FOR more than five years, the Apple iPad lay buried in the Thames riverbed, a short distance from the O2 Arena.
The battered device, water-damaged and caked in mud, was discovered by a police marine unit — and helped convict three ruthless career criminals for an attempted underworld hit job.
This iPad recovered from the River Thames helped to convict an international crime gangPA
The iPad helped uncover information related to the shooting of notorious armed robber Paul AllenPA
Allen was left permanently paralysed from the chest down after being shot twiceinstagram/53millie_paul
Former cage fighter and notorious armed robber Paul Allen, known as The Enforcer, was left permanently paralysed from the chest down after being shot twice in July 2019.
The ensuing six-year investigation into the shooting — at a large detached house Allen was renting from comedian Russell Kane in Woodford, East London — unravelled an international web of crime.
Prolific criminals Daniel Kelly and brothers Stewart and Louis Ahearne, who were last month found guilty of conspiracy to murder Allen, were also linked to a £2.8million burglary at a Swiss museum and a break-in at a luxury apartment in Kent.
Kelly, 46, and the brothers aged 46 and 36 will be sentenced next week.
However, their motive for trying to kill underworld hardman Allen, 46, remains as clear as the Thames mud in which Kelly’s iPad was found buried on November 7 last year.
It was one of a string of basic mistakes at odds with the South London trio’s reputation as international art thieves and top-level villains.
Det Supt Matthew Webb explains that officers found the iPad after realising the scene of the shooting was close to the Thames and that something may have been deposited there.
One of the key mistakes made by the gang was Louis Ahearne mentioning in his defence disclosure that he had stopped close to the river.
Det Supt Webb adds: “We were thinking most likely it was the Glock 9mm pistol used in the shooting which has never been recovered, and decided to approach the Marine Unit to see what we could achieve.
“The iPad had been under the water and covered in mud and water-damaged. But the key thing was the pink Vodafone sim card inside was still working.
Severing a finger
“We knew it was associated with Kelly’s phone number. It had been in his iPhone then switched to the iPad a week before Allen was shot.”
Data pulled from the iPad revealed how the gang tailed Allen’s Mercedes as it was driven by his partner, Jade Bovington, in Woodford at 2pm on the day before the shooting.
It also revealed an email account used by Kelly to buy online burner phones connected with the murder plot.
Louis Ahearne later admitted in court he had put a tracker on Allen’s car, but claimed he believed he was only taking part in a burglary.
His DNA, along with Kelly’s, was found on a neighbour’s fence, from where the semi-automatic Glock with a laser sight was fired six times in darkness at Allen through the illuminated kitchen window.
Allen was standing at a sink with his young step-son nearby and was shot twice.
Det Supt Webb says: “It was luck, not judgment, that the child was not murdered.”
The shooting took place at a house in London owned by comedian Russell KanePA:Press Association
One bullet hit Allen in the hand, severing part of a finger, and the other struck him in the throat.
Allen gasped: “I’m going to die,” and he was found by a neighbour on the stairs “like a sack of potatoes”.
His life was saved by surgeons who removed a bullet from his spine.
Allen’s Instagram account now describes himself as a “sportsperson”.
It features photos of him in a wheelchair, with captions including: “Your body may be broken but your mind is more powerful than ever.”
However, Det Supt Webb says: “For somebody who has lived such a colourful life as Paul, it is probably a fate worse than death to end up paralysed for life.”
Allen was born in Chatham, Kent, but grew up in Woolwich, South East London, becoming close friends with fellow cage fighter Lee “Lightning” Murray.
Both had fearsome reputations among other criminals and went on to be part of an armed gang who stole £53million from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
Only £21million from the 2006 heist was ever recovered.
Four days after the robbery, Allen and Murray fled to Morocco and set up home at a villa on the outskirts of Rabat.
The pair indulged in cocaine and women, blew large sums of money at casinos and had gladiator-style murals of themselves painted on the walls.
But the steroid-pumped pair drew attention to themselves and were arrested at a local shopping centre in June that year as they watched an England World Cup game.
Allen went on the run with cagefighter Lee Murray after a robbery from a Securitas depot in KentGetty
A haul of £53 million was stolen from the depot in Tonbridge, and only £21 million was ever recoveredAP:Associated Press
Allen pleaded guilty to his role in the armed robbery before being released in 2016PA:Press Association
Murray, whose father comes from Morocco, is still in prison there after exercising his right to stand trial locally.
He was given a ten-year sentence for the robbery, later increased to 25 years.
Allen was extradited to the UK and pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court in 2009.
He was jailed for 18 years and released in 2016 with time served on remand.
In September 2018 a gunman opened fire on him outside his mother’s Woolwich home, hitting his pregnant daughter in the hip.
