Category Archives: Robert dawes

The trial of “The One” begins in Paris….expect some twists and turns

ONE of the UK’s biggest Narcos will go on trial Monday accused of being the mastermind behind the biggest haul of cocaine seized in France.

In a 70 page document, French prosecutors, backed by evidence obtained from four national law enforcement agencies, accuse Robert Dawes of heading a ruthless drug cartel based in Spain since 2001, which had criminal tentacles reaching out across the globe to 60 countries.

Over two weeks at France’s highest court, prosecutors will present evidence that the 46-year-old Nottingham-born criminal, known only as “The One” to those in business with him, was behind an audacious plan which resulted in 1.3 tonnes of high-grade cocaine being seized at Paris’ Roissy airport in September 2013. The French drug enforcement agency OCRTIS, tipped off by the UK’s National Crime Agency agents in Venezuela, followed the drugs as they were transferred via more than 30 suitcases of “ghost” passengers aboard a commercial flight from Caracas to Paris.

Dawes under surveillance in Spain in 2013

Jointly accused with Dawes are two of his footsoldiers Nathan Wheat,35 and Kane Price, 31 and three Italians including a high-ranking member of the notorious Camorra mafia, Vincenzo Aprea aged 50. Prosecutors conclude that Dawes was acting as the “DHL” man, or logistics head for a number of organised crime groups in Europe and North America. For the price of 30 per cent of the value of the load Dawes would ensure the drugs passed through customs checkpoints via corrupt port workers who were on his payroll.

Surveillance of Dawes before his arrest in November 2015 showed him in contact with corrupt Spanish law enforcement officers and former port authority managers working in Algeciras, Spain. Prosecutors believe there was also evidence that Dawes had obtained French law enforcement files on the case within just eight weeks of Nathan Wheat’s arrest. Investigators also have information that Dawes planned to import a two-ton cocaine load from Colombia just weeks after the Paris bust.

An arrest warrant was issued for Dawes, now 46, after he was caught on bugs bragging about the Paris cocaine load. Elite Guardia Civil officers followed Dawes to a meeting at Madrid’s five star Villa Magna Hotel where he was caught on film and audio meeting a high ranking member of Colombia’s Carli Cartel and a Venezuela drug lord. According to the UK’s National Crime Agency, the Colombian man meeting Dawes was “a prolific money launderer for the Cali cartel and had political connections at the highest levels of the Colombian government”.

At the meeting Dawes spelt out his skills at getting drugs into virtually any country. He insisted on using highly encrypted blackberry mobile to communicate if they were to do business. In fact, Dawes was in control – via associates including the late Dutch crime lord Gwenette Martha – of a specialist sim card and mobile phone supplier registered at Companies House. The PGP encryption technology it supplied was virtually unbreakable and as soon as arrests began to take place after the Paris bust, Dawes ensured that all the phones in use were wiped remotely of any criminal evidence.

Robert Dawes discusses business over drinks with the Columbians at Hotel Villa Magna, Madrid

Dawes was transferred to a high-security prison in France shortly after his arrest but within a few weeks he had sourced a mobile phone and was calling his family in Spain and his Chinese mistress. During one call to his Chinese mistress Dawes, angered by her actions while in Dubai, threatened to kill her.

Investigators have frozen a number of Dawes assets including a large plot of land with a fishing lake in Coin, Spain and a luxurious villa in Benalmadena, Spain which was in the name of a Lichtenstein nominee business. They are also continuing to focus on money laundering activities in Malta, where Dawes had a company, Dubai, where he had at least £10 million worth of property and banking links in Switzerland, Pakistan and China.

The moment Dawes was led away from his Spanish villa to face extradition to France

Since his arrest Dawes’ lawyers have made a number of attempts to have some of the evidence against him ruled inadmissible, even going to the European Court of Human Rights to have bugging evidence ruled illegal. However their submissions have all been rebuffed.

A key part of the defence strategy has also been to question the methods used by the French drug enforcement agency OCRTIS and in particular the role of an informant, French-Moroccan drug lord Sofiane Hambli, in the bust at Paris airport. Hambli’s handler Francois Thierry, former head of OCRTIS, whose methods have come under scrutiny, is expected to give evidence in the case.

The fact that Hambli’s own lawyer Joseph Cohen Sabban has been seconded to Dawes legal team is an indication of how important Dawes’ lawyers believe this line of inquiry is in the case.

Dutch prosecutor confirms murder case linked to British crime lord to be re-opened

PROSECUTORS in the Netherlands have re-opened the investigation into the murder of schoolteacher Gerard Meesters following a case review.

