Gangster BBC Radio 5 Live

A 6-part true crime podcast documenting the biggest organised crime bust in British policing history. It happens in 2020 when police in France penetrate an encrypted phone network called EncroChat. According to police, the phones were used exclusively by criminals.

For over two months, police forces across Europe were reading the secret communications of major league criminal networks. The Metropolitan Police, working with the National Crime Agency and other forces, used this information to uncover the workings of organised crime groups.

“It was like being in a room with them and they are talking freely, and they don't see you there,” says DCI Driss Hayoukane, the Senior Investigating Officer who led the Met’s EncroChat operation.

Police went public about the EncroChat hack in July 2020. This is the first time that the inside story of some of the Met’s biggest EncroChat cases has been told to a broadcaster.

Talking exclusively to BBC Sounds, police officers reveal how they used the gangsters’ messages to uncover arms dealing and expose murder plots as well as major drug trafficking and money laundering operations. Stories featured in the series include:
- A murder plot unearthed by the Met in a joint operation with South Wales police.
- Two apparently legitimate businessmen, living in a Buckinghamshire village, whose wealth really came from cocaine trafficking and major league money laundering,
- A corrupt police officer who was working for a notorious London crime group.
At a time when the Metropolitan Police Service has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, it’s a story of an extraordinary success: nearly 1000 arrests; over 400 convictions; the seizure of £19 million in cash, three tonnes of Class A and B drugs and 49 guns.

Presenter Mobeen Azhar does not shy away from what have been difficult issues for the Met police: an officer from the Met’s anti-corruption unit speaks for the first time about how hacked EncroChat messages helped to expose the worst case of police corruption he had ever seen; and Mobeen asks the officer leading the Met’s EncroChat investigation about the experience of being an ethnic minority officer in a force found to be institutionally racist.

Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen
Sound designer: Peregrine Andrews
Assistant Commissioner: Lorraine Okuefuna
Commissioning Editor: Louise Kattenhorn
Production Executive: Laura Jordan-Rowell
Creative Director for BBC Studios: Georgia Moseley
Unit Manager: Lucy Bannister
Production manager: Elaina Boateng
Development Executive: Anya Saunders
Editorial Policy Advice: Su Pennington
Legal advice: Hashim Mude and Andrew Downey
Consulting editor: Steve Boulton
Production Co-ordinator: Juliette Harvey
Thanks also to Beena Khetani, Adele Humbert, Hugh Levinson, Ali Rezakhani, Rhiannon Cobb, and Jack Griffith.

Police across Europe prepare for a top-secret operation: the hacking of EncroChat, an encrypted phone network favoured by organised crime groups.
EncroChat’s server has been discovered in northern France. The French police are planning to secretly inject some code into the users’ next software update. If it works, police could be reading the criminals’ messages for weeks.
At the Metropolitan Police in London, DCI Driss Hayoukane is summoned to a confidential meeting where he hears about the plan. He realises this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and decides to put his retirement on hold.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen

Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

It's April 2020, and the Metropolitan Police are overwhelmed with messages hacked from the EncroChat network.
Buried among the millions of texts and photographs, are the outlines of a murder plot. An anonymous EncroChat user is trying to source a gun and some ammunition for a drive by shooting.
Will the police discover the messages before it’s too late? And will they be willing to risk the secrecy of the entire EncroChat operation by arresting someone on EncroChat evidence alone?
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen
Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

In the wealthy village of Denham in Buckinghamshire, Lee Hannigan and Harry Hicks-Samuels play the part of successful businessmen really well. Hannigan has a car garage, a mansion with a Ferrari on the drive and a place in Dubai. Hicks-Samuels is only 27 but has a watch business and flat in a luxury development.
But the secrets of where their money really comes from are on their EncroChat phones.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen

Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

Little is known about who invented the EncroChat network and who owned it. Even the police who investigated the criminals using the network, know little about who’s behind it.
Journalists David James Smith and Joseph Cox explain what their investigations into the company reveal.
Plus, why an expert in cryptography thinks the whole EncroChat operation could fall apart on a legal technicality.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen

Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.

The truth unearthed about Met police officer PC Kashif Mahmood is stranger than an episode of the fictional drama Line of Duty. And it was evidence unearthed in the EncroChat operation which made him plead guilty.
PC Kashif Mahmood had won five awards for his outstanding service as a police officer. But he was secretly working for an OCG in east London.
A detective from the Met police’s anti-corruption unit talks publicly for the first time about the most brazen case of corruption he’s ever seen.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Series Producer: Andrew Hosken
Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen

Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds.