Episode 14 Fugitives

-Come on!

-On the run...

-Get back here!

-..and over here.

-Hands out, now! Hands out!

When foreign criminals flee their home countries,

many hide out in the UK.

-Give me your hands.

-But if they think they're safe, they're wrong.

They know they're wanted.

A lot of these people are waiting for that knock on the door.

But the traffic in fugitives isn't all one-way.

Across Europe, there are hundreds of British criminals also trying to

escape justice.

From the sun-drenched Costas

to the busy streets of the Dutch capital,

this is how the police take down the fugitives...

You're under arrest under the Extradition Act.

Police officer!

..both at home and abroad.

On today's programme...

the Met go in search of a violent robber with a history

of going on the run.

-Dave, come here.

-Yeah.

You've been issued a European arrest warrant.

Sunny Cyprus, a notorious hideout for British fugitives.

They think they can hide beyond the reach of the taxman or the British

police because they go to Cyprus,

and that perhaps attracts a specific type of criminal.

Including this multimillion-pound fraudster

who thought he was untouchable.

And after a run of bad luck...

KNOCKING ON DOOR

West Yorkshire Police track down a man who should be

in an Eastern European prison.

Hello, it's the police. They've issued a warrant for your arrest,

because they want you to go back to Poland

and serve a custodial sentence.

London - an international city

that attracts people from across the world.

Around 40% of the capital's population are from abroad.

Hidden amongst them are fugitives wanted in other countries.

Can you open the door, please? It's the police.

It's the job of the Metropolitan Police's

Extradition Unit to find them and bring them to justice.

Just after 5am,

and two detectives from the squad are hunting for a violent criminal

on the run from Poland.

DCs Dave Salmon and Jamie Darby are on the way to a house

in South London where they believe he's holed up.

OK, we're two minutes from the address.

This gentleman is Marek Dziewulski.

He's wanted for a nasty robbery which happened in Poland in 2010.

During the course of this robbery in Poland, he's stolen some money.

This robber has been arrested

by the Extradition Unit before.

Three years ago, he was caught and sent back to Poland,

but before he could be sentenced by the court,

he managed to leave his native country and return to the UK.

We've done some intelligence research,

and we've pinpointed this address in Lewisham, in Catford,

so we'll go and knock on the door,

and we'll see what we'll get when we get there.

They pull up on the corner and quietly make their way

to the house on foot.

When they arrive,

Jamie heads round the back to check if there are any escape routes

before Dave knocks on the front door.

At the back, Jamie looks out for any movement at the windows.

Neither of the detectives can see any signs of life inside the house.

But they're not about to give up.

Hello, can you open the door, please?

If someone is inside, they've nowhere else to go.

Jamie, somebody looked out here.

Can you open the door?

Eventually, a twitch of a curtain

reveals people are at home after all.

The curtain's opening just slightly,

but we can't see into the room, that's the problem.

We can't ascertain who it is that's looking out.

Hopefully, they'll come down soon.

Yeah, it's twitching again.

Someone is definitely inside, but is it the man they're looking for?

The back door is opened by a couple who live in the flat upstairs.

It's a separate entrance.

These two can't give the officers access to the ground-floor property.

So unless someone who lives downstairs

can let them in through the front door,

the detectives have little choice but to wait.

At the moment, we've contained the premises.

We've spoken to upstairs - they said he does live there,

they've seen him yesterday,

erm... It's probably a case that there's a good possibility

that he's in there but not answering the door.

Legally, we can't force entry, cos we haven't seen him.

We have it contained from the back and the front,

so I think we'll just give it some time

and just see what happens during the course of the morning,

see if he appears.

That's about all we can do at the moment.

Later, they finally make it inside the right flat,

but will they find the man they're looking for?

Hello?

Most fugitives go on the run following serious offences

linked to drugs or violence.

But a few commit crimes that are more difficult to spot.

White-collar criminals take taxpayers' money

to line their own pockets.

That's why the job of hunting them is handled by the taxman.

In Scotland, investigators who work alongside police in this

state-of-the-art crime campus spent years on the trail

of one notorious fraudster.

Businessman Michael Voudouri came to the attention of

HM Revenue and Customs back in 2000.

Organised criminals such as Michael Voudouri will go to great

lengths to disguise their wealth.

They try and create a corporate veil

that ultimately will throw us off the scent.

Using a web of companies around the world,

Voudouri was able to hide £3.2 million in VAT from the taxman.

The VAT was actually bounced through a number of those companies,

and the net result of that was, at the end of those transactions,

the VAT went missing.

By fiddling his taxes,

Voudouri was able to spend the money on the finer things in life.