The move follows a formal complaint made last year by the family of Mr Meesters who was gunned down on his doorstep in Groningen in November 2002.

Prosecutors believe they have new evidence which connects the murder to British crime lord Robert Dawes, currently awaiting trial in Paris over a seizure of 1.3 tonnes of cocaine in September 2013.

Interviews with significant witnesses including Gerard Meesters’ son Koen will begin next week.  Prosecutors are also likely to seek an interview with Daniel Sowerby who is currently serving a life sentence for carrying out the shooting.

During his court case in which fellow Brit Steven Barnes was also prosecuted as the getaway driver, Sowerby denied being the shooter but has since admitted he was a trusted employee of Robert Dawes at the time of the murder and had carried out various tasks on behalf of Dawes’ organised crime group including visiting Gerard Meesters in the days before the murder.

The organised crime group led by Dawes had lost a significant load of drugs which they believed had been stolen by Gerard’s sister Janette and a friend Madeleine Brussen. Sowerby was sent to the home of Mr Meesters, who had no involvement in crime, to demand the teacher contact the gangsters and let them know where his sister was.

Sowerby was accompanied by notorious Dutch gangster Gwenette Martha, and a number of other men and gave Mr Meesters a Spanish mobile number to call with information about his sister.

When Mr Meesters failed to tell the gang her whereabouts a shooter was dispatched a few days later to brutally murder Mr Meesters on his doorstep.

Gwenette Martha was shot dead in May 2014 as part of a violent power struggle between Dutch Moroccan groups wrestling for control over lucrative cocaine transport lines. Martha had been a close associate of Dawes from 2001 and the two had been doing business right up until his death.

It is expected that prosecutors from the Netherlands will seek to formally interview Dawes at some point in the re-investigation process.

The case that may come back to haunt British crime lord Robert Dawes

IT BEGAN 15 years ago on November 24, 2002, at about 5.30pm when a group of five men gathered in the darkness at the front door of the dimly lit suburban home of a Dutch school teacher.

Four of the men waiting were Dutch nationals. The fifth man who stood at the front of the house on Uranusstraat, Groningen and rang the doorbell was a British national. In his hand, the British man held a strip of thin card torn from a packet of cigarette rolling papers on which was inscribed a Spanish mobile telephone number.

Gerard Meesters, a 52-year-old benign school teacher was at home with his 21-year-old son Koen when the doorbell rang.  The Englishman asked: “Are you Mr Meesters, related to Janette?” He then began to explain that he had a message for Janette Meesters, Gerard’s sister. “It is very important you tell her to call this number,” the Englishman told him.

There was then some confusion as Gerard did not understand the man’s English very well. One of the Dutchmen impatiently pushed to the front to make the message clearer by explaining further in Dutch. “If you do not get her to call the number we will come back and it will not be to talk,” the man explained in Dutch. Gerard was shocked. His son Koen would later testify that he had never seen his father so frightened.

The group of men at the door then dissipated and walked around the corner to two waiting vehicles, one of which contained a sixth man, who was also British. The Dutchmen all got into one car and the British man joined his English colleague in a dark coloured Renault Kangoo. Police would later learn the British man who had gone to the door was a recently escaped prisoner called Daniel Sowerby and his driver was a Nottinghamshire man called Steven Barnes. Police would later learn that the two men took their orders directly from Robert Dawes, a British crime lord who was quickly building a violent criminal smuggling empire from his base on Spain’s Costa Del Sol. He was already being investigated by a large scale operation run by Nottinghamshire Police and backed by the National Crime Squad.

The car containing the Dutchmen included infamous gangster Gwenette Martha and his sidekick Etous Belsarang, head of the Amsterdam chapter of a biker group called Satudarah. Both were well known to police and to Robert Dawes, with whom they had done business. In fact Dawes continued to do business with Gwenette Martha right up until the Dutchman’s liquidation in 2014.

Four days after his scare on the doorstep, on November 28 2002, Gerard, who had left the house to stay with his son and daughter nearby, popped back to the house. He had alerted police to the threat a few days earlier and they did not know what to make of it. All Gerard knew was that his sister was in trouble in Spain but they had not spoken for several months. Just after 7pm Gerard logged into his computer. Then the doorbell went. As he opened the door a gunman rapidly fired eight shots from a handgun. Seven hit their mark. Gerard Meesters slumped in the hallway of his home. He was dead within a few minutes. Witnesses reported hearing popping sounds and seeing a black vehicle with its headlights extinguished moving off at speed nearby.

