Brendan Hughes

Members of an international crime gang were allowed to move to Britain while flooding the country with heroin because their leader had secretly worked as an informer for Customs & Excise, according to evidence brought before an immigration appeals tribunal.

The Baybasin Cartel, a notorious Kurdish gang, is estimated by police to have controlled up to 90% of the heroin which entered the country after its leading members settled in the home counties in the mid-1990s.

Gang members also became involved in protection rackets and extortion in the UK, and were linked to a series of turf disputes which resulted in up to 25 murders. On one occasion, Baybasin mobsters were involved in a shoot-out across a busy shopping street in north London on a Saturday afternoon.

According to evidence presented behind closed doors in a series of immigration hearings, Baybasin was encouraged by Customs to come to the UK and arrived via Gibraltar in either late 1994 or early 1995. He first met Customs officers in a hotel near Tower Bridge, London.

It is unclear whether Customs was operating with ministerial approval. Michael Howard, who was home secretary at the time, and Ann Widdecombe, the then immigration minister, said they could not recall the name Baybasin. Revenue & Customs, which now includes Customs & Excise after a merger with Inland Revenue, said it could not comment on any matter concerning alleged informers.

And just for a bit of political balance:

They and their relatives also persuaded a number of politicians to support their attempts to obtain British travel documents. Among those who agreed to help was Tony McNulty, the current immigration minister, who wrote a number of letters on behalf of Baybasin's wife after her husband was arrested in the Netherlands.

Full story here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Stor...741038,00.html

Leslie

It would be good to understand whether DC and the New Tories have got any significant policies about all these vitally important issues which affect the future of this country.

Les