The Science of Fear - Borrowed Time (Episode 7)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
For months after the Dover drug bust, Bomber watched and waited, expecting to be picked up by the NCA. But they never came through his door. The seizure of cocaine, hidden inside heavy machinery shipped by Bomber's crew, confirmed what investigators had long suspected. This seemingly legitimate machinery business was a front for an industrial-scale narcotics operation.
You need to know what all the moving parts are. So you sometimes sit covertly around a group and you use whatever lawful covert collection methods that we have available to gain an understanding. And then at the point when you feel that you can test what you think is happening, and that may be the point where we took over action and stopped the load coming into Dover because we felt sure that the load that was coming in was a criminal load. That was the case, so in terms of it corroborated what we thought was happening, we recovered those drugs at that stage and triggered an arrest in 2017.
To get to a break like Dover, officers needed luck, and they got it during the Greenoag arms raid. In the end, it wasn't a secret recording or an informant that broke the case. It was paperwork, a routine logistics document, carelessly left behind. The information it contained pointed to a UK-based freight operation the gang believed was invisible. That single forgotten document, found by the Gardaí in the Greenoag operation, gave the NCA a lead.
Our investigation identified significant evidence in relation to logistics route into the UK that was actually being used by the gang. So that information, which was in the form of a logistics document that had been left behind, hadn't been destroyed as it was supposed to. actually identified a company in the UK and a potential route that was being used by the gang to smuggle their drugs and firearms into the UK. So that information absolutely was passed straight over to the National Crime Agency.
The Gardaí passed it on. The NCA followed it.
It's usually small things by paying attention to detail. And it was... The raid that was undertaken by Angarda Shirkana in Greenough, that led to the identification of a logistics company that was being used in the Midlands. And then from that, that really pushed forward the NCA investigation because it gave us a very clear place to look and focus.
When the shipment arrived at Dover, officers opened two six-tonne tarmac rollers. Inside were the drugs and a tracker the gang had fitted themselves. That tracker didn't just protect the load, it exposed the network behind it. Within hours, industrial units linked to the shipment were searched in Wolverhampton and Wednesbury. At Wednesbury, officers found cocaine residue inside industrial equipment and a handgun hidden nearby. Martin Burns' DNA tied him directly to the weapon. Elsewhere, investigators also found boxes full of tracking devices identical to those on the seized machinery. At Vickery's rented property in Solihill, officers recovered five barrels of boric acid, a common cocaine cutting agent, alongside a cash counting machine, 43,000 pounds in sterling and 200,000 euro, all in cash.
At Canning's home in Dickens Heath, smaller sums of cash were found, along with phones and encrypted communication devices. And it was here, in those seized phones, that the picture began to sharpen. Messages showed Kavanagh was heading up the criminal enterprise, with messages between the group referring to him as the gaffer. He was also in contact with criminal contacts in Europe to orchestrate shipments. With the arrests made and devices seized, the investigation was only beginning. What followed was months of analysis, slow, meticulous work that would determine whether investigators could ever reach Bommer himself. You're listening to The Science of Fear. Thomas Bommer Kavanagh and his brutal reign as Daniel Kinahan's right-hand man.
Episode 7, Borrowed Time. By 2017, the criminal underworld was in the middle of a communications shift. For years, BlackBerry handsets had been the device of choice due to their encryption and anonymity.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–8:31
2
How did a forgotten logistics document from an Irish raid expose a UK freight route?
8:31–19:06
3
How did the Dover seizure of cocaine inside heavy machinery link to Bomber’s organisation?
19:06–19:31
4
What role did trackers and searches of industrial units play in the investigation?
19:31–25:29
5
How did seized phones and encrypted messages reveal 'The Gaffer' as the gang leader?
25:29–30:06
6
How did the switch from BlackBerry to EncroChat create digital slip‑ups investigators used?
30:06–44:09
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from Crime World
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