Clerkenwell crime syndicate

The Clerkenwell crime syndicate, most often known as the Adams Family or the A-team by the British press, is alleged to be one of the most powerful criminal organisations in the United Kingdom if not in fact the strongest . By the nature of their position reliable information about them that has not been distorted or exaggerated is hard to come by. But media reports have repeatedly linked them to around 25 murders and credited them with wealth of up to £200 million. Before two of the brothers were convicted in 1998 and 2007 respectively the failure of the police to secure convictions against them had led to a belief, amongst some, that they had utterly undermined the justice system so as to become untouchables. Police, Crown Prosecution Service staff and jurors were said to have been bribed and intimated leading to not-guilty verdicts against members of the gang that were said to quite simply begger belief.

Their position is now under threat: the gang's apparent leader, Terry Adams, has been serving a prison sentence since February 2007, and two of his brothers are under surveillance by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and police in Spain, making other criminals reluctant to do business with them. It has been said that Terry Adams faces severe financial difficulties having been ordered, in May 2007, to repay £4.7 million in legal aid and pay £0.8 million of prosecution costs; although it has also been reported that he has a personal fortune of £40 million.

History

The syndicate was formed in the 1980s by Terry Adams, with his brothers Tommy and Patrick Adams acting as financier and enforcer respectively. They come from a large Irish Catholic family. It expanded to include other members of the extended Adams clan and their close childhood friends. The gang's power base is the Clerkenwell neighbourhood in Islington. Terry Adams, until his admission of money laundering in February, 2007, lived in the Barnsbury area of Islington.

The gang is said to be heavily involved in drug trafficking and extortion as well as the hijacking of gold bullion shipments and security fraud. They have been linked to 25 gangland murders, using Afro-Caribbean muscle as additional manpower to murder informants and rival criminals (as would Sicilian mafiosi hired out by Charles Sabini and the Messina Brothers only decades before). As well as developing alleged connections to Metropolitan Police officials, they were also stated to have had a British Conservative MP in their pocket at one point.

The shooting of the then 68 year old "Mad" Frankie Fraser, a former enforcer for The Richardson Gang, in July 1991 was said to have been ordered by the Adams family — though Fraser said he had been targeted by rogue police. The family is believed to have connections with various criminal organisations, specifically with South American drug cartels. Before the conviction of Terry Adams in 2007 the British media referred to the gang sparingly, considering their alleged influence, and normally described them as the A-team or the notorious Adams family from Islington.

Sean "Tommy" Adams gained some public attention during a trial in 2004, when he was described as having attended a meeting in 2002 at the request of the former football international Kenny Dalglish. The nature of the criminal world means that it is sometimes difficult to assess their strength. The BBC has asserted that their influence decreased from 2000. Police officers speaking off the record to British newspapers have said that the family has been credited with acts that they simply did not carry out and judging by the number of alleged key gang members killed or imprisoned below this might well be true. The degree to which the gang operates as one is also unclear. Tommy Adams was imprisoned for his involvement in money laundering and a drugs plot that was described as not having been sanctioned by his brothers. During a 21-month bugging operation by MI5, Terry Adams was recorded speaking about his brother in very strident terms and suggesting that, in 1998 at least, relations between them were kept to a minimum. It has been widely stated that they have a fortune of up to £200 million.

Members

Terry Adams

Terence George Adams, born Oct 18 1954, admitted money laundering offences on 7 February 2007 and was jailed for seven years on 9 March. With remission he should be released by October 2011, possibly as early as August 2010. The BBC reported on 12 March that Adams was likely to appeal his sentence. Charges against his wife were dropped following Adams's guilty plea. Her ill health had delayed their trial following their arrest in 2003. He had been widely recognised as the overall leader of the syndicate, but little information was known about him before his conviction.

The former Scottish gangster Paul Ferris asserts that none of the brothers is primus inter pares (first among equals — ie in sole charge). Terry has been described as having a refined and cultured manner and as a collector of antiques, wine, and cars (including custom-built Cadillacs and Bentleys). The Evening Standard reported in 2000 that he lived in a “Finchley mansion”.

