Ian2day
21-09-2009, 09:29 PM
Its too late to get one from this former British Army sergeant Paul Alexander. He had 33 aliases. If we each had that many. It would mean that there is only 2 million people in the UK!
Paul Alexander supplied assassination kits to Britain's gangs
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00616/alex_385x185_616986a.jpg
A former British Army sergeant who spent years supplying feuding gangs in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham with guns and ammunition, including assassination kits, is facing the rest of his life behind bars.
Paul Alexander, 53, who had more than 33 different aliases complete with documentation, sold weapons that have been linked to shootings in Manchester, Merseyside, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Birmingham, including one murder, four attempted murders and an armed robbery.
A martial arts expert who trained in jungle warfare and claims to have worked with the SAS, Alexander is thought to have made hundreds of thousands of pounds from providing killers with weaponry, including hollow point bullets banned by the Geneva Convention.
His plastic-cased assassination kits each contained a gun, sometimes a Miami Reck handgun, silencer and three or four magazines each with up to 11 bullets inside.
Detectives believe that his work will continue to be matched to scores of shootings for years to come.
Since leaving the army in 1992, where he had an exemplary record with the Royal Artillery, Alexander travelled around the world, visiting South America, Canada, America, Pakistan and Europe, using his aliases.
These included fictional surnames like (Jack) Bauer from the programme 24 and (Jason) Bourne from the Matt Damon films. He also called himself Alan Rickman, after the actor, and changed his surname by deed poll to Alexander and Hunter-Mann.
Police have not been able to work out why he was travelling so extensively but it is thought he may have been sourcing guns. They have ruled out any links to terrorism.
When Alexander, who was born Paul Daintry in Bury, Lancashire, was arrested in September 2008 in a joint operation between Essex police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, 28 guns and rifles were found. The haul included assassination kits, ready for sale at £1,500 a time. There were also 12,000 gun parts and he had 26 guns on order.
Mick Layton, Soca’s deputy director, said: “He was one of the most significant armourers in the country. Business was booming for him. The guns and ammunition supplied by Paul Alexander are being linked to numerous shootings in the UK. Put simply, he was dealing in death.”
He would buy imitation and antique guns and convert them for use in a barn at his huge rented property in Essex. He took on the home with a £9,000 deposit in cash and paid another £3,800 a month in rent despite no evidence of him ever having had a proper job since leaving the army.
Officers found that between March 2007 and September 2008 almost £130,000 in cash was deposited into accounts belonging to him, his wife and a stepdaughter.
In turn he told police and criminal associates that he was a mercenary, a private detective, had connections to the Russian Mafia and was an author.
He did pay a publisher to produce fictional novels involving assassins and the murder of the British Prime Minister.
The biography on one book claims: “He has physically done everything that is written in his books and currently works for corporations, organisations and individuals as a surveillance and courier operative.”
While looking into his background police found that in 1995 he targeted a neighbour with an improvised explosive device but failed to appear in court.
Then in 1996 he was arrested while travelling into America from Canada on a false passport and with a bomb making book. He served 12 months and was then deported.
Then in 2002 he planted another explosive device, complete with trip wire, on the driveway of someone his paymaster wanted scared. But he was not arrested until he landed in New York, on his was back to England from Brazil and was found to have a false passport and equipment to make further passports.
After serving a three month sentence in American he was deported and sentenced to two and a half years here. On his release he moved to Bath.
Detectives believe that it was while in jail in the US that he made the connections that allowed him to start his gun factory.
The weapons he produced were not very reliable. Tests carried out found they could only be fired up to ten times before they became dangerous and they had to be used close to the target as they were not accurate.
He was first identified when an investigation into gun crime was launched after the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007 which centred on the feuding ’Croxteth Crew’ and ’Strang Gang’.
Police seized several firearms and Alexander’s DNA was found on the guns.
But finding Alexander proved difficult and SOCA detectives will not reveal how they finally traced him to the property in the small hamlet of Bardfield Saling, Essex.
After carrying out surveillance for four days he was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to several charges including possessing a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life and converting an imitation firearm.
Officers are now trying to trace where Alexander’s money is and suspect he may have overseas bank accounts. He will be sentenced in November after psychiatric reports have been produced.
The killing kits
• From the outside the hard plastic cases looked as if they held DIY tools, but they were filled with everything that a killer would need to commit murder
• Paul Alexander would drive to the North West to deliver them to rival gangs in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, picking up £1,500 for each pack: a gun, silencer and ammunition
• Each component was packaged in foam, below, to protect it during transport.