Later Daniel Sowerby would be convicted of the murder based largely on the testimony of his driver Steven Barnes. Sowerby received a life sentence and Barnes, who is now a free man in the UK, was sentenced to eight years by Dutch judges. Sowerby has consistently denied being the shooter but admitted his role in other parts of the story. The narrative everyone is agreed on is that Gerard, who was never involved in anything criminal, was shot dead because of the exploits of his wayward sister Janette and her friend, Madeleine Brussen. They became known as “Thelma and Louise” on Dutch phone taps which recorded Dawes’ associates talking about the shooting in the months afterwards and why Janette and her friend had gone on the run. It appears the gang believed that Janette and her friend had stolen part of a large consignment of cannabis, which Dawes had part ownership of. Gerard’s fate was sealed when he could not make contact with Janette and a decision was taken to end the talking and send a blood-soaked message.

For the past 15 years Koen and Annemarie Meesters have been unable to get closure on their father’s brutal murder because although the court recognised that Sowerby and Barnes were following orders given to them by the head of an organised crime group, the Dutch prosecutors felt there was not enough evidence to charge the leader of the group and the man they named in court and suspected of giving those orders; Robert Dawes.

Now, on the anniversary of Gerard Meesters’ death, his children have taken the extraordinary step of filing an official complaint naming Robert Dawes as the man who gave the orders and demanding that Dutch prosecutors look at the case again. Their hand is strengthened by a number of factors. Firstly they are being supported in their efforts by former and current Dutch police officers who handled their father’s case. There is also support from former officials in the Dutch prosecutor’s office, who believe collectively there are now enough details to put together a case against Robert Dawes. Thirdly the power which was once wielded by Dawes has diminished since he was arrested in November 2015 over a 1.3 tonnes load of cocaine shipped into Paris airport in September 2013.

The moment Dawes was led away from his Spanish villa to face extradition to France

Dawes will stand trial for that offence next year along with two footsoldiers and three members of the Camorra mafia. His incarceration has meant that the silence he could once demand from his footsoldiers and lieutenants is no longer guaranteed. It has meant that over time a clearer picture has emerged of the planning of Gerard Meesters’ murder and other crimes committed by the organised crime group led by Robert Dawes.

Dawes under surveillance in Spain in 2013

In the Dutch newspapers today Koen,36 and Annemarie,34, who I have been in regular contact with over the past four years, have spoken out about their frustration over the case and their hopes that the filing of the complaint will give the authorities no option but to review  the case again in relation to Robert Dawes.

Koen told me: “More details have emerged over time and I believe there is a case when all the parts of the jigsaw are put together.

“If it turns out there is actually too little evidence and he is acquitted, we will have to accept this. Doing nothing is not an option for us. We can not live with that. ”

Roelf Wessels, the now-retired police officer who led the investigation into Gerard’s murder has also spoken out.

He said: “There was more than a reasonable suspicion of Robert Dawes involvement at the time. Dawes should have been arrested, but to date, the Public Prosecutor has never given permission. We have arrested suspects for less. ”

Koen and Annemarie Meesters also revealed that they have had contact with the man convicted of carrying out the shooting of their father – Daniel Sowerby – visiting him in prison to try to prise information from him about how he received his orders directly from Robert Dawes. Sowerby has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and may only have a short time to live.

Robert Dawes to face French court next year over 1.3 tonnes cocaine seizure

ONE of the UK’s most powerful narco-traffickers will finally face the courtroom next year following his arrest in Spain almost two years ago.

Nottingham born Robert Dawes, 45, is charged with organising a 1.3 tonnes shipment of cocaine from Venezuela and seized in suitcases from a flight which touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport Roissy, Paris in September 2013, according to French prosecutors.

The moment Dawes was led away from his Spanish villa by Guardia Civil officers to face extradition to France

More details have also emerged about the case against the British crime lord from the French prosecutor’s indictment, including Dawes’ links to two British men arrested in Paris and to a wing of the Italian Camorra mafia.

According to French investigators, the operation against Dawes began on 8 July 2013 when information was received that a large consignment of cocaine was going to be sent from Venezuela to France via a passenger flight.  The information stated that a British organised crime group was behind the shipment.

More information came through to French investigators enabling them to tag Roissy airport about 20 miles from the centre of Paris as the destination point. On September 11 the shipment arrived in 31 suitcases belonging to “ghost” passengers. Having intercepted the shipment by stealth, French investigators then placed undercover officers via an informant into the baggage handling facility at Charles-de-Gaulle airport.

