Crimewatch Caught (4th October 2024)
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00:00If you're a victim of crime, if you're a witness of crime, we're here for you.
00:09Police officers, they want to make people feel safe in their own community.
00:16Forensic science is absolutely critical for revealing the truth.
00:20If you go on the run, you've got to be lucky every day, but we've only got to be lucky
00:24once.
00:26To be able to get justice for those victims was incredibly satisfying.
00:32These people have to be caught, they have to be brought to justice.
00:55Anyone can become a victim of identity theft.
01:25And with the dark web providing a cloak of anonymity for criminals wanting to buy and
01:30exploit this data, there are dedicated detectives working hard to unmask them.
01:48Personal data has now become more valuable than any other commodity in the world.
01:56Money that's been involved in cybercriminality and ransomware is eye-watering.
02:00In 2023, DCI Chris McClellan was heading up the cybercrime team within the North West
02:12Regional Organised Crime Unit, covering North Wales and the North West of England.
02:17Cybercriminality doesn't really have any geographical borders.
02:22Criminals are using the internet to obtain people's identities, their credentials, to
02:30allow them to hack and gain access to people's personal information.
02:37You never understand what impact that has on the individual person whose data was stolen.
02:44What we find is a lot of people who are involved in cybercriminality tend to operate from other
02:49countries outside of the UK.
02:55And that makes it more challenging for us to investigate.
03:01You have the clear web, which is what we have access to every day.
03:08It's like an iceberg, so the clear web is the tip of the iceberg and the dark web is
03:14everything else underneath.
03:17It's quite a huge entity.
03:20The difference between the clear web and the dark web is the dark web has layers of encryption
03:26that you have to go through to be able to access it.
03:30It's those levels of encryption that protect you when you're operating on there, which
03:34protect your anonymity, which hide your identity.
03:39The dark web wasn't created for criminal purposes, but it's become synonymous with
03:45criminality because of its levels of encryption.
03:50The cyber is difficult to police because you're investigating people who are technically
03:57really proficient, who understand the internet, who understand how to hide and mask their identity.
04:05But to operate on the dark web, you can make mistakes.
04:11And anyone who's investigating people who operate on there will quickly be able to see
04:16those mistakes and find out who you are.
04:21Just like the clear web, the dark web hosts various marketplaces where users can browse
04:26and make purchases.
04:28The difference between a dark web marketplace is you make purchases in cryptocurrency rather
04:33than normal currencies.
04:37The marketplaces on a dark web will be selling illicit commodities and illicit goods and services.
04:45And it's an underworld with no international borders.
04:49In 2022, the FBI in America were investigating a marketplace on the dark web called Genesis.
04:57Genesis marketplace hosted approximately 80 million stolen credentials.
05:04It also had approximately 2 million digital fingerprints stolen from victims.
05:13These stolen credentials offered on Genesis were packaged up and sold as bots, which had
05:18varying monetary values dependent on the personal information you were buying.
05:23$5 might give you access to someone's Netflix account.
05:26$200 might give you access to someone's personal banking.
05:36What Genesis marketplace were doing was quite unique because it contained an almost a clone
05:41of someone's personal computer with all of those details on that would allow you to access
05:47a lot of their personal information.
05:49So you would have their fingerprint ID, their passwords, everything that you would need
05:54if you were logging onto your personal computer to log onto your personal banking.
05:58That's what you were buying.
06:02It replicated that device and gave the criminal exactly the same access as you would do operating
06:08your own personal device.
06:12So your personal bank wouldn't recognize it as the criminal computer.
06:15They'd recognize it as the device of the victim.
06:20FBI investigators managed to access the user database for Genesis marketplace and passed
06:26information about the UK users over to the National Crime Agency.
06:33The FBI intelligence package was basically the name of a person that was identified,
06:38how much they spent, how long they'd been operating on the Genesis marketplace for.
06:45The packages didn't contain any evidence of what they'd used that data for.
06:50It was just a key to a door.
06:53We would then go and apply for a warrant based on that information.
06:57And then it was down for us then as investigators to use the warrant, seize devices and see
07:03what criminality fell out from that.
07:11The Northwest Regional Organized Crime Unit received 29 packages or identities of people
07:17using Genesis marketplace from the NCA.
07:21One of these packages led Chris and his cyber crime team to the small town of Mould in North Wales.
07:29An intelligence package that really stood out was one in relation to Barry Byrne.
07:35He had accessed the Genesis marketplace in mid-January 2022
07:42and had been operating on that marketplace up until mid-April 2022.
07:48And during that time, he'd purchased 20 bots of people's personal information.
