Lawyer Craig Rush representing the three men, said Thompson had been forced to retire on medical grounds and years later was so bored that he was driven to crime.īoth Thompson and Zietek were found guilty on 17 March after a trial.ĭeputy circuit judge, Nicholas Ainley, said the passport scheme enabled “very wicked, sophisticated, violent criminals” to escape justice. On Tuesday, Christopher Zietek, formerly known as Christopher McCormack, 67, was also jailed for eight years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, conspiracy to make a false instrument with intent and converting criminal property.Īlan Thompson, 72, was sentenced to three years for the same offences. His fingerprints were found on many of the forms, according to the NCA.Īnother 74 offences linked to applications were taken into consideration. He is believed to have ushered more than 100 fraudulent passport applications through to completion, with several unsuccessful applications made.īeard used his own contact numbers from burner phones, countersigned passport applications and used contacts pretending to be professionals to verify image authenticity. The agency said “many fugitives” all over the world have been caught after establishing the use of false identities.īeard, from Sydenham, south-east London, approached “vulnerable people” with similar facial features to their clients, according to the NCA. The scheme provided falsified passports to individuals including Jamie Acourt, a former suspect in the original Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry and Ireland’s leading crime boss, Christy Kinahan, among others. “This was the golden ticket for the organised crime networks in order that they could evade arrest, evade identification by local law enforcement either internationally or at home in the UK,” said Craig Turner, deputy director of investigations at the National Crime Agency (NCA). On Tuesday, he was sentenced to six years and eight months at Reading crown court and jailed after admitting conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to make a false instrument with intent.

Fake british passport maker