On September 16 2013 the undercover baggage handler’s phone rang. The voice was a man speaking in English calling himself “Marcus”. A meeting was arranged for that evening in Paris. Location? Under the Eiffel Tower. “Marcus”, the evidence will say turned out to be a 34-year-old Nottinghamshire born man called Nathan Wheat.

Nathan Wheat born in Mansfield in 1983 was a known associate of Robert Dawes who, like his boss, lived on Spain’s Mijas Costa. Records showed he had also visited Venezuela in April 2013. Investigators believe this would have been to oversee the logistics of the Caracas to Paris transport operation on behalf of Robert Dawes. Several Venezuelan police officers with alleged links to the Venezuelan outfit Cartel de Los Soles and a Caracas airport remit would later be arrested. At the Eiffel Tower meet, “Marcus” handed a Dutch-sourced Blackberry encrypted with PGP technology to the undercover baggage handler “Sergio” and told him this was to be the only form of communication to be used from there on. Similar Dutch-sourced Blackberry mobiles with PGP encryption would later be discovered when Guardia Civil raided Robert Dawes palatial villa

Dawes facing a Guardia Civil officer as his Mijas Costa home is raided in November 2015

in Benalmadena in November 2015. In court cases already dealt with, associates of Dawes were found to be in control of a mobile phone business registered at Companies House in the UK, selling encrypted sim cards with Blackberry phones at €2,000 a piece with branches all over the world. There was little legitimate business done by the mobile phone company. In reality, it was a cover for an encrypted network of communications designed to thwart all eavesdropping attempts by law enforcement agencies. One company director was jailed for 10 years in Portugal after being caught with a 167 kilo shipment of cocaine linked to Dawes. Another director, overseeing a cocaine shipment that went missing, was shot dead in Antwerp in 2012 leading to a wild west of tit for tat shootings in Netherlands and abroad which claimed upwards of 15 lives. Some of the victims were mistaken innocents and others were simply girlfriends or relatives of targets.

Oblivious the load had already been intercepted, Wheat then organised a meeting with “Sergio” at the Cafe Kleber in Paris. There Wheat gave the undercover baggage handler further instructions about where the shipment would be moved to and how it was to be split into four consignments. One split was just over 300 kilos which would go to representatives of the Camorra mafia gang from Naples. The Camorra shipment was allowed to travel out of the airport in a truck driven by an Italian before being stopped at the German border apparently on its way via Germany to a rendezvous in a Camorra held part of Italy. Two members of the Amato-Pagano clan linked to the Camorra, Vincenzo Aprea and Carmine Russo, both 49 years old, who had been dealing with Nathan Wheat were arrested and have been charged along with the lorry driver. Aprea is believed to be the Camorra clan’s representative in Spain.

The French authorities moved in on Nathan Wheat and his 30-year-old Nottingham colleague Kane Price. They were arrested while out shopping on the Champs Elysees. Price, who gave his occupation as a used car salesman, was bailed through lack of evidence, but after returning to the UK was then arrested handling a large amount of MDMA on behalf of a cell working for Robert Dawes. He was sentenced to three and half years following a court case at Stafford Crown Court in 2016. Wheat remains in custody in France.

Meanwhile, the Guardia Civil upped its monitoring of Dawes. Unable to break the encryption communications he was employing they resorted to tried and tested tactics used pursuing ETA terrorists. Surveillance of Dawes and his associates led investigators to a meeting at the five star Villa Magna hotel in Madrid on September 23, 2014. The meeting was between Dawes, a Columbian from the Medellin cartel and a Spanish/English interpreter. The Guardia Civil legally wired into the hotel’s CCTV and audio system to pick up the conversation and film the meeting. During the chat, Dawes revealed he could get narcotics shipments through most ports and airports in Europe through corrupt contacts. He mentioned contacts in ports such as Algeciras and Valencia in Spain, using ships from Venezuela and from Santos, Brazil, cargo planes in the Netherlands, ships from Morocco to Spain, containers in Antwerp, and shipments by commercial plane in suitcases through airports such as Brussels. Only the airport at Barajas, Madrid was impenetrable, he told the Columbians. His price was 30 per cent commission on the value of anything that went through the transport lines he controlled air, sea or land. Those networks would inevitably reveal a layer of corrupt officials within the import/export chain and law enforcement, whose loyalty Dawes had bought.

