Episode 15 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...

GLASS SMASHES

..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 Metropolitan Police are up against it,

trying to identify a suspect accused of killing a man

and shooting a policeman in Brazil...

There was no identification material.

Brazil would not send us a photograph of him.

We didn't have any fingerprints for him.

..the millionaire ostrich farmer turned drug smuggler,

who travelled the globe to escape the law...

I've always maintained that Martin Evans would be a millionaire,

by hook or by crook.

Unfortunately, he decided by crook.

..and police in Yorkshire have a surprise for a violent robber

who dodged jail in Poland...

I've got some bad news for you.

There's a warrant been issued for your arrest.

Just put these handcuffs on.

London is home to nearly nine million people.

Hidden amongst them, fugitives from across the world.

It's the job of the Met's Extradition Unit to find them.

This morning a team of detectives

are heading to the east of the city

in search of a man wanted for murder,

but all they have to go on is his name.

Francisco dos Santos is wanted in Brazil

where he is accused of murdering

a man and attempting to murder

a police officer back in November 1994.

A police officer is alleged to have

come across a drugs deal taking place

in a hotel where dos Santos

was working - and in the course of the struggle,

dos Santos is accused of taking the police officer's gun from his belt

and shooting him.

Pete thinks this is the home of the suspect,

but there's no answer at the door.

Hello?

Unlike the rest of the street, this house seems to be unoccupied.

If you look along, windows open, quite a warm evening.

Windows open on every house here, really.

But not on this one.

Then just as the team are about to give up,

they hear a sound from inside the house...

Someone's coming.

Sorry to trouble you, sir. Good morning.

Did you hear us knocking at all?

..but Pete has a problem.

He's got no idea what the suspect looks like.

There was no identification material.

Brazil would not send us a photograph of him.

We didn't have any fingerprints for him.

One of the considerations when we knocked on the door

was who was going to come to the door?

Were we going to be given access

to speak to other people that live there?

Was it going to be dos Santos himself that came to the door?

I'm Pete Rance.

I'm a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police Service.

Can you tell me your full name, please?

And what's your date of birth, please?

In this particular case it was, and we spoke to him

and were able to ascertain that he was the person

that was wanted in Brazil.

30th of November 1994,

you're accused of murdering this man, Mr Andrade.

-Do you know that? Did you know you had a problem in Brazil?

-Yeah.

You know about it? OK. Because I've got a warrant for your arrest,

you're under arrest on that warrant.

You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say

may be given in evidence.

-Do you understand?

-Yeah.

-OK, so what we need to do,

we need to get you some clothes.

He's wanted for murder,

an extremely serious offence, and, for me,

the key consideration is to ensure that he doesn't present any risk

to anybody present - the officers or, indeed, to himself.

So, when we are in the address, once he is arrested,

he needed to get dressed and change into some clothing.

When he's trying to reach for drawers or to obtain some clothing,

we want to be absolutely sure that is what's happening.

Listen...

You can take... Listen, you are under arrest,

so you have to listen to us at all times.

We are going to make sure that... Listen.

Listen to me. I'm going to make sure that I'm safe,

my colleagues are safe, and that you are safe.

Nobody gets injured. You are wanted for a very serious offence.

I will put you in handcuffs if I have to, do you understand me?

-Yeah, but...

-OK.

OK, so you listen to the officer,

and we will tell you when you can and you can't touch a drawer, OK?

It's a very serious matter.

Pete's now sure he's got the right man...

..but the Brazilian also thinks he knows the identity

of the officer arresting him.

You saw me?

Yeah?

-You saw me?

-Yeah.

He thinks I'm Ross Kemp.

These are the people...

I know the programme you're talking about.

I don't know if it was me, though.

I'm better looking than that fella.

OK. Just put your hands out to the front.

Once he's said goodbye to his family,

the Brazilian is taken to a police station.

OK, you sit this side.

On the way, he denies killing anyone.

