In 2019, a sharp spike in burglaries across Liverpool, Lancashire and Manchester became an increasingly urgent headache for detectives across the North West.
A well-organised and professional crew, targeting mainly high-powered vehicles and not afraid to use weapons, had racked up a staggering number of offences - around 160 it later emerged. However, a then relatively recent change in the way Merseyside Police approach burglary meant the crew had met their match.
Almost every single working day, Detective Inspector Tony O'Brien and his team think about burglars. The 30 year policing veteran is the head of Merseyside Police's Operation Castle, a unit dedicated to tackling organised crime gangs or prolific offenders who ransack homes to make money. The unit has been a demonstrable success, with reported burglaries dropping year on year to 55% below where they were when Operation Castle was launched in 2018 and 600 years of jail time handed out to burglars.
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In fact, the work of DI O'Brien has proved so successful teams from neighbouring forces including, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and Cheshire Constabulary, have paid his officers visits to learn their methods.
The work of the unit is largely based on two core elements, analysing data and sharing intelligence. Both of those things were key in one of their largest, most complex but also most successful investigations that eventually took down that crew - Operation Awakening.
During an in-depth interview with the ECHO, DI O'Brien explained how Operation Castle works and how the change in approach had such a dramatic impact on burglary figures.
He said: "Merseyside criminals, you will know, travel well. Not only that, but when you see the sort of national picture of where our villains turn up, you can also see it in force. So we realised that one week we were having a spate of incidents in maybe the Wirral, and then the next in Sefton and then some in St Helens.
"It was clear we needed to tactically change to make sure we address the issue of the way the criminals would travel. So we set up this - a series linked burglary team is what Operation Castle started as in its purest form."
Operation Castle has evolved to work on all aspects of how the force tackles burglary, from drumming the basics into raw recruits, to training call-handlers to ask the right questions, and to visiting universities to educate new students about keeping their digs secure.
But the bread and butter of DI O'Brien's team is taking down the hardened, prolific, and sometimes 'professional' burglars who can be responsible for huge numbers of offences. He said: "You rarely have a burglar that's committed one burglary. So research and analysis is a massive part of what we do. Let's go back, where have they been caught burgling?
"Let's go and look at how many burglaries there's been in that area in the last weeks, let's see what CCTV footage is there. Can we prove it's them? What exists in terms of forensics at that location? DNA, you know, footwear marks that type of thing. Not stuff there that is going to surprise anybody.
"Then proactively, what we will do is we will often act on intelligence. So we will get intelligence that these gangs are operating or we might get a name of someone who's operating, and that's when we start doing our more covert, tactical work."
Speaking about Operation Awakening, DI O'Brien said: "This was a team that were operating across the north west so by the time we had done our enquiries into vehicles, we realised there was a footprint in Greater Manchester Police of things that were happening, it went to Lancashire, and that culminated in a joint investigation as they often do where we work across the region.
"In that particular one, 160 detections across the north west were made for burglaries involving cars. That particular team were involved with stealing car keys from the address with a view to getting shut of those vehicles for either different types of crime or selling them on for parts. Our unit leant itself to being a sort of step-back from being a localised CID, if you like, in one area, and allowed us to link in with different counterparts in different force burglary units."
In the end, the operation revealed the organised crew had stolen vehicles worth around £2.5m. Blackburn based Kashif Rafiq, also know as Anjum Nawaz, was the 'fence' who sold on vehicles stolen by hardened, Merseyside based crooks paid to burgle homes and businesses.
One operator, 42-year-old Keith Russell, who was paid 'wages' by Rafiq, was personally responsible for a staggering 88 break-ins targeting BMWs and Audis, some of which were sold on to other criminals. Russell also subjected a Post Office worker in Stockbridge Village to a terrifying armed robbery, threatening him with a crowbar and making off with a cashbox containing £3,500.
In January this year, Russell, of no fixed address, was jailed for eight years after admitting robbery, and conspiracy to burgle and steal. while Rafiq, of Oozehead Lane, Blackburn, was jailed for eight years and nine months last year for conspiracy to burgle and steal cars. The pair were two of 10 people, including men from Knotty Ash, Tuebrook and Huyton, to be convicted over the conspiracy.
