The Met. The country’s top police force is in crisis. It’s reputation in tatters after being judged institutionally corrupt. Attempts to get to the truth have been resisted for decades … Evidence that the Met still has not faced up to the truth about police corruption. Did top cops get too close to organised crime? The fear that top cops allowed killers to walk free. Dispatches: Corrupt Cops: What the Met Knew, Channel 4 2022
Some accuse successive Tory governments of emboldening Russia in the years leading up to the invasion. Were warning about Putin’s malign intentions ignored? This is the story of how Russia sought to influence British politics. Dispatches: Strippers, Spies & Russian Money, Channel 4 2023
It’s also the story of how the Conservative Party accepted millions from Russia-linked donors. So was Britain’s national security put at risk? ibid.
The number of Russia spies in London remained at Cold War levels. ibid.
The Conservative ‘Friends of Russia’ was launched by prominent figures in the Tory Party. ibid.
Lord Barker isn’t the only peer who’s been linked to Putin’s oligarchs. ibid.
The Panama Papers opened yet another window on the global system of financial corruption, showing how political leaders and businesses use shall companies in secrecy havens like the British Virgin Islands and many US states to evade taxes and hide corruption and other crimes. Yet the system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view. Jeffrey Sachs, article The Boston Globe 13th May 2016, ‘The Age of Impunity’
Fifa, the multi-Billion-dollar organisation that governs soccer, is under fire. Fifa Uncovered, US news, Netflix 2022
In May 2015 the House of Fifa started crumbling. ibid. journalist
Bribery and corruption … Racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy … ibid. US attorney general
Corruption was endemic in Fifa for decades. ibid. journalist
Fifa became toxic. Fifa became a criminal organisation. ibid. present head of FIFA
By far the biggest sports corruption story we’ve ever had. ibid. journalist
Fifa? I jumped into Fifa. I met Havelange … ibid. Blatter
There’s moments of original sin … after the World Cup in Argentina. ibid. journalist
Joao Havelange, the president of Fifa, takes money for those [Adidas] marketing rights. ibid.
At the time Blatter had the full trust of Havelange. ibid. man in the know
Havelange was the emperor of Fifa. ibid. journalist
Later on he [Blatter] started to disclose his ambitions. ibid. man in the know
Blatter’s story is one of betrayal. ibid.
He [Blatter] has this insatiable desire to be the centre of attention. ibid.
The World Cup is the number one way for Fifa to make money. Sepp Blatter elected Fifa president 8th June 1998. Fifa Uncovered II, Fifa man
Blatter was seriously challenged again in 2002. ibid. journalist
President of Fifa, king of all he surveys. ibid.
A family business that they can make money at. ibid.
Russia & Qatar: I said to Sepp we are in trouble here. Fifa Uncovered III, delegate
My immediate reaction was that they had bought this. ibid. US camp
Fifa is the system. The system is Fifa. ibid. delegate
Why would they care about working conditions? It wasn’t an issue. ibid. critic
World Cup Votes for Sale. ibid. Sunday Time front page
Most of them took the money. But there were three or four who reported it. ibid. journalist
Blatter has to be stopped. ibid. Jack Warner
Are you a fit and proper person to control world football? ibid. investigator Jennings to Blatter
The FBI investigation of Fifa began before the infamous vote in 2010 … Chuck Blazer, he’s the one they needed. Fifa Uncovered IV, journalist
This is a non-profit organisation. Where’s the accountability? ibid. critic
The excess around Fifa continued to startle me all the way through. ibid. integrity advisor
Sepp Blatter started getting consumed by his own greed, his own ambition to stay in power … He started hallucinating … ibid. African delegate
Having a life [Blatter] as if nothing has happened … People were just not able to stop him. ibid. Fifa insider
The FBI going after Fifa. Arrests going on right now. ibid. US news
The football associations around the world went ahead and re-elected Sepp Blatter as if nothing had happened. ibid. journalist
Sepp Blatter was the Godfather of Football. ibid.
We live in a completely corrupted world where every government is just a bunch of businessmen working for a bigger bunch of businessmen and none of them give a shit about the people. The sad fact is no-one knows how to change it, because no-one knows how to take on the corporations. Woody Harrelson
A little known unit of the Met was being secretly set up to crack the cycle of corruption that had infiltrated the country’s biggest police force. Amid the scandals that engulfed the early ’90s, a few brave senior police chiefs decided a new tactic was needed. A tactic that would go after those directly responsible for the corruption to catch them in the act. The Real Line of Duty I, Amazon 2024
‘In the early 1990s cases of corruption were still arising.’ ibid. Graeme McLagan
‘A senior detective was saying that he could ring up anyone at any station across London and they’d fix things. And he’d actually used the phrase, We’re a firm within a firm.’ ibid.
There were major concerns that corruption was spiralling out of control in certain pockets of London. ibid.
It was clear corruption wasn’t confined to Stoke Newington. ibid.
Many of the names were linked to the South East Regional Crime Squad. ibid.
Roger Gasper’s work with the Ghost Squad was widely acknowledged for establishing just how widespread corruption was in the Met, but it had limited success. ibid.
The decision was taken to form a new unit called CIB3. ibid.
The story of Southern Investigations [bent rozzers] begins in 1987 with the murder of Jonathan Rees’s then partner running the organisation, Daniel Morgan. Morgan was found dead with an axe in his head in a pub car park. Several people have been charged with involvement in the murder but no-one has ever been convicted. The Real Line of Duty II
The operation to catch Southern Investigations and Austin Warnes in the act was deemed an early success for CIB3 and proved that the change in strategy in countering corrupting was working. ibid.
Kevin Garner & Terry McGuinness: They admitted to a total of 19 offences of corruption stretching back to 1991, ranging from stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds to fabricating evidence. ibid.
‘Hector Harvey has basically participated in an armed robbery while is on compassionate leave from prison for a week. Couldn’t make it up.’ ibid. author
Involved in the corrupt activity was Kevin Garner who was responsible for collecting the stolen cash and sharing it with the other corrupt officers. ibid.
Several Flying Squad officers being sent down for corruption. ibid.
Their fight against corruption in the Met had only just begun. ibid.
A team of hard-drinking rogue detectives who called themselves The Groovy Gang: Robert Clark, Neil Putnam, Chris Drury. The Real Line of Duty III
‘Fleckney [big cocaine dealer] was getting tipped off … Fleckney was an informant for Clark … She was in love with Clark.’ ibid. CIB3 rozzer
It was an impossible choice for Putnam: protect his friends, or lose protection for him and his family. ibid.
‘The main way that Clark and Drury won their appeal was because Eve Fleckney flatly refused to give any kind of evidence. She withdrew her evidence entirely saying she’d been forced into it.’ ibid. author