He drove a very nice car, he had holidays, family holidays to Cyprus,

and this money helped fund that lifestyle.

The good life didn't last, though.

In 2004, the tax fraud landed Voudouri in court,

and then the slammer.

Five years later,

Voudouri was out of prison and living in this Stirlingshire town.

It's an affluent area,

he lived in this fabulous house and, you know, he had all the assets,

he had the lavish lifestyle.

But Voudouri was still under intense scrutiny.

In 2009,

a journalist working for a current affairs programme

investigated his financial affairs.

Samantha Poling wanted to know how an ex-con

could afford such a big house,

despite being ordered to pay back over £1 million

in criminal proceeds.

Do you know what I think sticks in people's throat a little bit,

though? Kenilworth Road is known locally as Millionaires' Row.

-Mm-hm.

-So possibly people would think, "Well, hold on...

"He's living here because he made that money through crime,

"that's why he's on Millionaires' Row."

No, I'm living here because my father-in-law purchased the house.

My father-in-law has been a businessman all his life.

He saved enough money to purchase the house.

Voudouri also denied owning his fancy car.

What about when people see the nice car?

-That car there?

-Yeah.

That's on finance.

Yes, I stole £3 million, I plead guilty,

I went to jail.

There is no £3 million.

-Where's the money gone, then?

-I spent it.

-On what?

Having a good life.

HMRC too were suspicious,

as the bent businessman still seemed to be making money.

Whilst Michael Voudouri was in prison,

HMRC started a second investigation.

We believe that Michael Voudouri was involved in laundering the proceeds

of crime and laundering the proceeds of tax fraud.

Over the course of their second investigation,

tax officers tracked Voudouri's dirty money across five countries -

as he laundered it through bank accounts and business transactions.

Somebody looking at it in pieces

would probably see what looked like

genuine financial transactions.

However, when we unpicked it, it was a scam,

it was a scam to launder the money

and clean the money and bring it back to the UK.

By 2012, they had enough evidence for a second prosecution.

Voudouri pleaded guilty to laundering another £11.5 million.

But knowing he'd face a longer sentence this time,

the businessman fled his home town and went into hiding.

When we realised that he wasn't going to turn up in court,

we were gutted, you know, we had put so much effort into this case

and, you know, at that point in time, you think,

"Will he ever turn up?"

Coming up, the National Crime Agency

joins the hunt for Scotland's Mr Big.

Just because they cross a border, does that mean that we stop,

we don't bother? I don't think so.

Out on the streets of West Yorkshire,

PC Dave Lockwood and his partner PC Tom Allen are searching for those

wanted for crimes committed in other countries.

Today, they're looking for a Polish man convicted of car theft in his

native country, but he's proving difficult to find.

We have information which has been provided

from the National Crime Agency.

This male is linked to three parts of the UK - there's Skipton,

Southampton and Leeds -

and there's an address in each of those towns for this male.

As I understand it, the other two addresses have been checked,

and it's a negative gain,

so we've been asked to check our Leeds address for him.

A lot of our checks have revealed him as NFA,

no formal address or no fixed abode,

and he's scattered throughout the UK.

With this intelligence, Dave isn't optimistic.

What's the chances now that we're going to get really lucky

at this time, go to this address, and he be in the house?

What do you think? That's a lot to ask, isn't it?

Fugitives like this man stay on the move -

renting rooms in shared houses to evade capture.

Hello, sorry to trouble you.

-Yes.

-Are you OK?

Is any Polish living in here at all?

One Polish man upstairs.

-Can you show me t'room? I'll just talk to him if he's in.

-Yeah.

Ta. See if he knows him.

This time, Dave's out of luck.

Thank you for your time. Oh, cheers.

All the information is time-dependent,

and so if you sit on it,

the information could be less valuable tomorrow.

If the information is out of date,

the inquiry at that address is then your next step towards finding out

where they are.

And it's almost a game of cat and mouse,

and eventually we catch up with them.

It's on to the next case -

checking out an address that could be connected to a Lithuanian man

wanted for drugs offences.

Hello, mate, how are we doing?

We're looking for this lad, and we've been given this address.

A Lithuanian male.

Do you get any post in foreign names like that?

Does that name mean anything to you?

The trail's gone cold.

All right, pal, thanks for your time.

Cheers, buddy.

It's another dead end.

English family, been there 12 months.

OK. There we go, back to t'drawing board.

This shift has been a frustrating one for Dave and Tom,

but they know that sometimes persistence does pay off,

and the door they knock will be the right one.

Have you got some ID, please?

Back in 2009,

Michael Voudouri was an ex-con with a millionaire's lifestyle.