Another dangerous, predatory and prolific set of offenders were taken down when DI O'Brien assisted with Merseyside Police's county lines unit, Operation Medusa, to tackle a dealer who ran a drugs ring from his home in Norris Green into Widnes.
Lucas Devereux, 20, was locked up in June for four years and 10 months after admitting being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs and four burglaries. Operation Castle shared intelligence with both drugs detectives and the Matrix Vehicle Enforcement Unit to help put the pieces together and bring Devereux to justice.
DI O'Brien said in his view, based on 30 years in policing, gangs such as the crew targeted in Operation Awakening build their networks in the prison system, making contacts with other criminals outside their home turf. But his unit also focuses on criminals who exploit supposed easy-pickings within the city's substantial student population.
One such investigation led to the imprisonment of career criminals John Khan, 51, from Wavertree, and Robert Osu, 43, from Kensington. The pair had targeted a student house in Jamieson Road, Wavertree, stealing a laptop and bank-cards, and were linked to a number of other burglaries and attempted burglaries.
As with the professionals burglars captured in Operation Awakening, a smaller team of determined career burglars can play havoc with crime rates. DI O'Brien said: "Khan and Osu were two individuals who quite clearly will, and do, target students. And I am saying that as a result of us arresting them, and putting them in prison, the prevalence of that type of offence in that type of area has certainly ceased or is ceasing. There are certainly others that will try that type of offence because they know there is potentially rich pickings with young kids coming to the city for the first time and that type of thing, excited.
"We realise that we have got an issue in certain parts of the city where the student population is high, I would say mainly the Smithdown Road corridor. What we do is we go to our partners in the city council and say look, we have a problem here. We may do a bid through the police and crime commissioner's funds for extra resource in that area."
One tactic deployed by the Operation Castle unit, in liaison with the force's Problem Solving Team, is sending what are known as Architectural Liaison Officers to areas where there has been a spate of burglaries. Those officers do a "physical sweep" to identify problems that could help a burglar break in, such as unsecured doors or windows, unlocked alley-gates or properties in CCTV blackspots.
The force also liaises with local shops specialising in laptops or computer equipment to ensure they are not paying for stolen goods to prevent an easy payday for burglars.
Another hugely successful tactic has been an initiative to seize on the huge boom in home-security devices such as doorbell cameras, most commonly the Amazon owned Ring brand. DI O'Brien said he noticed while using his own social media pages how many people in the city tended to post clips of suspicious characters appearing to scope out their driveways or even try a door-handle.
He said: "It seemed as if they were reluctant to contact the police, because they didn't actually get into the property or they didn't actually steal anything, well that's gold-dust for us."
Earlier this year the force launched an online portal allowing members of the public to upload doorbell camera, CCTV or other footage of suspicious behaviour directly to the Operation Castle team. Since then around 110 clips have been sent in resulting in more than 10 charges for attempted burglary.
Describing that as a "fantastic response", DI O'Brien said: "The message I would be keen to pass to the public is don't think that you're wasting our time, and the thing is the sheer numbers that they're sold, these devices these days, the criminals struggle.
"These burglars will walk up and down and try 20 or 30 addresses before they hit the one that's insecure. Imagine how many cameras these people have passed."
For DI O'Brien, the success of Operation Castle has demonstrated how highly the force prioritises burglary. He said: "I have been in the police 30 years and I think that it's one of the most invasive and personal crimes to you.
"I think that we as a force we're fully aware of the impact it has on individuals; I have known people who have had to move houses because of the fact that memories are so bad so it's absolutely not lost on us that the public quite rightly demand a response from us.
"Operation Castle now is a unit that is held up as good practice. We're helping our colleagues in the likes of GMP and Cheshire Constabulary, they come across to see what it is that Operation Castle do with a view to taking best practice off us.
"All the time we're sharing best practice. There's absolutely no use whatsoever in keeping things to yourself when you do something well in a policing environment. One of the things that you ought to be doing all the time is disseminating best practice, because why would we want to see the public of GMP hurt when ours is fine?"
Anyone with any CCTV or doorbell footage showing a suspected burglar can upload it for the attention of the Operation Castle team here. You can share any other information you think is useful via our social media desk on Twitter @MerPolCC or Facebook ‘Merseyside Police Contact Centre’. You can also pass information via Crimestoppers anonymously, on 0800 555 111 or via their online form.
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