London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

Fraudsters jailed for selling fake passports to fugitive criminals

Fraudsters jailed for selling fake passports to fugitive criminals

Fraudsters who supplied falsified passports to some of the UK's most wanted criminals have been jailed.

Anthony Beard obtained real passports in other people's names then added the photographs of criminals, including two fugitive murderers.

He was jailed for six years and eight months after pleading guilty. Chris McCormack, who was his link with crime gangs, was jailed for eight years.

Judge Nicholas Ainley said they had helped "wicked, violent criminals".

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said Beard's customers made "an awful lot of money out of organised criminality".

A third member of the gang, Alan Thompson, was sentenced to three years.

Anthony Beard, 61, a minor fraudster from Sydenham, in South London, first devised a way of obtaining genuine passports for criminals to use, two decades ago.

He would find vulnerable people in rehab centres and veterans' shelters, many of whom had drug or alcohol problems, and persuade them to lend him their identity in exchange for very little money.

He would then apply to renew the vulnerable person's expired passport, but the photo he submitted would be a recent picture of a wanted criminal in need of a new identity.

By using the passport renewal process, he avoided the need for an in-person interview - required for new passport applicants - something that would be impossible for a criminal hiding out in another country.

Beard countersigned the passport photos himself. Later, he involved other people - whose occupations included "licensees" and "psychiatrists" - to supposedly confirm that the passport photos were true likenesses.

Beard was caught after an extensive surveillance operation by the National Crime Agency


The NCA said Beard might have supplied as many as 108 fraudulently-obtained genuine passports (FOGs) over a 20-year period, charging as much as £15,000 - £20,000 for each one. The person whose passport was being used was paid as little as £100.

After he had been running the scam for some years, Beard met Chris McCormack, 67, also known as Christopher Zietek, a long-time gangster who split his time between South London, Ireland and Spain.

In the 1990s, McCormack had been linked to a notorious North London gang, known as the Adams Family, the A-team, or the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate. He once stood trial for torturing a man who owed the Adams family money, in a horrific attack reminiscent of the movie Reservoir Dogs. By the end of the assault, only skin held the man's nose and left ear to his face.

Despite having the victim's blood on his jacket, McCormack was acquitted of attempted murder by a jury.

Chris McCormack - aka Christopher Zietek - was allegedly an enforcer for a major crime gang in the 1990s


Because of his criminal credentials, McCormack was trusted by gangsters who were on the run and became a kind of broker. He acted as the liaison between Beard, in South London, and serious criminals in Spain and Dubai who needed passports to travel undetected.

It was through McCormack that Beard ended up supplying passports to some of the UK's most wanted criminals.

Beard and McCormack obtained passports for at least five suspected members of the Glasgow-based Gillespie gang, thought to be one of the wealthiest organised crime groups in Scotland.

One Gillespie gang member, Jordan Owens, fled to Portugal after shooting Jamie Lee dead in Glasgow, in 2017. He was returned to Scotland and convicted of murder, in 2022.

A fraudulent passport issued to Jordan Owens, who was on the run for nearly three years, in the name of Lee Bowler


Another, Christopher Hughes, murdered Martin Kok in the Netherlands, in 2016. He was eventually captured in Italy in 2020, and also convicted in 2022.

The NCA thinks Beard and McCormack also provided passports to several suspected drug traffickers in the gang.

Another leading criminal to whom Beard supplied a passport was Irish cartel boss Christy Kinahan Snr. The US government has offered a $5m reward for information leading to Kinahan's arrest.

Officers think Beard also obtained passports for Liverpool drug trafficker Michael Moogan, firearms trafficker Richard Burdett, and Jamie Acourt, one of the original suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder. Acourt never actually received the passport obtained for him. He was arrested in Spain in 2018 and subsequently convicted of drug-dealing.

Alan Thompson was convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, money laundering and two counts of conspiracy to make a false instrument


Craig Turner, NCA deputy director, said he supplied people "at the top end of serious organised crime", adding: "They'd made an awful lot of money out of organised criminality, both in the UK and internationally."

The NCA's investigation - known as Operation Strey - began in 2017 and would become of the agency's most significant inquiries, involving extensive surveillance.

Undercover officers filmed Beard meeting vulnerable people who were supplying him with passports for renewal, and with gang members and co-conspirators. They recorded McCormack in his home discussing passport applications with Beard and with his customers.

The NCA says it worked closely with His Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO), Police Scotland and Dutch police. Officers obtained recordings of Beard's phone calls to HMPO, in which he can be heard enquiring about passport applications under different names. They also found paper passport applications with his fingerprints on them.

Beard pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to supply fraudulent documents on 3 January, prior to the trial at Reading Crown Court. As a result his sentence was reduced by the judge.

McCormack, and his co-conspirator Alan Thompson, 72, were both convicted by a jury.

Passing sentence, Judge Ainley described the scam as "a highly professional, skilled operation". He said: "It was to enable very wicked, sophisticated, violent criminals to escape justice by providing them with documents that because they were genuine would deceive the authorities to enable them to escape."

The judge added that Zietek was "clearly the organiser", providing a link to serious criminals, while Beard was "the leg man" and Thompson had a lesser role.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
Jellyfish Swarm Triggers Shutdown at Gravelines Nuclear Power Station in Northern France
×