Episode 4 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 search for an elusive Polish drug dealer.

He's not at work.

The staff there have told us he's just left 15 minutes ago.

He's not at home.

Karol?

Will it be third time lucky

in the never-ending search for this phantom fugitive?

And the Liverpool gangsters who ran a campaign of terror...

from a prison cell.

These two individuals were really dangerous.

They had a long history of violence.

But when they were busted out of a prison van

and fled to another country,

they were betrayed by their own phones.

For a week in November,

police across the UK run a special operation,

cracking down on foreign criminals hiding out in Britain.

In Redditch, Worcestershire,

police constables Carl Lacey and Danny Evans are working

with a team of other officers.

They have a long list of outstanding European arrest warrants

for foreigners who have committed crimes back in their native countries.

We know it's hard work, but you have to put the time in to get results.

Their next case will prove to be a tricky one.

They're after a Polish man called Karol Michalski -

a serious criminal sentenced to a total of 45 years in prison

for drug dealing and multiple thefts.

So what we know is what the offence is, date, time and location,

and the fact that they've fled their home country and come to the UK.

That's why the extradition warrant has been issued,

so we can get them back to their country

to serve their prison sentence.

They're on their way to Karol Michalski's last known address.

It's a shared house with several tenants,

so the drug dealer could be behind any door.

Karol?

Hello, sir, you all right?

Danny checks upstairs.

-Are you Polish?

-Polish.

OK.

Do you, um... Do you know a guy called Karol Michalski?

-Lives here.

-No.

Neither the man upstairs, nor the one downstairs, is Karol Michalski.

I spoke to the people that were currently living at that flat.

They said they'd never heard of this guy.

But then Danny spots evidence

Michalski has been living here recently.

There's letters to this premises.

It's obviously communal flats, four flats in here,

so there's obviously communal post. But there's...

letters addressed to this gentleman that we're interested in.

It looks fairly official stuff, so he has at some point resided here.

But he's obviously not here at the moment, so we'll move on.

But the officers aren't giving up.

Danny puts in a call to the landlord

to see if he knows anything about his former tenant's whereabouts.

There's good news.

-The landlord said he's moved in two doors down.

-OK.

The landlord thinks Michalski could be living in one of two houses

further down the same street.

Karol, come on down.

The only question is, which one?

OK, back's secure.

Knocking at house one, there's no answer.

Knocking at house two...

..the same lack of response.

Local residents are keen to help the police.

The team are lead to believe Michalski lives in the second house.

If the information that we've got is correct,

it's probably this is the house this gentleman's living at.

We're just trying to gain access at the moment.

That's why he's probably moved down, it's a bigger house, isn't it?

The light's on upstairs. We just can't get in.

We need to get access to the building.

People are living here, because there's lights on at the premises.

Looking through the windows, you can see food in the kitchen.

If he is in there, he's hiding from us now

because he knows that we're here now,

so we're not leaving here until we've got in here.

This address has a different landlord.

Carl manages to get him on the phone,

and he confirms Karol Michalski does live here,

but is likely to be at work at the moment.

We've got a business address for him.

Let's go to the address first.

With a new lead to follow, the team are determined to find their man.

They're convinced they'll intercept Michalski at his place of work.

Seven years ago,

two men dominated the world of organised crime on Merseyside.

Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes described themselves

as "blood brothers".

Together, they led a gang running a campaign of terror.

These two individuals were really dangerous.

They had a long history of violence.

The pair kept their own hands clean,

ordering others to carry out shootings, kidnappings,

and hand grenade attacks,

mainly against their underworld rivals in Merseyside.

So on one occasion, there'd been a dispute

several weeks earlier within the city centre, within Liverpool,

and that resulted in one of those individuals involved in that dispute

being kidnapped, placed into a van, driven to a wooded area,

where he was abandoned, having been shot in the leg.

That is just an example of the levels that these people go to.

Incredibly, throughout this reign of terror, Tony Downes was in prison,

serving a seven-year stretch for a series of raids on cash machines.

From his cell, he masterminded the gang's criminal activity,

making thousands of calls using smuggled mobile phones.

He coordinated all of these attacks through use of his mobile phone,

so that is people being shot, houses being shot,

and hand grenades being thrown through people's houses.

That from the prison cell, where he's sat with a mobile phone.

But once Downes was arrested, both he and Kirk Bradley

were eventually sent for trial in May 2011.

11 weeks into the court case, they staged a daring escape -

again planned by Downes from his prison cell.

On the 18th of July, their prison van was making its way

from Manchester to Liverpool Crown Court.

A gang of masked men, armed with a sledgehammer and a gun,

were lying in wait.

