The last phase of sentencing within a group that used a systematic and targeted approach to burgling Asian houses took place on Friday 15 May at West Norwood at Lewes Crown Court. Claudia Santos, 40 was jailed for 4.5 years for conspiracy to commit burglary. Santos, a mother of two, had previously pleaded guilty at the same venue, having had a key role in identifying Asian properties to burgle throughout the UK.
Santos had operated within a group and helped pinpoint Asian addresses to steal jewellery that had been passed down through the generations, and had identified as many as 800 potential victims.
Operation Phoenix, a multi-agency intelligence gathering operation involving the Met and several other police forces and agencies, was set up to try to identity and dismantle a Latin American organised crime group.
The group was operating internationally committing hundreds of Asian gold burglaries, high value jewellery snatches of up to £300,000 and bank withdrawal distractions.
Many of the offenders falsely claimed to be Mexican and Guatemalan and were entering the UK using fraudulently obtained passports, mainly from Mexico. The suspects then flew to Europe and entered the UK via the Eurostar into London.
They based themselves within Hispanic communities in the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth and initially their offending was in the capital. They were extremely organised with all offences premeditated, researched and highly sophisticated.
On arrival in the UK the suspects were often taken to safe addresses and then introduced into criminality. Organisers within the group arranged for them to have access to second-hand vehicles, registered to false names with insurance fraudulently obtained. This allowed the offenders to travel around the UK and commit crime without fear of being stopped by police.
Other key members of the group - including Santos - would research websites to identify Asian-owned properties that were then targeted for future gold burglaries. Offenders were often in possession of handwritten lists of names and addresses that had been entered into their vehicles' sat navs.
In October 2012 the group that had initially been operating in London began to have an impact on other police forces, mainly in the Home Counties but also as far afield as Gloucestershire and Manchester. There had been a dramatic increase in Asian gold burglaries that could be linked to this group with Asian communities such as Crawley, Slough and Northampton being specifically targeted.
The operation identified more than 260 suspects, most of whom had entered the UK illegally under false details. Teams were also travelling worldwide with like offences reported in Japan, Canada, New Zealand and throughout Europe.