On tape Dawes was also caught boasting about the 1.3 tonnes of cocaine Paris shipment “the one that was in the news using the cases…that was mine”, he said. He appeared to be trying to convince the Medellin drug boss of his credentials. He was also caught telling the Columbian that the only way he would communicate with the Columbians would be via a Blackberry PGP encrypted mobile which he would supply to whoever he dealt with.

Robert Dawes discusses business over drinks with the Columbians at Hotel Villa Magna, Madrid

Dawes’ legal team, led by the so called “Jihadist’s Lawyer” Xavier Nogueras, are desperately trying to prevent this evidence from being included in the French court case, claiming that the material was illegally obtained. Dawes’ legal team is also interested in the use of informants in the case and in particular a reference in the case file to an infamous French drug smuggler Sofiane Hambli.

After the raid on Dawes’ Benalmadena villa on November 12 2015, the scale of his dealings has also become clearer. Documentation seized by Spain’s Guardia Civil investigators shows that the Briton had banking and telephone contacts spanning five continents in more than 50 countries including significant contacts in Afghanistan, UK, Malta, Syria, Italy, France, Netherlands, Nigeria, Finland, Somalia, Colombia, Pakistan, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and China.

Via his legal team, Dawes – currently being held at Fresnes prison near Paris – is expected to continue to attempt to water down the evidence which mounts against him and use delaying tactics in his case.

 

“Key associate” linked to Robert Dawes arrested in Spain

A “KEY member” of a drugs Cartel headed by British crime lord Robert Dawes has been arrested following a joint operation between Dutch and Spanish investigators.

Emiel Brummer, a 42-year-old Dutchman was held following a raid on a “safe house” used by the Cartel in Torremolinos on Spain’s Costa del Sol. The raid took place in recent weeks, but news of the operation codenamed “Misty” has only just emerged.

Brummer occupied a senior position within the Cartel, according to investigators who believe he was carrying on the crime group’s business at the highest levels following the vacuum left by the arrest of its head, Robert Dawes. Dawes’ luxury villa in Benalmadena was raided last November as part of Operation Halbert IV. Dawes is currently awaiting trial in Paris over a 1.3 tonne haul of cocaine seized on a flight from Venezuela to Paris in September 2013. Dawes is being held in a high-security prison pending the case being heard later this year.

Dutchman Brummer, who investigators tailed during frequent trips between Netherlands and Spain, was spotted meeting with Mexican cocaine cartel agents.

Brummer is believed to have been linked to the organised crime group which was led by Gwenette Martha who was assassinated in Amsterdam in May 2014. Investigators have also found significant links between the Cartel and the biker gang Satudarah or “One Blood” as it translates. The bikers have been used for transport links and security on consignments of drugs smuggled into Netherlands.

The operation against Brummer began in earnest after he was detected visiting Dawes in person before the British man’s arrest last November. The visits coincided investigators believe, with Brummer receiving instructions about shipments of cocaine being moved through Rotterdam and Antwerp ports.

As part of the Operation Misty Dutch and Spanish investigators searched 15 properties in Netherlands and Spain and made other arrests. Around six kilos of cocaine €500,000 in cash, diamonds, a number of firearms and hi-spec vehicles were seized. Several bank accounts in different countries were frozen and properties seized. Significantly they also seized highly-encrypted mobile phones used by Brummer.

Investigators in Netherlands are also keen to speak to Brummer about the role played by the organised crime group he has been linked to; specifically in a wave of recent liquidations involving the use of AK-47’s in Netherlands.

British crime lord charged in connection with record 1.3 tonnes cocaine haul

CRIME boss Robert Dawes has been formally charged by the French authorities after they seized more than 1.3 tonnes of cocaine at Paris airport.

The cocaine was seized from a flight from Caracas, Venezuela which arrived at Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport in September 2013. It is the largest seizure ever made in France.

Dawes, 43, was flown from Madrid to Paris where was formally charged by investigating magistrate Anne Bamberger last week and remanded into custody pending a trial. It is understood the French have been investigating Dawes using sophisticated phone taps for at least the past 12 months after intelligence indicated he was behind the huge haul. Britain National Crime Agency and Spain’s Guardia Civil have been assisting the French in their investigation.

Robert Dawes now faces trial in France as the organiser of the record cocaine haul

Robert Dawes now faces trial in France as the organiser of the record cocaine haul

Several key lieutenants of his organisation from the Mijas Costa in Spain, were arrested at the time the haul was seized in September 2013 and have remained in custody since. Dawes was arrested at his family’s villa in Benalmadena, Spain last month. He has a string of front companies in the UK, Spain, Dubai and Malta which have provided safe docking for money-laundering over the last 13 years.