07:56It was the FBI's intention to publicly take down Genesis marketplace.
08:02Hackers trying to use Genesis market today didn't get the usual login page.
08:07Rather, they got this message from the FBI.
08:10And that action was to be coordinated in a worldwide strike.
08:16For too long, criminals have stolen credentials from innocent members of the public.
08:22We now want criminals to be afraid that we have their credentials, and they should be.
08:27And people today are getting a knock on their door very early in the morning.
08:33So on the 4th of April, we executed a search warrant at the home address of Barry Byrne.
08:43He wasn't at the address at the time. We later arrested him at his work address.
08:55We seized his mobile phone and a number of other computer devices
09:01and devices that could access the internet.
09:07Byrne was taken to Wrexham Police Station for questioning.
09:13He did make admissions about purchasing some bots,
09:17but didn't admit to using those bots for any criminal purpose.
09:21It's fair to say that Barry Byrne, his operational security was good.
09:26He had a good knowledge of encryption.
09:29He had a good knowledge of how to operate on the dark web.
09:32He understood how to manage his anonymity online.
09:36His downfall was the fact that he gave us access to his mobile phone.
09:44With officers on the tail of the dark web hacker,
09:48South Wales Police were on the hunt for a gang of thieves committing burglaries
09:53along the M4 corridor.
10:14The group weren't concerned about anybody being in these addresses when they were going in.
10:19There we go, old boy. Go on, sit down. Down!
10:22On one particular occasion, an elderly male occupant was beaten.
10:26And then on another occasion, a hammer was used, a metal bar was used.
10:31It was just devastating to see the impact it had.
10:38Even to this day, it's difficult for them to speak about what they saw
10:42on that day.
11:05For two years, between 2018 and 2019,
11:09a gang of masked jewellery thieves looted homes across Wales,
11:14often in broad daylight.
11:22They fell into roughly two categories.
11:25It was either something that was easily recognised as an affluent household
11:30or those belonging to elderly or vulnerable individuals.
11:34The method in which these burglaries were being conducted was always the same.
11:38In as much as we'd have one individual who would sit in the vehicle
11:42and then three individuals would go into the address.
11:46They would target the bedrooms of the property.
11:49They would predominantly steal a pillowcase to use as their sort of carrier bag
11:54to take away the cash and jewellery, because that's the main thing they were targeting.
11:58Back into the car outside and then make off.
12:04BANG
12:15D.I. Peart and his team began trawling through witness reports and CCTV.
12:21I categorised 156 burglaries as being committed by this organised crime group.
12:26So that was 156 crime reports.
12:34My name is Josie Blackmore and I'm a Victim Focus Manager within Victim Support.
12:40So I supported several families at the time of Operation Tymia
12:44and they were all of different backgrounds, some of them elderly,
12:48of the Asian community where they had young families
12:51and then other people living on their own.
12:56We didn't quite appreciate the fact that there were so many people
13:01We didn't quite appreciate the scale of the crimes that took place
13:06until these victims started to really engage with us.
13:09And I think that the worst thing for the elderly victims
13:12was that they actually entered their bedrooms.
13:15They had gone into an intimate place within their home.
13:20Somewhere that they'd sleep at night.
13:31The gang were clever, even using bleach to destroy forensic evidence.
13:38What was very difficult was the lack of evidence that we had
13:42in which to pursue the offenders at that time.
13:46They'd take measures to try and reduce any possibility
13:49of DNA shedding from themselves
13:51to frustrate leaving any forensic opportunities behind.
13:56But by trawling through hundreds of hours of CCTV,
14:00detectives were able to track some of the vehicles used in the burglaries.
14:05They turned out to be stolen but offered vital clues.
14:10They had conducted similar basic forensic frustration techniques
14:14in the vehicles as they were displaying in people's houses
14:17but they weren't completely successful.
14:19They could not completely remove their forensic footprint.
14:25Meanwhile, detectives began to notice that the burglaries followed a pattern.
14:30We later found out, as part of their planning process
14:34to identify addresses in which to attack,
14:37reconnaissance was taking place.
14:40They were posing as scrap dealers.
14:44Leaflet drops for paving, guttering, house clearance, that type of thing.
14:51And on occasions they were knocking on houses.
14:55Purported to be somebody who was answering an advert on Gumtree
14:58and obviously went challenged.
15:00And they were saying obviously they'd got the wrong address
15:02or they'd misread the advert.
15:05There were other patterns in the gang's behaviour too.