They smashed the windows of the driver's door,

demanded that the driver open the rear of the vehicle,

which he did, under duress.

A firearm was brandished at that driver.

Once inside the vehicle, the inner cells were opened,

where Bradley and Downes were located,

and then both males were taken off the vehicle.

The getaway car was soon found, but Bradley and Downes had vanished.

The dangerous fugitives were on the run.

They had shown absolute disregard for the safety of others on the road

whilst they were being broken out.

The fact they then went on the run straight away...

You know, it had been pre-planned,

they had a huge network of criminals around them,

and the fact that someone had taken the time, risk

to put themselves in the situation of breaking them out

shows that, actually, the criminal fraternity

were very fearful of them, and held them in very high regard

that such effort was put to break them out.

A major manhunt began.

They were now two of the UK's most wanted.

In West Yorkshire,

searching out foreign criminals wanted by their home countries

is a priority for the police.

But finding them is a tough job.

On the late shift are officers Dave Lockwood and Tom Allen.

They've got a long list of fugitives to search out tonight.

First up is a Polish man wanted for driving while disqualified.

Their search has led them to this street on the other side of Leeds.

Sounds empty.

While Dave heads for the front door,

Tom makes his way round the back to block any exits.

It's the police, open the door!

There's a duvet on the floor.

It looks like they were just sleeping on a rough duvet.

I'm getting a strong smell of cannabis at the front.

As he approaches the door, Dave's suspicions are raised.

Open the door! Or force will be used to gain entry!

This is your last warning.

While Dave shouts through the letterbox,

Tom manages to get into the house through the back door.

Yeah, I thought so.

Dave runs around the back to find a man hiding in the kitchen.

What are you doing?

What are you doing? Put your hands out.

-What have we got, a cannabis grower, Tom?

-Yeah.

-Right.

You're under arrest for cultivating cannabis. OK?

You don't 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.

They may not have found the man they have a warrant for,

but they've uncovered some highly illegal activity.

There's an old adage that you don't know what's behind the door

until you go through it. So officers went in good faith seeking a person

who was wanted, and came across a cannabis farm

We're expecting a 47-year-old Polish male

-wanted for disqualified driving.

-He's not here.

And here we are suddenly dealing with something totally different.

-Is it all clear?

-Yeah.

The whole house has been converted

into an illegal cannabis-growing factory.

You've got a full room here, set up with maturing plants.

Left-hand side as you come up the stairs,

it's clearly plants that have been grown and cut for...

And cultivated into actual product to be sold on the street.

And then the right-hand side, again,

a further full set-up of maturing plants.

Criminals associate with other criminals,

so just because you don't find the person you're looking for,

you may well find somebody else

who's wanted for something totally unconnected. Or, like this...

it's just someone totally unrelated, no connection.

Well, on face value, no connection to the male we're looking for.

And they might consider themselves unlucky that we've come here tonight

looking for somebody else, and we've stumbled upon this.

Though these weren't the fugitives the officers were looking for,

the night has ended with the seizure of 385 cannabis plants

and the arrest of two illegal immigrants.

In July 2011, two vicious criminals from Liverpool,

Kirk Bradley and Anthony Downes, were 11 weeks into their trial

when they staged an audacious escape from a prison van.

Across Europe, a manhunt began, and the public were asked for help.

Now, police urgently need to trace these two.

This is Kirk Trevor Bradley, and Anthony Tony Downes.

They escaped from a prison van in July.

We started to look at alerting the airports, seaports,

because we were under the impression

that they may well look to leave the country.

When major criminals go on the run,

it's the National Crime Agency who coordinate the search.

Back in 2011, it was their predecessor,

the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

They knew that searching for the pair would be difficult.

We knew that there would be certain pieces of intelligence

that were overlapping, so a piece of intelligence around Downes

might also have applied to Bradley,

so it made it harder in that we had to run the cases together,

we had to cross-reference everything that we had to make sure

that there wasn't anything that we missed,

to make sure that we weren't led down the wrong path.

Early intelligence suggested that the pair were hiding out in Spain,

but they were still on the move.

We had an inkling that they might have moved across from Spain.

We started to focus our efforts on Amsterdam.

We had some really good intelligence around associates,

around people perhaps travelling out to see them.

We built up a really good pattern,

which corroborated what we already thought.

So we had a pretty good idea

of where they were in the Netherlands by that point.

26-year-old Bradley was already known to the authorities,

having previously been arrested for gun crimes.

Police made a public appeal in the Netherlands

to put pressure on the wanted men.