Dawes arrest was captured on film by a swat team of Guardia Civil officers who arrested the British man at his Benalmadena villa. Officers raiding his property discovered a number of firearms, hundreds of new sim cards for mobile phones and a state-of-the-art command and control centre where he operated from.

The moment Guardia Civil officers led Robert Dawes away for extradition to France

The moment Guardia Civil officers led Robert Dawes away for extradition to France

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, took a personal interest in the case when the bust was made revealing that some of the cocaine had been stored in at least 30 suitcases which had been tagged with the names of “ghost” passengers. This had been destined for Netherlands and the UK.

Investigators also seized another part of the load, around 400 kilos, from a lorry at the Luxembourg border which they believe was destined for the Italian mafia. Three Italians, and two British men connected to Dawes, were arrested at the time along with a number of National Guard officials in Venezuela who are believed to have helped the drug gang get the cargo past checks at Caracas airport.

Manuel Valls shows off the cocaine seizure in September 2013

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls shows off the cocaine seizure in September 2013

The French-led investigation has been supported by investigators from Spain’s Guardia Civil and the UK’s National Crime Agency.

As I have reported previously , Dutch, Spanish and British investigators are taking a keen interest as the process in France unfolds, as all still have the name of the British crime lord firmly on their list of cases unresolved. The merry-go-round has now started in earnest.

So the merry-go-round begins again……

ORGANISED crime boss Robert Dawes has been arrested again following a warrant issued by the French authorities.

This week officers from the elite organised crime unit of Guardia Civil based in Madrid arrested the 43-year-old Nottinghamshire man and searched his villa in Benalmadena, Mijas Costa.

It is unclear yet what the specific charges relate to and what other arrests have been made, but the request has come from a court in France which is believed to be investigating a large-scale drugs shipment which came through its borders.

The operation involved the co-operation of the National Crime Agency in the UK and their French counterparts OCRTIS.

A spokesman for the National Crime Agency said: “Robert Dawes was arrested in connection with international drug trafficking as part of a joint investigation between the French OCRTIS, the NCA and the Guardia Civil.”

I have previously written at length about the bureaucratic bungles and corruption issues which have resulted in Dawes thwarting the authorities efforts to make charges stick against this “Teflon Don“.

Indeed a Spanish investigation into a 200 kilo shipment of cocaine linked to Dawes, fell apart after vital evidence including mobile phone sim cards and computer data seized in Dubai, which should have been presented to the Spanish judge Jose Santiago Torres, was handed back to Dawes’ wife via Spanish police officers.  That loss of evidence, mistaken or consciously planned, alongside a lengthy delay from the British authorities to submit their own evidence, has been blamed for Dawes release from custody four years ago. The combination effectively ended the case against him in 2012. Dawes – who has ready access to a number of false passports – is known to have the ability and funds to corrupt police officers and key components of the justice system, according to those who have investigated him in law enforcement.

Now three years on the Daily Mail reports that Dawes is once again in custody in Madrid this time to await an extradition hearing which could take him to a cell in France. However the case will be watched closely by the authorities in Netherlands and the UK. Dawes was named as the man who ordered the murder of innocent Dutch school teacher Gerard Meesters in November 2002. At the time of the court case, which saw the cartel’s footsoldier Daniel Sowerby jailed for life, the Dutch authorities lacked a final piece of evidence to charge Dawes with ordering the murder. In the UK, aside from the overwhelming prima facie evidence linking him to shipments of class A drugs here, British authorities still regard Dawes as a “person of interest” linked to the October 2002 assassination of Nottinghamshire businessman David Draycott.

We shall, of course,  follow the merry-go-round of developments with great interest.

 

Dutch school teacher’s killer speaks for the first time about his work for the Dawes Cartel

DANIEL Sowerby, the man convicted of killing an innocent Dutch school teacher in 2002 has spoken for the first time about his boss Robert Dawes.

In a series of interviews with Dutch journalist Martijn Haas for Panorama magazine, Sowerby now 56, acknowledges he will die in the maximum security Lelystad prison 50 miles from Amsterdam where he is serving a life sentence.

Daniel Sowerby sketched as he is now by Petra Urban

Daniel Sowerby sketched as he is now by artist Petra Urban.

Sowerby, a former heroin addict, cuts a sad figure in the interview. His health is failing and his only friend is a parakeet, which eats all the books he has in his cell. He is asked to cast his mind back to November 2002 when he was dispatched on a mission to a surburban house in Groningen, Netherlands.