"No, I never killed anybody.

"I was working in a hotel.

"That man came to rob me.

"I took his gun, I shot him.

"Because he shot at me.

"He shot the TV. He missed me."

-That's what he said.

-If you could just face that wall for me, please.

Now, it's down to a British judge to decide

whether this suspected murderer can be extradited to Brazil.

If he's sent back, a Brazilian court will then rule on his fate.

Fugitives on the run will do whatever they can to escape the law,

but one jetsetting criminal mastermind

took it further than most.

Smooth-talking conman Martin Evans.

He's quite a charismatic person.

People get taken in by him

without realising the criminal he actually is.

But Evans wasn't always a high-flying criminal.

He started out as an honest businessman

in a small South Wales town.

A really nice, nice, well-mannered, polite gentleman.

He had a natural persuasive talent and he exploited it, obviously.

Evans was a driven entrepreneur.

He even won the title of Welsh Young Businessman of the Year in 1987.

It was an achievement,

a remarkable achievement for a boy of his age, you know?

We were all very proud of him.

But success was short-lived.

Within a few years, his business ventures had collapsed.

That was when Evans turned to crime to make his money.

By 1994 he had been sent to prison

for fraud, and he used the time inside

to dream up an extraordinary scam.

With mad cow disease at its peak and beef off the menu,

Evans convinced people to invest in a new source of red meat, ostrich,

which he planned to breed on a farm on the outskirts of Swansea.

Ostrich was the salvation. That was the number one thing to have.

The brochure was fantastic,

and he'd taken a lot of time and a lot of care about it,

but he was out to exploit the market, and, er, which he did,

in a grand scale.

Evans was even quizzed about the ostriches on Welsh language news.

Investors, some from Evans' own Welsh-speaking communities,

were invited to buy a breeding ostrich and promised massive returns

on their money. But it was all a con.

It was set up as a fraud from day one.

It was never meant to be legitimate,

and so everybody that invested money were at risk.

Former GP Peter Johns and his wife Betty invested £12,000

from his retirement lump sum in one of the ostriches.

We didn't end up with any money from the farm.

We really thought that it was a good business to be in, it failed,

but obviously there's been a little bit of problem

because he's been a conman -

but we didn't know that at the time.

Almost 90 people invested £850,000 in the scheme,

unaware that Evans was selling the same ostriches again and again

to different people.

We realised then every ostrich was owned by about five people.

The ostrich farm finally went bust and the £850,000 disappeared,

channelled into offshore accounts.

All the investors were left with nothing.

Evans and his then wife were charged with fraud,

but on the first day of their trial, he did a runner,

leaving her alone to answer for their crime.

But Evans was just getting started.

The £850,000 he'd scammed

was chicken feed compared to the millions he'd go on to make

as an international drug smuggler.

It was all about the money,

it was all about making as much as he possibly could.

Fugitives from justice in other countries often come to the UK

to try to escape the law.

Many of them end up here in West Yorkshire,

where nearly 100 foreign fugitives have been arrested

in the past year alone.

PC Dave Lockwood is the officer in West Yorkshire Police who takes the

lead on extradition cases, finding offenders wanted abroad.

And he has his next target clearly in his sights.

The interesting thing with this case is it's only just been received in

our office today. And come to me a couple of hours ago.

And all the intelligence is totally bang up-to-date,

so I'm really confident with this address.

Patryk Fornalski is wanted in Poland for violent offences.

He's been convicted of assault and robbery.

Along with other people, he has attacked three males.

These three males have all been

physically assaulted and property, money,

has been stolen from two of them.

This is a picture we hold here in West Yorkshire.

Obviously, tattoos on the neck.

Warning markers for violence. I'm not going to mess around

with this lad, not going to take any chances if he's there.

Not give him an opportunity to think.

Yeah. Don't know which house it is yet.

Dave makes his way to the address,

keeping a lookout for any sign of the target.

