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David Hunt (gangster)

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David Hunt
Born
David Charles Hunt

April 1961
Canning Town, London, England
Other namesLong Fella, Davey Hunt
OccupationSuspected organised crime boss
Hunt Crime Organisation
Founded1980s
Founded byDavid Hunt and brothers
Founding locationCanning Town, London, England
Years active1980s–present
TerritoryCanning Town/Soho/Essex
RivalsVarious criminal gangs in London

David Charles Hunt (born April 1961) is an English suspected organised crime boss linked to violence, fraud, prostitution, money laundering and murder.[1][2] He heads a gang dubbed 'The Hunt Syndicate',[3] which has been described as being an extensive criminal empire that has so far evaded significant penetration from law enforcement.[4] Hunt is known in gangland circles as Long Fella due to his height of 6 ft 5 inches.[5] In a confidential police report from the early 2000s which was later leaked online,[6] Hunt's gang was said to include family members and the father of well-known reality TV star Mark Wright.[7]

Hunt has been described by Metropolitan Police sources as being "too big to bring down". He became a close friend and associate of Reggie Kray, visiting him in prison in 2000 just prior to his death.[8][9][10] He was the owner of "Hunt's Waste Recycling" in Dagenham,[11] which during the nearby 2012 Olympics closing ceremony, was the centre of the "largest fire in several years" in London which saw 40 fire engines and over 200 fire fighters attend the scene.[12] Now known as Connect Waste the recycling centre is run by Hunt's long time friend, Phil Mitchell.[13]

Early life

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Hunt was born in 1961 in Canning Town to May (née Wicks) and George Hunt, the youngest of 13 children.[14]

The Hunt Syndicate

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A police investigation into organised crime groups in north and east London, codenamed Operation Tiberius, included details of the activities of the Hunt Syndicate. The Tiberius report stated that the syndicate had managed to evade prosecution with the help of corrupt police officers and by intimidating witnesses.[4] The crime gang were uncovered by the crime squad in Newham, East London in 2006, when a scrapyard in Canning Town was searched for stolen metal. When another nearby property was raided as part of that operation, 42 containers were unexpectedly discovered to contain the contents of 18 lorry thefts and a commercial burglary. Counterfeit goods were also seized. Dave McKelvey, head of the crime squad, discovered that the gang had been corrupting police officers for over a decade and that despite a gang insider leaking information to the police, the information was never acted upon. Despite overwhelming evidence, the case collapsed after a detective sent a dossier to prosecutors raising concerns about McKelvey, who was then investigated for two years (the investigation was found to be fatally flawed and McKelvey exonerated, with Detective Chief Superintendent Albert Patrick stating that he struggled to understand what McKelvey was being accused of). As a result of the raids, McKelvey was informed, whilst interviewing a petty criminal, that a known contract-killer had been contracted for £1 million to kill three police officers including McKelvey himself, who now lives under round-the-clock police protection.[15]

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In 2013, Hunt unsuccessfully tried to sue The Sunday Times. Three years earlier, the newspaper had exposed him as a violent "underworld king". The judge stated that it was "reasonable to describe the claimant as a violent and dangerous criminal and the head of an organised crime group implicated in murder, drug trafficking and fraud".[16] Hunt was represented by Hugh Tomlinson QC, who is the chairman of the Hacked Off campaign and also a member of the Matrix Chambers group of barristers. Tomlinson portrayed Hunt as a "rough diamond" who "was a misunderstood property tycoon whose only passions in life were his family and racing pigeons", and argued that it was not in the public interest for the newspaper to have revealed how Hunt had been embroiled in a gangland turf war over land the Government had been due to buy in the lead-up to the Olympics.[17]

During the trial, The Sunday Times employed five professional bodyguards to protect their witnesses. On the second day of the trial the bodyguards walked off the job after being approached in a pub, with another security firm refusing to take the job on due to the dangerous reputation of the Hunt Syndicate. As the article had been based largely on leaked Serious Organised Crime Agency and police documents, the paper had to rely on these as evidence. When the paper approached the Metropolitan Police before publicly disclosing the leaked documents, the Met responded by unsuccessfully trying to sue them for the recovery of those documents and to obtain an order banning their publication. The Met also launched an internal investigation to try and identify the source of the leak.[18] Sunday Times journalist Michael Gillard was named British Journalism Awards Journalist of the Year in 2013 for the expose, but was unable to attend the award ceremony due to security concerns meaning that he was unable to attend public events in London.[19][20]