Sowerby says he was sent to the house with well known Dutch criminal Gwenette Martha, who he did not know previously and three other men. The purpose of the mission had been outlined in the days previous. Two women, Janette Meesters, sister of Gerard and Madeleine Brussen her friend had absconded with a large amount of drugs belonging to Robert Dawes and the mission was to find these two women by threatening their relatives. Sowerby says he remembers nothing of the day that Mr Meesters was brutally gunned down in the hallway of his home with eight gunshot wounds.

But he admits he accompanied Gwenette Martha, recently assassinated in Amsterdam, four days before Meesters death to hand over a phone number to the teacher and warn him he had to call his boss to tell him where Janette Meesters was.

Sowerby is asked about Robert Dawes. He tells Martin Haas the journalist: “I met Dawes several times. He was just like you or me, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie. I don’t bear him any ill will even though I am in prison, I’m just glad he is not here to get caught. He is a good man, really! Even if he does have arms dealers, drugs dealers and runners on his payroll, he supports a large network of families with mothers and children to look after. I respect him. He has left me alone so I have nothing to fear from him (Dawes).”

Sowerby goes on to explain how he came into contact with the Dawes Cartel after going on the run from HMP North Sea Camp in 2001. Sowerby lived a hand to mouth existence in France before settling near Breda under the name Andrew Love. He had met some members of the Dawes Cartel already when he had been serving some of his prison sentence. When he reconnected with those people, who included Anthony Spencer, (the Coventry smuggler who tutored Dawes in his rise to the top) Sowerby said he was on his uppers and in the grip of a serious heroin addiction.

“I was an addict and I needed to score money. I already knew some of the big boys from prison. The work I did for them was to courier drugs and things and send messages. I was a runner, that was it,” said Sowerby.

On the day Mr Meesters was murdered, traffic cameras caught, the vehicle Sowerby and his co-accused Steven Barnes, a drugs tester for the Dawes Cartel, as it sped through a red light in Groningen. Barnes admitted his involvement but said that he was just the driver and Sowerby was the shooter. But Sowerby has consistently denied this. But now Sowerby admits he has come to the end of the road in his legal battle to appeal his cases. All avenues appear closed now despite his lawyer demanding that judges bring Robert Dawes and Steven Barnes back before the courts to question them.

The full article by Martijn Haas can be found here http://www.elinea.nl/artikel/britse-crimineel-daniel-sowerby-zucht-levenslang-in-nederlandse-cel

Robert Dawes “the victim” ….I don’t think so and nor do our law enforcement officials

Robert Dawes captured on surveillance cameras at airport

GANGSTER Robert Dawes has stepped up his campaign to become a newly anointed  Saint by creating his own website designed to hit back at some of the material I have published about the man described by law enforcement experts as a “highly significant international criminal”.

 
You can view for yourself the case that he puts forward at www.stateurcase.com . However since Dawes’ webpage has been created there have been some new developments. On December 20th 2012 the judge at Court 32 in Madrid decided to re-indite Dawes over the 187 kilos of cocaine seized back in September 2007.


The rogatory letter bungle, which I have previously written about in The Guardian , has been resolved and Judge Jose Santiago Torres Prieto has finally received the evidence he had been asking for from the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency since April 2011. The cause of the delay of the documents remains a mystery however and although Eurojust, the body based in The Hague responsible for passing on the evidence requests is continuing its investigation into the matter, they have so far refused to provide any explanation.


The Spanish version of the indictment can be read from the following link www.scribd.com/doc/246278845/Spanish-Court-Dawes-indictment
The translation states that Dawes was summoned before Court 32 on Boxing day 2011 at 11am. It states that the British authorities have now provided a series of facts and evidence which vindicate all the previous statements made by Karl Hayes, one of Dawes couriers, currently serving a seven and half year sentence in Spain over the cocaine seizure. “specifically the participation in that group of David Wombwell, Andrew Cunliffe, and above all Gavin Dawes, being especially relevant the surveillance carried out by officers from SOCA on 7 August 2007 into Karl Hayes and David Wombwell, as well as the result of David Wombwell’s statement of 31 October 2007, and the payments arising from the notes found in Gavin Dawes’ seized diary, the conclusion is reached that the transfer and the operation were to be carried out in the interest of and under the orders of an organised group under the directions of Robert Dawes.” 
 
Hayes had said in his statements that the operation had been led by Robert Dawes and he had been threatening him (Hayes) “for some time”.
 