End one.

This is a high-risk offender, so backup is called in.

When they arrive at the front gate, Dave sees a man through the window.

He's seen us as well.

But he's also spotted David.

There's no time to waste.

Two officers quickly head to the back of the property,

while Dave goes to the front door.

There's a dog.

Side door.

The other officers have spotted someone.

Dave rushes round to the back door.

Is the dog secure?

Dog secure?

They go inside and confront the man in the kitchen.

-Hello. You all right? What's your name?

-Patryk.

-Patryk. And your last name?

-Fornalski.

Fornalski. I've got some bad news for you.

There's a warrant been issued for your arrest.

-Why?

-OK. I'll explain it all to you in a minute.

Just put these handcuffs on.

With his history of violence, Dave is taking no chances.

-Who do you live here with?

-My girlfriend, my daughter.

-And my friends.

-OK. You are under arrest for a European arrest warrant

for an offensive robbery and offensive assault,

which occurred in 2010. You do not have to say anything, but anything

you do say may be given in evidence. Go in to the living room.

-Take a seat.

-My daughter, she is upstairs.

OK, we don't want to disturb your daughter.

Take a seat. We'll just slow everything down, OK?

You are probably panicking, wanting to do a thousand things.

How old is your daughter that's upstairs?

-Two years.

-Two years?

-Yeah.

-And your partner is at work?

-Yeah.

-So you'll need to ring your partner for her to come home to look

-after your daughter.

-Yeah. Tell me why.

-In 2010,

they are saying you and some other people have carried out a robbery on

three people. You beat three people up, stolen property from them.

-That's not me.

-Right.

-You understand that.

-That's for you to argue what the courts with the

Polish authorities, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Do you understand why they want you to go back?

-I don't know.

-They want you to go back to go to prison in Poland.

-In Poland.

-For these two offences, yeah.

-Can you show me that?

-Yeah, it's in English, this bit.

That's saying you've been found guilty at court...

-Yeah.

-..and it were two years for the robbery and six months for the

-assault.

-Yeah.

-And it says here you've got one year,

eight months and 28 days left to do.

So my job here was to find you.

All right, I understand everything.

But tomorrow at court, you'll get an interpreter, you'll get a solicitor,

and it's down to you and your legal team to sort this problem out. OK?

Just stand there a second before you get in the car.

This fugitive has been living here in the UK for five years,

where he's started a new life.

But the unspent conviction he left

behind in Poland has now finally caught up with him.

Patted his pants down, I'm happy with the rest.

He was calm, yeah. His missus and the other lady in there,

they were shaking and, obviously, his missus couldn't think.

She were here, there and everywhere, trying to sort things out for him.

So it's probably just torn that family apart.

As Fornalski is taken to the police station and into custody,

it's time for this fugitive to face

the facts that he could be going back to jail in Poland.

He'll spend the night in a police cell before being taken to court in

-the morning...

-Thanks.

-Look after yourself.

-..where a judge will decide his fate.

In the offices of the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit,

Detective Sergeant Pete Rance is working on an unusual case.

So he was believed to be in Australia, China, Hong Kong,

South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and the USA.

-Everywhere but the UK.

-What links him here?

We know he's here. He's got business here, got a car registered here.

All to the address we are going to go to.

It's an extradition request from police in India,

seeking the arrest of a North London businessman.

We just do the normal, try and contain the address,

someone round the back, me and Jay will make the approach

to the address. You and Kev can cover the rear and the sides, yeah?

The man they're looking for is wanted in connection with one of the

most notorious match fixing scandals in the history of cricket.

Back in the year 2000,

the South African cricket team's captain

was respected across the world and a hero in his own country.

His name was Hansie Cronje.

South Africa, under his leadership, had gone undefeated for 14 games.

He came from a very well-respected South African family.

His brother-in-law was a minister of religion

and he was an absolute icon.

But all was not as it seemed.