We tried to make that a hostile area for them,

again to increase their notoriety in those areas,

to prevent movement and to generate intelligence

to support the investigation.

Then, in March 2012, almost a year after their escape,

Tony Downes was finally spotted,

checking into a holiday park in the south of the Netherlands.

There was a piece of intelligence

that a male fitting Downes's description

was in the area of Zeeland,

and the Dutch police took that intelligence, responded to it,

and found Downes.

He was living a very comfortable lifestyle.

He was moving between holiday properties,

he was there with his partner, and I think the fact that he's found

with a loaded firearm in the back of the car,

Dutch authorities said he was reaching towards that firearm

at the time that they took some action against him.

Armed and dangerous, Downes was now off the streets.

By this time, he had already been sentenced

in his absence to life in prison.

As he was extradited back to the UK,

police began looking at whether the information they had found on him

could lead them to Bradley.

We obviously had Downes back,

and also mobile phones gave us opportunities

around identifying numbers for Kirk Bradley also.

I strongly believe that Kirk Bradley will have been well aware

very, very quickly of the arrest of Tony Downes.

I'm surmising, but I would have thought

that would have caused him some concern.

The new information gleaned from his partner in crime's phones

meant that Liverpool gangster Kirk Bradley

was now much more vulnerable.

We knew that we'd got one half of the duo,

but it was really useful as well

because it meant that Bradley would be far more paranoid,

he would be sure that we were looking for him.

It seemed Bradley's options were running out.

After nine months on the run, the net was closing in.

Back in Redditch, Worcestershire,

West Mercia Police are attempting to track down

Polish fugitive Karol Michalski.

He's been found guilty of a long list of metal theft

and drug dealing offences in Poland,

and sentenced to a total of 45 years in prison.

He's avoiding jail time by hiding out in the UK.

But finding him was proving difficult.

The team have already visited several addresses with no success.

The intelligence that we may receive one week,

that this fella is working in X place,

that can take some weeks to come through to us,

and by the time we get out there to try to substantiate it

and try to execute any warrants,

that person can already have moved on.

Continuing the search,

officers Matt Britton and Jim Alcock are acting on a tip-off

that he's working at this warehouse.

The plot sickens.

Yeah, we... He does work there, I think.

He should have turned up yesterday, but he didn't.

So Matt and Jim go back to the house

Michalski's supposed to be living in.

When they were here previously, there was no answer at the door.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-Police.

-Can we come in for a moment?

-Yeah.

Do you know anyone called Karol?

-Karol?

-Yeah, Karol.

Ah, he's not at home, he's at job now.

He's at a job now, is he?

Yeah, but I can show you his room, if you want.

-Please, yeah. Which room is he?

-Upstairs.

-How long has he been at work for today?

-Um...

THEY KNOCK

Karol?

Frustratingly, Karol Michalski isn't here.

But his stuff is.

We've confirmed that the gentlemen we're after

does reside in this room.

We found other documentation with the gentleman's name on.

Identity card, banker's card.

So we're more than happy that this is his place of residence.

Then Jim finds a clue as to where Michalski might be.

That's interesting.

A letter with details of a new job.

We've got an address in Bromsgrove, Matt, so...

I think we've probably missed him by about half-hour.

-He's there until ten o'clock.

-Yeah.

So, with the paperwork we've managed to find in the address,

we've got some telephone numbers on it,

we've contacted those telephone numbers.

One of them was a recruitment agency.

I spoke with the recruitment agency,

they've confirmed that the gentleman we're looking for

is now employed by them, and he's at an address in Bromsgrove.

We're going to make our way there now, see if we can detain him.

The trail leads to a second packing warehouse.

It's an induction day for new staff,

but after a quick search of the group,

there's still no sign of Michalski.

We've turned up at his place of work, where he's working today,

and the staff there have told us that he's just left 15 minutes ago,

so we've only just missed him.

He walked out the factory as we were probably driving up the road,

got onto the bus and headed back to his home address,

and we had literally missed him by a couple of minutes.

That was quite frustrating, yes.

Now they are on their way to intercept him

before he has a chance to escape.

Karol Michalski is believed to be upstairs.

Matt and Jim go to make the arrest.

Karol?

Hello, Karol?

-Right.

-Should have a tattoo of a spider on his neck.

Let's have a look at you a minute.

'He had a tattoo of a spider, I believe it was,

'on the right side of his neck.'

And upon entering his room,

I could see the right side of his neck straight away,

and I thought, "Yes, right, got him, this is our man."

I was immediately sure he was who he was.

Right, Karol...

you are under arrest under the Extradition Act of 2003.