15:14We would have periods of high activity,
15:16i.e. we may have two or three burglaries in one evening
15:19over a period of a week, maybe two weeks maximum.
15:22And then we'd have months where we would have no activity of that type.
15:28A lot of high-value gold was taken of great sentimental value.
15:33Within the Asian community, they felt like they were targeted specifically.
15:38There was lots of other people affected as well.
15:40They were constantly looking over their shoulder.
15:43They didn't know who these people were that had burgled their homes
15:46so they could have walked past that person in the streets still.
15:49So it was a real sense of unease at the time.
15:57Detectives received intelligence that suggested
15:59the gang were moving around the UK.
16:05And further sources led police to a traveller's site
16:08in the Morriston area of Swansea.
16:15Whilst there wasn't one particular kingpin,
16:17there were at least two individuals who, as far as we and I were concerned,
16:21were the main driving forces behind it.
16:23And that was Daniel Casey and Kieran Joyce Jr.
16:35The clothing that we identified from witness and CCTV footage
16:40was basically of a generic brand.
16:43Unbranded clothing offers us just as much as a line of enquiry
16:46as branded clothing.
16:52Experts were able to establish that the clothing had been bought
16:55at a particular supermarket.
16:58And when they received CCTV from the branch near Joyce's address,
17:02members of his family were caught on camera
17:04doing a very suspicious supermarket sweep.
17:10In the middle of August, during a heatwave,
17:12they were buying hoodies, ski masks, scarves and gloves.
17:17That stuck out like a sore thumb as far as we were concerned.
17:21As the police closed in, the burglaries took a dark turn.
17:29The level of violence seemed to just increase exponentially.
17:34Down you go! Down!
17:37That's it, down.
17:38One rather disturbing case was two young girls in an address,
17:42teenagers.
17:44The crime group broke into the address and they terrified them.
17:47The two young girls barricaded themselves in the bathroom
17:50and they could hear the offenders laughing and joking amongst
17:54themselves whilst they were rummaging through their bedrooms
17:57and their parents' bedrooms.
18:00With the safety of the public his paramount concern,
18:04D.I. Peart was left with no other choice but to launch a dawn raid.
18:10Which involved over 200 officers and staff.
18:21Different departments, from the helicopter to dogs
18:24to the traffic department.
18:26I think if I'd had a submarine, I'd have had a submarine.
18:29We conducted 16 warrants.
18:31So in all, 11 arrests were made on the day.
18:35The caravans and the actual site.
18:38We did recover over 350 useful exhibits.
18:42One particular caravan had a hidden cupboard, really,
18:45but it was disguised as part of the flooring.
18:47And that had a significant amount of cash in it.
18:50In one of the ovens, we found what we classed as a burglary kit,
18:53which was the screwdrivers, crowbars.
18:56Gloves, tape.
19:00We recovered significant items of jewellery,
19:02particularly some Asian gold.
19:04Mrs Joyce Senior, as in the mum,
19:06was actually wearing stolen jewellery on the day of the raid.
19:13Ciaran Joyce was sentenced to ten years in prison
19:16and Daniel Casey received just under seven years.
19:21In total, Operation D.I. Peart had a total of 1,000 victims.
19:26Police in Timia secured ten convictions.
19:30They had in the region over £900,000 worth of stolen property.
19:41It is a devastating thing to happen to anyone.
19:46And something that you could never be prepared for.
19:52And a lot of these people had never been involved in the police process,
19:55so it was really about them not being completely consumed
19:58by the incident and what happened to them,
20:00but empowering them to overcome it.
20:03A lot of victims blamed themselves for what happened
20:06because they didn't have enough security on their home
20:09or they might have left a door open at the time.
20:12Even to this day, it's difficult for them to speak about what they saw.
20:18People didn't want to leave home to go to work.
20:26Some of the victims that were impacted were elderly.
20:29It's taken a long time to overcome what's happened,
20:32but many never will overcome it.
20:42It was definitely reassuring for victims that they had received the sentence.
20:50There was a sense of closure for some victims
20:52and they felt at that point they could move on with their lives.
20:56And they didn't want to become consumed by the incident.
21:01To be able to get justice for those victims
21:03and take this organised crime group off the streets
21:06was incredibly satisfying.
21:22Also hoping to get another criminal locked up,
21:25DCI Chris McClellan is investigating Barry Byrne,
21:29a man who has bought private personal data from the dark web.
21:33But before they can charge their offender,
21:35they need to work out what he planned to do with it.
21:40When we got into his device, he hadn't deleted any of his chat.
21:44It was all there for us to see.