Hansie Cronje had secretly been

taking bribes to fix international cricket games.

He'd probably be one of the last people you would have thought to

have been guilty of this sort of thing.

So it was surprise more than anything

and a tinge of sadness that it had happened to him.

During a Test match series in South Africa in 2000,

Cronje met a bookie who was already

under investigation by Indian police.

Officers believed he was encouraging Cronje

to fix certain parts of matches.

What he was asking Cronje to do was to make sure that a certain person

would perhaps only score under 20

and also if a bowler would underperform

and go for about six or seven runs an over,

and that can make a huge amount of money.

When evidence emerged that Cronje

had taken large amounts of money from a betting syndicate,

the former South African captain

confessed all in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

I was not honest and I apologise unreservedly.

Words cannot begin to describe the shame, humiliation and pain

which I feel in the knowledge that I have inflicted this on others.

Cronje was banned from cricket for life.

He died in a plane crash in South Africa just two years later.

Many years on and thousands of miles away,

Pete and his team are on their way to track down the bookie

Indian authorities have accused of being involved in the betting

syndicate that bribed the disgraced South African cricket captain.

With this particular case - from start to finish to

where we are now - has taken around four years to get to this point.

From it being received into the office, as this bloke might be

in the UK to having a warrant in our hands to go and arrest.

The investigation has tracked the suspect to a house in North London,

but as Pete approaches, the man he's after is on the move.

Jamie's up there, he's got ahead of us and they are up by the address.

And a man matching the description

has just come out and got into a black Mercedes that is...

MOBILE RINGS

..registered to the man we are looking for.

Hello.

Hold on to him. We are about two minutes away.

If you just step out for a second.

OK, all right. Can I just talk...?

Hello, sir. Can we just have a chat with you?

Is that all right?

Just talk to my colleague.

Hiya. That's my name, Peter Rance, I'm a Detective Sergeant

with the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit.

Are you aware that you are wanted in India?

-There's something going on, yeah.

-You are aware of that? OK.

There's a warrant for your arrest.

-I'm going to arrest you on that warrant.

-OK.

You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence

if you don't mention when questioned something which you later rely on

in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

Can I just make a note of the time? OK, have you got your passport or

any evidence of your identity on you at all?

-Passport is in the house.

-OK, can we go inside and get that?

-Is that OK?

-Sure.

-We are going to stay you with you now, obviously,

-because you are under arrest.

-It's taken four years of investigation to

find this suspect and he almost missed being arrested this morning.

He was in the car, engine was on, he was just about to drive off,

so we turned up just at the right time.

OK.

The suspect is taken to the police station before going to court,

where he must begin to answer for the crimes he is accused of.

I think he's panicked, I think he's extremely worried.

He's got a young family over here.

This was 16 years ago.

But the feeling I got from him was that he was always a little bit

concerned that there might be a knock on the door and today was the

day when he was confronted with the fact that he is wanted for serious

criminality in India, he is accused, not convicted.

But if he ended up going back there and got convicted,

he'd be going to prison for some time.

So I would imagine it has put him very much on the back foot and

apprehensive about what lies ahead.

Smooth-talking fraudster

Martin Evans planned to make it big,

whatever the cost.

He was a shrewd man, but he wanted money quick.

He'd come up with an incredible scam,

convincing dozens of people to invest in a dodgy ostrich farm.

It was set up as a fraud from day one.

It was never meant to be legitimate.

Evans pocketed investors' money,

then failed to turn up to his own trial,

leaving his wife to face the music.

It was all about the money,

it was all about making as much as he possibly could,

no matter who he harmed.

He fled, and spent his life moving between the USA and Europe.

Within a year, the fugitive Evans

had reinvented himself as an international drug smuggler

and embraced the jet set lifestyle to go with it.

This National Crime Agency officer was part of a team that hunted him.

Martin had made £37 million and he had made that through fraud and

through bringing drugs, cocaine and ecstasy, into the UK.

