seconds of forcing their approach via the entrance door, they shattered glass casings housing 14th Century Chinese language Ming Dynasty antiques. Three gadgets have been seized – a uncommon pomegranate vase; a doucai-style wine cup and a porcelain bowl – and had a mixed insured worth of £2.8m.

Of their hurry to flee, Stewart scraped his abdomen towards the edges of the opening the gang had made within the entrance wood door – leaving traces of his DNA. He additionally employed the getaway automotive, a Renault Koleos from Avis at Geneva Airport. Louis was caught on CCTV filming the within and out of doors of the museum the day earlier than the raid.

Inside days of returning to south-east London with the stolen items, the trio set about making an attempt to eliminate the gadgets they’d pinched.

The brothers flew to Hong Kong with Kelly as they tried to promote one of many stolen gadgets at an public sale home.

The public sale home tipped off police in London, who have been in a position to ship undercover officers posing as artwork sellers to catch another gang members in a sting operation as two of them tried to promote one other plundered merchandise which had been hid in a JD Sports activities bag.

Throughout a seven-week trial on the Outdated Bailey, prosecutors argued that worldwide housebreaking proved the Ahearnes and Kelly have been “on the high finish” of criminality.

However little did police know whereas pursuing the stolen antiquities, the three would depart behind near-enough comparable clues to provide away their presence within the Woodford capturing.

Within the hours after the capturing, the crime scene in Woodford was forensically examined. Six bullet casings fired from a Glock self-loading handgun have been discovered, as have been scuff marks on the property’s rear backyard fence from the path the pictures had been fired.

DNA samples collected from the fence have been discovered to most likely belong to Louis and Kelly.

Trawling via CCTV footage, police have been then in a position to determine the quantity plate of a silver-grey Renault Captur owned by rent firm Avis.

Data confirmed it had been rented by Stewart from a Dartford department two days earlier than the capturing, and returned the next day.

Additional CCTV checks revealed that 90 minutes earlier than the capturing the Renault had pulled right into a Shell storage on Shooters Hill Highway, close to Greenwich Park.

“They stopped at a petroleum station as a result of Louis Ahearne was thirsty,” Shaw advised the courtroom.

“The issue with petrol stations is that they have excellent CCTV,” Shaw added.

Two days prior, Kelly and Louis had been pushed by Stewart in the identical Renault Captur to Ide Hill Corridor, a sixteenth Century mansion transformed into luxurious residences in Sevenoaks, Kent.

Posing as cops – with a blue flashing gentle on high of the Renault – the trio and one other man compelled their approach into the gated property and stole designer gadgets.

They have been later convicted at Maidstone Crown Courtroom of housebreaking and the tried housebreaking of one other condominium.

The next day, 10 July, Stewart was mentioned to have used the Renault to drive round elements of east London together with Bethnal Inexperienced, Snaresbrook – and Woodford.

A more in-depth take a look at site visitors cameras confirmed the Renault following a silver Mercedes that belonged to the Allens.

However detectives must wait greater than 5 years to find out how the lads knew Allen’s whereabouts.

In October 2024 – 4 months earlier than the Outdated Bailey trial began and never lengthy after being extradited from Switzerland again to the UK – Louis issued his defence assertion which contained one intriguing element.

He acknowledged that, whereas heading again to Woolwich, the Renault had stopped at John Harrison Method. Louis mentioned he hoped CCTV can be recovered from the road which might present him “getting some air” whereas Kelly disappeared within the path of the Thames.

Det Ch Insp Webb remembers: “We knew the automobile had stopped in John Harrison approach and that Kelly obtained out of the automobile – however not more than that. Did not know the place he went, did not know what occurred – simply John Harrison Method.

“Immediately, we have been considering if anyone needs to discard one thing essential it is most likely going to be a firearm.”

Louis’s defence assertion drew consideration to that cease which led to the iPad being found within the River Thames – which infuriated Kelly, who solely came upon simply earlier than the trial started.

On the second day of the trial, footage from a jail van caught Kelly shouting “how is the snitch life treating you?” at Louis.

Kelly and Stewart sat within the dock in silence all through the trial, and declined to provide proof, having each beforehand expressed fears over their security. Louis implied to jurors that it was Kelly who had pulled the set off within the Woodford capturing.

However Det Ch Insp Webb mentioned the iPad was the important thing to unravelling all of it.

“Speak about folks being flabbergasted and gobsmacked,” he remembers. “Det Insp Matthew Freeman known as me and mentioned we’ve got gone to the Thames and located an iPad.

“I am unable to repeat the phrases I used however my jaw dropped. What an exquisite piece of the puzzle to place collectively.”

Name knowledge confirmed each the iPad and an iPhone 6 belonging to Kelly had contacted a choose few numbers, together with the Ahearne brothers.

The Sim card was additionally linked to GPS monitoring gadgets which have been discovered inside a automotive when Louis and Kelly have been arrested in August 2019.

Electronic mail accounts have been then linked to Kelly and a detailed affiliate. From that, police have been in a position to look at 59 Amazon and eBay purchases – some included unregistered Nokia burner telephones used to speak within the homicide plot.

The Sim had been in use till it vanished from the community shortly earlier than Allen was shot.

The three males – proven to be skilled worldwide criminals – had been undone by tenacious detectives who discovered their throwaway piece of tech.

They have been every found guilty on Monday of conspiracy to murder and will probably be sentenced on 25 April.

However Det Ch Insp Webb suggests these verdicts are removed from being the tip of their deep investigations.

“It’s a kind of instances the place you retain scratching and you retain discovering,” he provides.