Jordan Owens and Christopher Hughes among clients of crime gang

Anthony Beard provided fraudulently obtained documents to killers and suspected drug traffickers which allowed them to slip out of Scotland, flee abroad and evade justice.

Beard, 61, obtained real passports in other people's names then added the photographs of criminals.

Anthony Beard (Image: Supplied)

He was jailed for six years and eight months. His accomplice Christopher Zietek, 67, was jailed for eight years, and a third member of the gang, Alan Thompson, 72, was caged for three years.

Sentencing them, Judge Nicholas Ainley said: "This crime was to enable wicked, violent criminals to evade justice."

Some of their most high-profile customers included Glasgow murderers Jordan Owens and Christopher Hughes, as well as suspected drug lord Barry Gillespie and Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson.

Many of the mobsters who worked with the trio spent years on the run evading the authorities and were the focus of several worldwide manhunts.

Fake passport issued to Jordan Owens (Image: Supplied)

Zietek, Thompson and Beard's organised crime group exploited vulnerable people – often with drink or drug problems – who were around the same age as their clients and sported similar facial features. They were paid for providing their expired passports and their details were then used to apply for new ones.

Christopher Zietek (Image: Supplied)

The gangs also paid others to counter sign passport applications, and customers paid between £5,000 and £20,000 for the highly sought after documents.

These allowed fugitives to cross international borders and conduct gangland business abroad undetected.

Glaswegian Hughes, 34, is believed to have used a fake passport supplied by the gang to evade capture in 2018.

Christopher Hughes (Image: Supplied)

He was later traced and convicted of murdering Dutch crime writer Martin Kok, 49, outside an Amsterdam sex club. Hughes was convicted after a trial in 2022 and ordered to serve at least 25 years behind bars before he can seek parole for what was described as a 'planned assassination'.

Mr Kok is believed to have been targeted after setting up a website exposing criminals in the Netherlands.

Fake passport handed to Hughes (Image: Supplied)

Hughes has a long association with organised crime, possessing firearms, storing, concealing, and transporting criminal money, drugs and counter-surveillance equipment, while Gillespie, along with his brother and fellow suspected drug trafficker James, is believed to have been executed by cartel bosses while hiding out in Brazil.

James and Barry Gillespie (Image: Supplied)

Owens was captured after using fraudulent documents to escape to Portugal while on the run after shooting a man dead near to a children's playpark in Castlemilk in July 2017. He was given a minimum sentence of 23 years after finally being brought to justice at the High Court in Glasgow last year.

The lucrative passport network was busted by an investigation codenamed Operation Strey, which was run by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in partnership with the Dutch national police and HM Passport Office.

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NCA Deputy Director Craig Turner said: “The fraudulent passports this crime group supplied were seen as golden tickets by criminals, as they allowed them to operate internationally under false identities and pose a sustained threat to the public.

"The investigation demonstrates the NCA’s unique role in tackling the most serious and complex crime threats facing the UK. We have dismantled a crime group that enabled drug and firearm traffickers, murderers and fugitives to evade justice.

“We worked across international borders to bring the masterminds to account, and we will continue to protect the UK from criminals who present a threat to our security, people and economy.”

Beard pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to supply fraudulent documents on 3 January 2023. Zeitek and his co-conspirator Thompson were convicted by a jury on March 17.

Alan Thompson (Image: Supplied)

The hearing was told that Beard, from Sydenham in London, was an expert in securing the passports, and NCA officers believe he had been procuring them for over two decades.

He was involved in every aspect of the process, including collecting application forms and planning the details to be provided by the applicant and the counter-signatory. His fingerprints were found on many of the forms and contact numbers he included were for numerous ‘burner’ phones he used.

Handwriting experts established he completed most of the forms himself, and a voice recognition specialist determined that he called HM Passport Office to chase up applications while pretending to be the people named on the forms.

Zietek, who was formerly known as Christopher McCormack, was an alleged enforcer for a notorious crime family who split his time between Sydenham, Ireland and Spain. He acted as the broker and exploited his underworld contacts to obtain new clients for the crime group.

The NCA captured audio recordings in Zietek’s house of incriminating conversations with Beard and others about the application processes and their customers - including the Glaswegians.

Officers also observed meetings with identity donors or counter-signatories, analysed reams of mobile phone and cell site data and deployed undercover officers to deliver some of the passports. Zietek also diversified into supplying false Latvian documentation to some criminals, including Glasgow murderer Hughes.

In December 2019, Zietek needed to travel to Portugal to hand over the Latvian documentation to Hughes in person but paid a woman he knew to make the journey instead. Recordings of conversations revealed him giving the woman tips about avoiding detection at the airport, and what to say if apprehended. Hughes’s Latvian passport was wrapped up and placed it in a Garmin Edge box to make it look like a Christmas present.

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After the courier checked in her baggage, it was covertly searched by NCA officers before the flight departed the UK. A DNA profile recovered from the passport was a match for Zietek. The woman handed Hughes the passport at a hotel in Portugal before returning to the UK just an hour later.

The NCA's Senior Investigating Officer Paul Green added: “The investigation led to the apprehension of approximately 50 fugitives who were on the run and allowed for foreign partners to look for others."