But by 2001, Evans was under arrest once more,

stopped as he flew into the USA through JFK Airport

after a trip to Europe.

The giveaway? False travel documents.

He was on a watchlist,

so the American authorities returned him to Paris.

He was eventually extradited back to the UK in 2003.

Evans was finally jailed for

21 years for fraud and drug trafficking.

The courts ordered him to surrender £5 million worth of assets.

People have described Martin as a likeable rogue, but there's no doubt

that Martin is in it for the profit for himself.

After spending several years in prison,

Evans was allowed out on a temporary licence.

He was supposed to visit Swansea for the weekend.

Instead, the con man took his chance and disappeared.

A manhunt has been launched for a conman

who's failed to return to prison.

49-year-old Martin Evans from Pontarddulais

swindled investors out of thousands of pounds.

With Evans' record for globetrotting,

the manhunt was a top priority for

the agency responsible for tracking down British fugitives worldwide.

We know that his then girlfriend had gone to Cyprus,

so we were quite happy that Martin had moved out of the country and

probably gone via the continent and ended up in Cyprus.

It was a shrewd destination for Evans.

The north of the island is allied to Turkey

and has no extradition treaty with the UK.

2,000 miles from British justice,

Evans and his partner settled into island life.

He was living in a villa, a rented villa,

which he was paying quite a substantial amount for each month.

He had his dogs there, he was using the gym,

and obviously enjoying the weather.

Evans stayed under the radar.

Frustrated they couldn't get to him,

the National Crime Agency teamed up

with Crimestoppers to launch a public appeal in Cyprus.

Investigators hoped the publicity would flush him out.

He was featured within the local press on the island and there are

expats there as well. So he would be thinking,

"How long is it going to be before people actually pinpoint where I am

"and they come and arrest me?"

His cover was blown.

Evans knew it was time to flee once more.

And this time, his destination was half a world away.

Johannesburg, South Africa.

In late 2012,

Martin Evans came here to start yet another new life for himself,

once again using a false identity.

My officers back here in Wales were still ploughing through data,

still trying to find where he was.

Working with the South African police,

the NCA began to search the suburbs around Johannesburg.

We were able to give the South Africans

a number of locations which culminated with them

deploying surveillance teams and surveillance assets

to be able to identify which properties he was at.

He lived in a villa, socialised, mixed with people,

and carried on with quite a nice lifestyle.

But the net was closing in.

South African police staked out an upmarket suburb,

waiting for Evans to surface.

In August 2014, while he was getting out of his car,

armed police swooped in and arrested him.

I don't think he put up much of a fight

between heavily-armed surveillance South African operatives.

At a Johannesburg court, a judge ordered his extradition.

The epic flight from justice that began in south Wales

finally ended in South Africa.

It doesn't sound a huge thing when somebody has actually

absconded from prison and left the UK, but when you are actually

taking into account the criminal that Martin Evans was,

it was satisfying to actually have him arrested

and put back before the courts.

Evans was brought back to the UK

to finish the rest of his jail sentence.

Probably part of him was relieved that he was coming back to the UK,

but another part of him was leaving the good life

in South Africa, which we know that he was enjoying immensely.

During his years smuggling drugs into the UK,

Evans was believed to have made more than £37 million.

He'd spent it on luxury cars, yachts and villas, living the high life.

But now, the game was up and he was brought back to where he belonged,

a prison cell.

Martin Evans served the rest of his sentence and was released on

conditional licence in 2015.

He still has to repay £5 million in criminal proceeds.

The man arrested for allegedly taking part in a match fixing scam

is currently on bail. He will appear in court again in the spring.

Patryk Fornalski remains in custody,

whilst the courts decide if he should be sent to Poland to serve

his time for theft and assault.

And Francesco dos Santos -

who denies both charges of murder and attempted murder -

is currently appealing against his extradition to Brazil.