You do not have to say anything.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

Because you're under arrest, mate,

we're going to put the handcuffs on you. OK?

Not too tight, are they?

-Er, no.

-Right.

Right, Karol, we're just going to walk you downstairs.

We're going to take you into the police car.

-LADDER BANGS

-Oh. Wrecking the place.

-What you done, kid?

-Your car.

-Yeah, yeah.

-This car over here, mate.

-In there.

Stick yourself in there, mate.

In the middle?

Actually, it's quite a feeling of job well done,

quite a bit of satisfaction.

Inside, you're quietly saying, "Yes, got him!"

Tonight, Michalski will be taken to London.

In the morning, Poland's request to extradite the man

with many crimes to answer for

will be heard at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

In July 2011, Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes,

two 26-year-olds who described themselves as "blood brothers",

were on their way to court.

In the previous two years,

the pair were responsible for multiple shootings

and kidnappings across Merseyside.

By being broken out of a prison van,

it showed how willing they were to do anything to escape

and how willing they were to do anything

in order to continue their criminal activities.

So for us, it was a priority to get them back.

After eight months on the run, Downes was caught by Dutch police

as he and his girlfriend checked into this holiday park.

But in Amsterdam, Inspector Remco van Huys

was still searching for his partner in crime, Kirk Bradley.

Information found on Downes' phone helped him narrow the search.

Police also knew that several members of Bradley's family

were living in the city.

Bradley's uncle was already known to the police.

Soon, officers picked up on a series of calls he made

to his nephew's number - using an interesting nickname.

They called him by his nickname, which was "Little One",

which English or British authorities

said might be the nickname of Mr Kirk Bradley,

the one we were looking for.

Remco and his team weren't just looking at the Bradley family,

but also those who worked for them.

And sure enough, a woman who cleaned for the Bradleys

seemed to have a new customer in the south-east of the city.

She became a point of interest for us into the investigation,

and after a few observations, we saw she was also going to this area.

We didn't know exactly which building,

but we knew she was doing something here.

A surveillance team began watching the apartment block

in Bijlmer in south-east Amsterdam.

We made observations around the house, but we didn't see anything.

He was not going out at all.

Police still needed to be sure that the man hiding out was Kirk Bradley.

Again, it was his phone that provided the evidence,

and pinpointed his exact location.

There was a lot of tension on this investigation,

because the pressure was very high to arrest Kirk Bradley.

It took a long time to find his house,

but as soon as we discovered that the phone was in the house,

it was only a matter of, I think, two days.

Merseyside Police flew to Amsterdam to assist with the arrest.

I briefed the Dutch authorities

regarding the danger that Bradley posed,

the violence that Bradley may offer up.

The blinds of that apartment were all closed and shut up,

which made it a little bit more difficult and intense

when we were at the final stages before going in through the door.

It was about ten o'clock in the night

when our technical department gave us information

that they exactly knew where the telephone was,

which together with all the extra pieces of the investigation

was good enough for us to make the arrest.

You can never be certain until you see him there,

you have hands on and he's arrested,

that he's actually going to be there.

At around midnight, the armed police were ready to strike.

The raid team started their raid on the house.

They arrested Mr Bradley, he was sitting on the couch.

It was a great evening,

and I remember that we were cheering when we had him, yes.

And the English colleagues as well, they were very happy.

Officers handcuffed and blindfolded their fugitive

whilst they searched his flat.

When Kirk Bradley was arrested within this apartment in Amsterdam,

he was in possession of a huge amount

of mobile phones and Sim cards.

He had a false passport also, and a significant quantity of money also.

A month later, police returned to the Netherlands

to extradite both Bradley and Downes.

Because of what they'd face trial for,

none of the commercial carriers would take them

and bring them back into the UK.

And therefore we had to hire a private plane

to bring them back into the UK.

We do not want these individuals escaping for a second time.

The men who had dominated gang crime in Liverpool

were taken straight to prison -

already sentenced to a minimum of 22 years each.

This was a gang who ruled through fear and through intimidation,

who exacted extreme levels of violence

with firearms and hand grenades,

and therefore to have them put into jail for a period of 22 years

is a fantastic result.

The cannabis seized in the house in West Yorkshire was calculated

by police to have a street value approaching £500,000.

One of the men was sent to prison for 16 months

for being concerned in the production of a class B drug.

But the second man was released without charge.

The man convicted of multiple thefts and drug supply in Poland,

Karol Michalski, was awarded bail by a judge

at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

He then absconded from his home in Redditch and is again on the run.

And "blood brothers" Kirk Bradley and Anthony Downes

were returned to the UK.

Both had already been sentenced in their absence.

They continue to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.