It was revealed in May 2014 that Lloyds Bank had lent Hunt up to £5 million at the time of the case, after a £4.2 million loan from Barclays was called in when staff read media reports of the case.[21] It was also revealed that whilst owing The Sunday Times £805,000 in legal costs, Hunt borrowed £1 million from former pornographer and newspaper owner and current West Ham United F.C. co-chairman David Sullivan. The loan was made from Sullivan's finance firm GC CO NO 102 to Hunt's business Hunt's (UK) Properties. A member of the Treasury Select Committee believed that the Financial Conduct Authority should investigate the loans.[4][19]

Contract on Metropolitan Police officers

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In 2016, details of a plot to assassinate three police officers who were investigating Hunt were revealed in full detail in an episode of the BBC's Panorama.[15][22] For a £1 million contract,[23] Hunt had summoned Yardie hitman Carl 'The Dread' Robinson[24] to a boat in Marbella and instructed him to kill the officers. Despite the detectives being tipped off there was a contract against them, their superiors, instead of investigating this, suspended the three officers and investigated them for corruption. They were later cleared of any wrongdoing.[25]

Panama Papers

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Amidst the Panama Papers leak of April 2016, it was revealed by The Guardian that Hunt was a client of Mossack Fonseca, and owned an offshore company, EMM Limited, which held ownership of an iron and steel business in East London.[26]

References

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  1. ^ LaVille, Sandra (4 July 2013). "Criminal boss loses libel case against journalist who exposed him". The Guardian.
  2. ^ "Novel lifts the lid on secrets of gangland". TheGuardian.com. 22 February 2004.
  3. ^ Thompson, Tony (28 November 1999). "London's new Krays take Soho; The Guardian". The Guardian.
  4. ^ a b c Carl Fellstrom. "West Ham owner's £1m loan to crime boss". The Independent. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  5. ^ "West Ham owner's £1m loan to crime boss". The Independent. 5 May 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  6. ^ Unknown (2002). "Operation Tiberius; Internet Archive". archive.co.uk.
  7. ^ Gillard, Michael (25 July 2019). Legacy; Michael Gillard. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781448217427.
  8. ^ Lisa O'Carroll. "Journalist reveals how he was attacked by crime boss Dave Hunt | Media". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  9. ^ Carl Fellstrom (3 May 2014). "West Ham owner's £1m loan to crime boss". The Independent. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  10. ^ "Sunday Times reveals Lloyds Bank loan to gangster David Hunt who faced £800k libel bill". Press Gazette. 2 July 2013. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  11. ^ Rayment, Tim. "The Met Almost Cost Us the Case" (PDF). Sunday Times. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  12. ^ "Largest fire in years hits London". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  13. ^ "Our people | Connect Waste Management Ltd". Connectwaste.com. 20 June 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2016. [dead link‍]
  14. ^ Josh Halliday (May 2013). "Sunday Times gangster article crucified me, says London businessman | Media". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  15. ^ a b Campbell, Glen (29 February 2016). "The cop who stirred the hornets' nest". BBC News. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  16. ^ Robin de Peyer (4 July 2013). "Canning Town businessman loses 'underworld king' libel claim". Newham Recorder. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  17. ^ "Journalist reveals how he was attacked by crime boss Dave Hunt". The Guardian. 8 July 2013.
  18. ^ Bew, John (16 July 2013). "The Sunday Times and David Hunt: we still need big media". New Statesman. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  19. ^ a b Turvill, William (12 May 2014). "Sunday Times reveals Lloyds Bank loan to gangster David Hunt who faced £800k libel bill". Press Gazette. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  20. ^ Ponsford, Dominic (4 December 2013). "Journalist of the Year Michael Gillard unable to attend London events after exposing gangster". Press Gazette. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  21. ^ Michael Gillard; Carl Fellstrom (11 May 2014). "Lloyds lent crime lord up to £4m". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 13 May 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  22. ^ "BBC One – Panorama, Cops, Criminals, Corruption: The Inside Story". BBC. 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  23. ^ "Crime lord of the rings". Spinwatch.org. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  24. ^ "Photographic image of Carl Robinson" (JPG). Spinwatch.org. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  25. ^ Ponsford, Dominic (4 January 2016). "Police whistleblowers who gave evidence in Sunday Times gangster libel trial were themselves targeted by Met". Press Gazette. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  26. ^ "Revealed: the tycoons and world leaders who built secret UK property empires". The Guardian. 5 April 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
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