He'd already served four years in jail

for a multimillion-pound tax fraud,

but still had a big house and a fancy car.

Seeking answers about his money,

Panorama reporter Samantha Poling interviewed him

at his Stirlingshire home.

If people want to perceive a big house and millions

that were stolen and this and that,

at the end of the day, what are the facts?

Yes, I stole £3 million, I plead guilty, I went to jail.

There is no £3 million.

-Where has the money gone?

-I spent it.

-On what?

-Having a good life.

In fact, Voudouri was up to his old tricks,

and in 2012 he admitted to laundering the proceeds

of crime worth £11.5 million.

It was a scam to launder the money and clean the money and bring

it back to the UK.

But knowing he was about to face a second prison sentence,

the businessman fled.

When somebody absconds, then, you know, immediately,

your head does go down,

people start to worry about maybe him not coming back.

However, that didn't last long.

Voudouri was now a wanted criminal.

A warrant was issued for his arrest, and a manhunt began.

We hoped he was still in Scotland, or within the United Kingdom,

so really any addresses we had, any leads we had were followed up on.

It then became apparent to us that he may be in Cyprus,

and that made sense,

because Michael Voudouri has family in Cyprus,

and some of his laundering,

some of the proceeds of his crime were laundered through Cyprus.

In recent years, Cyprus has become a notorious haven for fugitives.

With expertise in tracking down criminals on the island,

the National Crime Agency joined the hunt for Voudouri.

They think they can hide beyond the reach of the taxman or the British

police because they go to Cyprus, and that perhaps attracts, erm...

a specific type of criminal.

The agency dedicates a small team of officers to finding fugitives there.

I have key individuals whose sole responsibility is to concentrate on

working with the British authorities,

the Cypriot authorities,

to find the people we think have fled to Cyprus

and get them brought back to face justice.

So it's a small team...

They're very, very good at their job.

A campaign to publicise wanted people on Cyprus brought no leads.

In the end, it was a familiar pitfall

which would lead to his capture -

a dodgy passport.

We learned through the National Crime Agency

that Michael Voudouri had been arrested in Cyprus,

and he'd been arrested for immigration offences.

When the police in Cyprus learned he was a fugitive from British justice,

they moved swiftly to arrest him.

He appeared before a judge at a court in Nicosia,

and plans were made to return the fraudster home.

It meant that all our years of investigation wasn't wasted,

you know, that he was going to come back and stand trial.

Once more, the game was up for Scotland's Mr Big.

In May 2014,

Voudouri was extradited to Edinburgh to again answer for his crimes.

We will do everything in our power to ensure that people

like Michael Voudouri are brought back.

This was stealing public funds, you know,

and it's public funds that go to public services, that build schools,

build hospitals, et cetera,

so we have to send the message

and make certain that, you know, that we won't let people

away with this type of crime.

It's 5.30 in the morning outside a house in South London.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police

Extradition Unit have been trying

to gain entry for almost 20 minutes.

Can you open the door?

They're looking for a violent offender

who went on the run from Poland,

and the investigation has led them to this door.

But nobody's answering.

Quite often,

with these multi-occupancy flats,

there's always going to be one that might open the door, but...

not in this case.

We have it contained, anyway,

and I think what we might do is just set up nearby...

..see if he raises his head.

That's about all we can do at the moment.

But just as Dave's getting ready for a long wait,

round the back of the house

his colleague Jamie has seen someone through a window.

He's asked him to open the front door.

Good morning, I'm from the police.

We need to speak to the people that live here.

We need to come in, speak to everybody.

The man who opens the door is not the one they're looking for.

-What happen?

-How many people live here?

They need to search the house and find out who is in each room.

This is your room, and who's in these rooms?

One guy is living here.

OK. Are they in now?

And who is in this room?

One of my...one of my colleagues.

Is he here?

He's coming.

Did you know he was knocking? What's your name?

-Marek.

-They've got him.

It's the Polish robber they've been looking for,

and he knows why they're here.

European arrest warrant, I'm sure you're aware.

I am. Yeah.

-What have you got in your pockets there?

-A phone.

The detectives handcuff the wanted criminal before taking him

-out of the house.

-They OK?

He's been convicted of a violent offence,

and they're not taking any chances.

He's been arrested in this country before and escaped the law in Poland

twice. But this time, he's not getting away.

Under the watchful eye of the two detectives,

the captured fugitive is taken to a police station.

This is where the process of sending him back to Poland begins.

Just stand there a second.

That's it.

We're really pleased, a fantastic result today.

It could have been a long morning of sitting outside the address.

Eventually, the guys that went around the back,

they had a result when the person looked out, opened the front door,

-went in.