A suspect was later cleared but the attack showed Allen had no shortage of enemies.
They are highly organised criminals but appear to have become so blasé they did not think they would be found responsible for their actions.
But a series of bungling actions has led to their demise
Det Supt Webb
The Operation Trident team investigating the Woodford incident got their first breakthrough after obtaining details of the gang’s silver Renault getaway car from ANPR cameras.
It had been rented two days earlier by Stewart Ahearne in his own name.
Det Supt Webb said: “Helpfully there was CCTV of him being dropped off there in Dartford by Kelly in a car linked to him.”
In yet another mistake, further CCTV revealed that 90 minutes before the shooting, the hire car pulled into a garage in Greenwich, South East London, where Louis Ahearne was filmed buying two bottles of Oasis drinks.
Kelly and Louis Ahearne were both later jailed for five years for another break-in in Kent, two nights before the shooting of Allen, in which the same hire car was used.
Stewart Ahearne was one of three men found guilty of conspiracy to murder Allen
Louis Ahearne along with Stewart were also linked to a £2.8million burglary at a Swiss museumCentral News
Daniel Kelly was the third man convicted of the shooting of Allen in North LondonPA
Criminal history
Police had arrested them a month after Allen’s shooting, and at Kelly’s home they discovered a laser sight which would fit a Glock pistol and, intriguingly, a book on Chinese antiques kept in European museums.
Coincidentally, detectives discovered that Swiss colleagues investigating a £2.8million break-in at Geneva’s Museum of Far Eastern Art were interested in questioning Stewart Ahearne.
Kelly and the brothers stole two Ming dynasty bowls and a vase from a cabinet after breaking through the front door of the poorly guarded museum six weeks before Allen was shot.
Louis Ahearne left his DNA behind when he scraped his stomach crawling through a hole in the door’s panel.
Swiss police showed Met detectives a picture of a man secretly filming the display case the day before it was ransacked, and they instantly knew it was Ahearne.
Det Supt Webb says: “Having committed the Geneva burglary they brought the items back to London.
“They then flew out to Hong Kong and when we downloaded their phones, they had taken some nice selfies of their trip.
“They had sold one of the bowls to an auction house for £80,000. We then became aware that someone was trying to sell a Ming vase to art traders.
“There was a suggestion it might be stolen and we set up an undercover operation.”
The Securitas Depot Heist
The heist took place on February 21, 2006
Notes were stolen from the Securitas depot in Vale Road, Tonbridge, Kent
The manager of the depot, Mr Colin Dixon, was pulled over by what he thought was an unmarked police car
The car had flashing blue lights, while a man wearing a fake police uniform and flashing a fake badge, ordered him into their car
At the same time, Mr Dixon’s wife and son were being held hostage at their home in Herne Bay, after answering the door to another man dressed as a police officer
His family were then taken to Elderden Farm and told, at gunpoint, to co-operate
The gang and the hostages were then transported to the depot in the back of a lorry
Staff members were bound and threatened by the gang, who were armed with pistols, shotguns and assault rifles
Bank notes were then loaded on to the back of a truck, while staff members were left locked in cash cages
The gang was in and out of the depot within two hours
The heist was the largest cash robbery in British history, with £53,116,760 stolen
Stewart Ahearne turned up with Mbaki Nkwha — a close associate of the now imprisoned Kelly — at a central London hotel in October 2020 with the 13th Century Ming vase inside a JD Sports bag.
They were arrested as they tried to sell it to an undercover officer.
Nkwha and Kelly’s son, former West Ham youth player Kaine Wright, were both jailed in 2023 for their part in trying to sell the vase.
Meanwhile, brothers Louis and Stewart were extradited to Switzerland where they were convicted of the Geneva burglary in January last year and jailed for 42 months each.
They were released in September and extradited back to Britain and charged with the plot to murder Allen. None of the defendants has ever offered any explanation over why Allen was targeted.
Kelly told police he feared for his life if he revealed any information, stating: “I reckon I would be murdered for it.”
The defendants still face a mountain of potential trouble after they are sentenced next week.
Louis Ahearne fears that he is a marked man after Kelly was overheard telling him in a prison van: “How is the snitch life treating you, Lou?”
And Kelly himself is still wanted by the Swiss over the Geneva museum theft.
He and his son Kaine Wright are also wanted for a robbery on a Tokyo jewellery store of gems valued at £630,000 in 2015, in which a security guard was injured.
Det Supt Webb says of the defendants: “They are highly organised criminals but appear to have become so blasé they did not think they would be found responsible for their actions.
“But a series of bungling actions has led to their demise.”
The Aherne brothers had been extradited to Switzerland and convicted over the theft of a 13th century Ming vaseCentral News
The Glock 9mm pistol used in the shooting has never been recoveredGetty
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