The new indictment also states that Dawes has been ordered to pay a bond to the court of just over 7 million Euros against a possible fine if convicted of the drug trafficking offence. The Judge states that Dawes assets will be seized if the bond is not paid.
 
 It now only remains for the Dubai authorities to send their evidence which they seized when Dawes was first arrested at his home in Dubai in June 2008. The details of the search by Dubai police can be found here . (you probably can’t find it here anymore..wait for more news soon 18/02/16)
 
In a separate development it appears that one of Dawes’ closest lieutenants, Raphael Nasr, has left Dubai and made his way to the UK following the Sunday Times article which exposed his business links in April last year with Robert Dawes and Jamil Karzai, nephew of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Nasr spent some time with friends celebrating Christmas in the UK.
Nasr may be of interest to any of the British authorities investigating Dawes. At one time he held the keys to much of Dawes’ financial transactions. 
 

 

Eurojust and the case of Robert Dawes

 
Robert Dawes currently at large on the Mijas Costa in Spain
Eurojust’s Andrew Crookes (Right) with Aled Williams current President

 
Last week I wrote in The Guardian about the cock-up over a request from the Spanish authorities which led to organised crime boss  Robert Dawes being freed from custody.
 
Dawes track record has been catalogued here and in the publication Hoods. He has been on the radar of British law enforcement officials for 13 years. Indeed he has been described recently by officers from Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) as “a highly significant international criminal” who is “wanted for murder in Holland and drug trafficking in the UK”. Their own words not mine.
 
How did it come to pass that a man in such demand by law enforcement agencies was allowed to go free because an urgent request for assistance from a Spanish judge to SOCA somehow got lost in the post for FIVE months.
 
SOCA officials have been pointing the finger at Eurojust saying the document must have been “lost in the Eurozone”. The letter rogatory, the formal request made by one country to another, was sent by the Spanish judge on April 19 2011 but did not arrive with SOCA, say its officials, until the end of August 2011. Dawes was released on September 12 because the judge had not received any response from the British.
 
It appears the letter was sent via Eurojust. A powerful body set up in 2002, based in the Hague. Its remit is to speed up co-operation between EU countries on international organised crime cases. Eurojust has around 500 administrative staff but its power lies in the delegations from each European country of which there is a head and deputy head.
 
It appears that the document was sent by the judge Jose Santiago Torres Prieto to the deputy head of the Spanish delegation Maria Teresa Galvez Diez and from there it would have been forwarded on to the British authorities via the British delegation. It would have been no more than a a day’s work at Eurojust’s headquarters to send the request to the UK.
 
Often mistakes happen because officials do not realise the importance of a document or request but when one looks at the CVs of the British delegation at Eurojust one must wonder how things could have gone so catastrophically wrong, if indeed the fault lies with Eurojust.
 
The UK’s delegation head is also the current president of Eurojust. His name is Aled Williams and to quote his own biography from Eurojust his “legal career started in 1984 when he was admitted as a solicitor and then worked as a prosecutor with responsibility for serious cases of homicide, fraud and drug trafficking. In 2002 he was appointed the United Kingdom liaison magistrate to Spain. He worked in the Ministry of Justice in Madrid for four years, dealing with mutual legal assistance, extradition and the introduction of European Arrest Warrant procedures.
 
The background of his deputy Andrew Crookes is even more interesting. To quote Eurojust he was “admitted as a Solicitor in 1989, he is a Higher Court Advocate and has 20 years’ prosecution experience. He worked as Trial Unit Head in Nottinghamshire prior to joining the Crown Prosecution Service Headquarters Central Casework Divisions in 2004. He was Head of Special Crime Division, York, and in 2006 was appointed Head of the Organised Crime Division in Birmingham. There he was responsible for a team of lawyers dealing with prosecutions arising from investigations by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, including money laundering, drug trafficking and human trafficking. Prior to joining Eurojust, he was appointed as a Senior Specialist Lawyer to deal nationally with the most complex, serious and sensitive cases arising from the activities of international organised crime groups.
 
When one considers Robert Dawes background from Nottinghamshire, his background in organised crime, money laundering and drug trafficking in Spain and other countries his links to at least two brutal murders; it is difficult to believe you could find two lawyers who would fit the bill better than these two members of British delegation or indeed more eminent in their field.
 
So what went wrong? Eurojust are currently looking into the matter and so we will have to see what explanation they deliver. Lets just hope it won’t take another five months to find out. In the meantime surely it is important to ensure that Robert Dawes is finally put before the courts and face the evidence that exists against him whether that be in Spain, Holland or the UK.