• At Alexander’s gun factory police found filled cases and rifles stacked against a wall
• Mick Layton, deputy director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, said that the investigation had provided valuable intelligence: “Our message to Alexander’s criminal associates is stark — be worried, this hasn’t ended here”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6843100.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2
Paul Alexander supplied assassination kits to Britain's gangs
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00616/alex_385x185_616986a.jpg
A former British Army sergeant who spent years supplying feuding gangs in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham with guns and ammunition, including assassination kits, is facing the rest of his life behind bars.
Paul Alexander, 53, who had more than 33 different aliases complete with documentation, sold weapons that have been linked to shootings in Manchester, Merseyside, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Birmingham, including one murder, four attempted murders and an armed robbery.
A martial arts expert who trained in jungle warfare and claims to have worked with the SAS, Alexander is thought to have made hundreds of thousands of pounds from providing killers with weaponry, including hollow point bullets banned by the Geneva Convention.
His plastic-cased assassination kits each contained a gun, sometimes a Miami Reck handgun, silencer and three or four magazines each with up to 11 bullets inside.
Detectives believe that his work will continue to be matched to scores of shootings for years to come.
Since leaving the army in 1992, where he had an exemplary record with the Royal Artillery, Alexander travelled around the world, visiting South America, Canada, America, Pakistan and Europe, using his aliases.
These included fictional surnames like (Jack) Bauer from the programme 24 and (Jason) Bourne from the Matt Damon films. He also called himself Alan Rickman, after the actor, and changed his surname by deed poll to Alexander and Hunter-Mann.
Police have not been able to work out why he was travelling so extensively but it is thought he may have been sourcing guns. They have ruled out any links to terrorism.
When Alexander, who was born Paul Daintry in Bury, Lancashire, was arrested in September 2008 in a joint operation between Essex police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, 28 guns and rifles were found. The haul included assassination kits, ready for sale at £1,500 a time. There were also 12,000 gun parts and he had 26 guns on order.
Mick Layton, Soca’s deputy director, said: “He was one of the most significant armourers in the country. Business was booming for him. The guns and ammunition supplied by Paul Alexander are being linked to numerous shootings in the UK. Put simply, he was dealing in death.”
He would buy imitation and antique guns and convert them for use in a barn at his huge rented property in Essex. He took on the home with a £9,000 deposit in cash and paid another £3,800 a month in rent despite no evidence of him ever having had a proper job since leaving the army.
Officers found that between March 2007 and September 2008 almost £130,000 in cash was deposited into accounts belonging to him, his wife and a stepdaughter.
In turn he told police and criminal associates that he was a mercenary, a private detective, had connections to the Russian Mafia and was an author.
He did pay a publisher to produce fictional novels involving assassins and the murder of the British Prime Minister.
The biography on one book claims: “He has physically done everything that is written in his books and currently works for corporations, organisations and individuals as a surveillance and courier operative.”
While looking into his background police found that in 1995 he targeted a neighbour with an improvised explosive device but failed to appear in court.
Then in 1996 he was arrested while travelling into America from Canada on a false passport and with a bomb making book. He served 12 months and was then deported.
Then in 2002 he planted another explosive device, complete with trip wire, on the driveway of someone his paymaster wanted scared. But he was not arrested until he landed in New York, on his was back to England from Brazil and was found to have a false passport and equipment to make further passports.
After serving a three month sentence in American he was deported and sentenced to two and a half years here. On his release he moved to Bath.
Detectives believe that it was while in jail in the US that he made the connections that allowed him to start his gun factory.
The weapons he produced were not very reliable. Tests carried out found they could only be fired up to ten times before they became dangerous and they had to be used close to the target as they were not accurate.
He was first identified when an investigation into gun crime was launched after the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007 which centred on the feuding ’Croxteth Crew’ and ’Strang Gang’.
Police seized several firearms and Alexander’s DNA was found on the guns.
But finding Alexander proved difficult and SOCA detectives will not reveal how they finally traced him to the property in the small hamlet of Bardfield Saling, Essex.
After carrying out surveillance for four days he was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to several charges including possessing a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life and converting an imitation firearm.
Officers are now trying to trace where Alexander’s money is and suspect he may have overseas bank accounts. He will be sentenced in November after psychiatric reports have been produced.
The killing kits
• From the outside the hard plastic cases looked as if they held DIY tools, but they were filled with everything that a killer would need to commit murder
• Paul Alexander would drive to the North West to deliver them to rival gangs in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, picking up £1,500 for each pack: a gun, silencer and ammunition
• Each component was packaged in foam, below, to protect it during transport.
• At Alexander’s gun factory police found filled cases and rifles stacked against a wall
• Mick Layton, deputy director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, said that the investigation had provided valuable intelligence: “Our message to Alexander’s criminal associates is stark — be worried, this hasn’t ended here”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6843100.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2