Two UK brothers and a co-conspirator attempted to kill a convicted armed robber just weeks after stealing Ming Dynasty artefacts worth millions of Euros.
ADVERTISEMENTThree men in the UK have been found guilty of conspiracy to murder in the case of a cage fighter and career criminal who narrowly escaped death after being shot and injured in his own home in 2019.
The three men, Daniel Kelly and brothers Louis and Stewart Ahearne, were convicted at the Old Bailey in London two days ago after a trial that drew on evidence from the SIM card of an iPad recovered from the river Thames.
The three men had just weeks before staged a major art heist, looting several 14th-century Chinese artefacts worth more than €3m from the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva using an angle grinder, a sledgehammer and a crowbar.
The prosecution’s case said that they carefully planned their attempt on the life of convicted armed robber Paul Allen a month later, monitoring him for weeks and attaching a tracking device to his car to follow his movements. He was eventually shot through a window at his home and seriously injured, but medics were able to save his life with emergency surgery.
Allen had previously served time in jail for taking part in the most lucrative armed robbery in British history, a 2006 attack on a security facility in Kent that saw a manager and his family abducted and £54m (€64.5m) stolen by robbers wielding AK-47s.
Underwater evidence
The case against the three men for their attack on Allen drew on witness testimony, DNA left at the scene, and CCTV and car numberplate recognition data — as well as call data recovered from an iPad that had been thrown into the Thames just downstream of London’s O2 arena.
After carefully retrieving the device’s SIM card, police were able to establish that it had been connected to GPS devices found in the men’s car. Investigators were also able to access an email account containing details of multiple Amazon purchases made in advance of the murder attempt, including the burner phones the men used to communicate.
Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent Matt Webb, the lead officer in the investigation, said the men were likely to face lengthy custodial sentences.
“The court heard how the defendants, hardened organised criminals, acted together in a well-planned and orchestrated manner to shoot their victim. It is only for the intervention of police first responders and medical professionals that the victim wasn’t killed,” Webb said.
“This attack may look like the plot to a Hollywood blockbuster but the reality is something quite different. This was horrific criminality.”
“The court heard how this was a clear and defined attempt to take a man’s life with those responsible making significant efforts to ensure this was successful,” he concluded.
Rajneesh Singh is a journalist at Asian News, specializing in entertainment, culture, international affairs, and financial technology. With a keen eye for the latest trends and developments, he delivers fresh, insightful perspectives to his audience. Rajneesh’s passion for storytelling and thorough reporting has established him as a trusted voice in the industry.