21:47He talked about his understanding of operating on the internet
21:53and his understanding of encryption
21:55and the types of software and stuff that he was using
21:59to mask his identity and encrypt his use on the internet.
22:05We were able to access his chat,
22:09where he was in conversation with other people,
22:12where he was telling them about Genesis Marketplace.
22:15He was telling them about how Genesis Marketplace operates
22:19and what Genesis Marketplace offers for sale.
22:22And he was able to articulate that really well.
22:24He sent an invitation to another person,
22:28inviting them to go onto the marketplace
22:31and encouraging them to do what he was doing,
22:33which was to buy bots of people's personal information.
22:37He talked about how he had been able to access
22:41personal information of a Croatian couple,
22:44really quite sensitive in personal information.
22:47He was threatening to use their personal information
22:50to take out loans, access their bank account,
22:57publish personal information about them onto the internet,
23:00about their children.
23:02If they didn't pay him £250,
23:05£250 is an extremely large amount of money.
23:10You're probably talking about millions of pounds.
23:13It was later he made the admission in the text chat
23:16that he'd made an error and he didn't actually mean
23:19to hold them to ransom for £250.
23:22He actually meant £250.
23:25Ah, no, I didn't clock that.
23:28I've missed the dollar sign.
23:31The key to this was the fact that he made that malicious intent
23:35and he'd made that demand.
23:39He then went on to say he would go on and use that
23:42to commit fraud against them and steal monies
23:45and further personal information about them
23:47and exploit them further.
23:51He was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
23:55very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
23:59He was bragging about it.
24:04Detectives were building a picture of a fraudster
24:07with no scruples.
24:09It was the fact that he took pleasure
24:11from holding these victims to ransom.
24:19You know, people look at cybercriminality
24:21and they don't tend to see that side of it.
24:24They're targeting a victim and they're stealing from them.
24:28You know, it's no different from a thief
24:30or someone who would, you know,
24:32break into your house and steal your items
24:34or someone who would threaten you face-to-face.
24:38This is just masked over the platform of the internet.
24:41He was happy to share how he would do it
24:44to encourage other people to do it as well.
24:47He's a fraudster and a criminal and a thief.
24:53Further digital forensics
24:55uncovered more widespread criminality.
24:58Within his chats, we were able to see
25:00that he was actually drug dealing as well.
25:02He would sell to probably close friends and associates.
25:07They would message him.
25:08He would say, oh, yeah, make a payment to me,
25:11and the payments were done digitally.
25:13He would then leave the drugs in a barbecue in his back garden
25:17and people would just access his barbecue and pick up the drugs.
25:20We also discovered that he was a reseller
25:23of illegal streaming of TV services.
25:27He was sourcing IPTV subscriptions online
25:32and then reselling them to customers.
25:36He was involved in selling what he described as a fraud method,
25:41and what this was was a five-step course
25:45about how to defraud someone online,
25:47and he would post this on various social media sites.
25:51He would monetise each step,
25:54so he would advertise it as a five-step method,
25:57but you'd have to pay for each step.
26:01By the time he got to step three,
26:03he would cease communications with the individual,
26:06so he would have had money up to steps one to three,
26:11and then he would exit from it and would never give the full course.
26:16He would receive payments in Bitcoin for it,
26:19and he had financially benefited to the tune of about $15,000,
26:25where he was defrauding other potential fraudsters, which is ironic.
26:31In June 2022,
26:33Byrne was re-arrested for the offences the police had uncovered on his phone
26:38and taken back into custody for another interview.
26:41He had nowhere to go, really.
26:43He then had to make admissions in relation to his criminality.
26:46He obviously tried to play it down a bit
26:48in terms of how much money he was making.
26:51More sinister was the fact that the fraudulent activity,
26:55the blackmail offence,
26:57he was clearly someone who revelled in the knowledge that he had
27:01to be able to steal people's information
27:04and use it in a way where he could make criminal gains from it.
27:09In February 2024, Barry Byrne pleaded guilty to ten offences.
27:14The most serious of those was blackmail,
27:17and he was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison.
27:25As a criminal operating online,
27:27there'll be a number of different agencies looking at you at any given time.
27:33I think the Barry Byrne case just gives a stark warning to people
27:37that, you know, you're not as protected as you think.
27:41Hopefully this will send out a message to all people who commit crime online
27:47that we will work hard with our partners in the UK and abroad
27:53to unmask those offenders who think that their anonymity is intact.
28:00We have ways of identifying people who commit crime online.
28:04We invest an awful lot of money to tackle cybercriminality,
28:07and that'll continue.
28:34For more information, visit www.fema.gov