-Do you understand why you've been arrested?

Yes.

The minute we were in the door, the game was up for Marek.

He looked resigned to his fate.

He knew what the score was.

He knew he was wanted.

He knew what was in store.

He was getting his money and bits and pieces together because he knows

that he's probably going to prison.

Really fantastic result, very happy with it.

Marek Dziewulski now faces a sentence of more than two years

behind bars back in Poland.

PC Dave Lockwood is one of the officers responsible

for tracking down fugitives who are wanted for crimes in Europe

and hiding somewhere in West Yorkshire.

XWX-N60.

We are just en route from Wakey to Leeds.

Yeah, just to let you know, we're just about to go code six.

But they're not easy to find.

Most of the people he's looking for keep on the move to stay one step

ahead of the law.

It is often frustrating work for extradition officers.

Hello.

We're not looking for you, we're looking for somebody who might be

residing in the flats.

The targets can be elusive.

All too often, the team will come away empty-handed.

He did live here, and he did live here with his mum,

so the intelligence was right.

However, he's moved out.

There we go, back to t'drawing board.

But Dave never gives up.

Another day, and another fugitive to track down.

He's hoping the intelligence for his next case is accurate enough to lead

him to the target.

Right, then, this gentleman is Polish.

The man he is after is Jacek Andrzejczak,

and he's facing a year in prison for a crime he committed

more than ten years ago.

He's stolen a car and crashed it.

So he's wanted for theft of that.

And it's aggravated, obviously, cos he's crashed it.

The house is in darkness - at first, it's not looking too promising.

Oh, no, could be somebody living here.

We have four addresses,

and this is the most current, up-to-date one.

Hello, it's the police. I'm sorry for disturbing you at this time,

-you speak good English?

-Somehow, yeah.

OK, are we OK to come in and have a chat with you, please?

-Yeah?

-Have you got some ID?

Do you live here on your own?

-Yeah.

-Have you got some ID, please?

Looks like him, but I'm not sure.

-Anybody else live here?

-Right, yeah.

Somebody else live here? Who else lives here?

-My friend.

-What's his name?

-Jacek.

-Jacek, and what's his last name?

-Er, Andrzejczak.

-Is he here now?

-Yes, he's sleeping.

-Can you bring him downstairs, please?

-Yes.

-OK.

-It's been two hours, he wake up now.

-WHISPERS:

-That's our man, that's our man.

Robbo, he's saying there's another man that's in bed,

and he's given the name of our wanted person.

He's at the right place,

and it seems Dave's found the right man.

No ID?

OK, just tell me your name, then, first, please.

Andrzejczak, Jacek.

Any middle name?

Andrzejczak.

Right. I know I've just woke you up,

and I know it's early in the morning.

There's a warrant been issued for your arrest.

-Do you know about it?

-No.

No? OK, find your ID, we'll go downstairs and have a chat.

I'm going to get him an interpreter,

but I'm going to try and explain things now.

If there's anything he doesn't understand,

do you want to clarify for him, OK?

There's a warrant been issued for your arrest in Poland, OK?

And they're saying...

In 2006, you've stolen a car and crashed it.

Do you remember that?

You remember that, right?

They've issued a warrant for your arrest,

because they want you to go back to Poland

and serve a custodial sentence.

So I'm arresting you on a European arrest warrant,

so you do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be given

in evidence.

We're just going to get him changed

so he's got some more suitable clothes for custody.

That's a photocopy of your ID.

I'll take that, do you need that for anything?

-Do you need that?

-OK.

I'll take that, OK.

Do you want to take your bank card as well,

in case you get out of court tomorrow and you're hungry,

-get some stuff?

-Good night.

-See you later, good night.

-Good night.

-Good night.

I'm not sure if he's in drink, I'm sure I've smelt booze on him,

but he seems... I know we've just woke him up at three o'clock

in t'morning, but he seems not quite with it,

so I think we'll get the nurse to check him out when he's down there,

make sure he's all right. But he says he knows what the offence is,

what it's on about, but he doesn't seem bothered at all, does he?

The wanted man is taken to the police station,

where he'll be kept in the cells overnight.

His ten years on the run are over,

and Dave's persistence has paid off.

In February 2017,

a judge ordered the extradition of Jacek Andrzejczak back to Poland.

He has a year-long prison sentence to serve for an offence committed

over ten years ago.

The violent robber arrested in

London in December 2016 has now been extradited back to Poland.

And Michael Voudouri,

who fled to Cyprus before he could be sentenced

for a multimillion-pound tax fraud,

is now serving an 11-and-a-half-year sentence.