Terry’s downfall came with the assistance of MI5 and the Inland Revenue. MI5, looking for work after the Cold War ended, played a leading part in the war against organised crime — and turned its sights on Adams. Police and MI5 set up a secret squad to dismantle the Adams organisation. Under the codename Operation Trinity, electronic bugs were put in the lounge, bedroom and loft of Adams’s home. Some of the recordings suggested that Adams had retired from frontline involvement in crime in 1990. He was also caught on tape, in 1998, telling his advisor Solly Nahome that he did not want to be involved with a particular deal as it was illegal and he was now legitimate.

The Inland Revenue had also started asking Adams to explain how he had got his £2 million house and the valuable antiques he collected. Adams invented a range of occupations, including jeweller and public relations executive. Transcripts of the surveillance proved he was lying.

When arrested in April 2003 detectives found art and antiques valued at £500,000, 8 £59,000 in cash and jewellery worth more than £40,000 in his home. On May 18, 2007 he was ordered to pay £4.7 million in legal fees to three law firms who had initially represented him under the UK's free legal aid scheme. He was also required to pay £0.8 million in prosecution costs. A few days later on May 21, 2007 he was ordered to file reports setting out his income for the next ten years.

Sean Adams

Sean "Tommy" Adams, born in 1958, is allegedly financier for his brothers Terry and Patrick. A married father of four, he still has a home near the family's traditional Islington base, but is now living in Spain. Tommy was cleared of involvement in the laundering of gold bullion in 1985.

He is suspected of establishing connections to other criminal organisations including numerous Yardie gangs as well as gaining an $80 million credit line from Colombian drug cartels. In 1998, Adams was convicted of organising a £8 million hashish smuggling operation for which he was jailed for seven years. He was also ordered to pay £1 million, or face an additional five years' imprisonment. His wife, Androulla, paid the fine in cash two days before the deadline.

Patrick Adams

Patrick 'Patsy' Adams, born in 1955, is regarded as one of the most violent organised crime figures in Great Britain. He gained an early reputation in London's underworld by using high-speed motorcycles in gangland murders and was a suspect in at least 25 organised crime related deaths over a three-year period. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in the 1970s for an armed robbery.

Although subordinate to Terry Adams, Patrick — sometimes known as Patsy — has participated in individual criminal activities, most notably he is suspected of the failed 1991 murder attempt on Frankie Fraser and, according to one account, assaulted his son David Fraser with a knife cutting off part of his ear during a drug deal. During the late 1990s, he was reported to spend much of his time in Spain. The Independent stated in 2001 that he was “living in exile in Spain in a walled villa bristling with security cameras a few miles south ofTorremolinos”.

Other family members and associates

Not all members of the family are criminals; some, including the Adams's parents and several of their eight other siblings are law-abiding.

• Charlie Sargent a family relative who was imprisoned in 1998 for the murder of christopher castle.
• Gilbert Wynter, a feared enforcer for the family, disappeared in 1998. Four years before, he was cleared of killing the former British high-jump champion Claude Moseley after a key prosecution witness refused to give evidence at the Old Bailey. Moseley worked as a drug dealer for the gang and was suspected of skimming money from his sales. Wynter was alleged to have thrust a samurai sword so deep into Moseley's back that it almost cut him in two. Wynter disappeared in March 1998 and underworld sources say he was killed after double-crossing the family. Gang lore says his body was buried in concrete and is propping up the Millennium Dome. Another account of his suspected death asserts that he was killed on the orders of noted London gangster Mickey Green.
• Saul “Solly” Nahome, shot dead in Finchley, north London, in 1998 by an assassin who escaped on a motorcycle, was suspected of acting as a financial adviser to the family. Nahome, a diamond merchant in Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, was recruited by the syndicate and is thought by police to have laundered the money through the jewellery business, a restaurant in Smithfield and a West End nightclub. He is said to have secreted at least £25 million in offshore accounts. The secrets of the money’s whereabouts may have died with him. He either died at the hands of the Adamses, when they found out he had stolen money from them, or on the orders of Mickey Green according to gangland accounts.
• Billy Isaacs, was described in a trial in 2000, of a Crown Prosecution Service clerk who was convicted of passing secret files to the family, as an Adams lieutenant.
• Christopher McCormack who was alleged at a 1999 trial to be an enforcer for the family. He was cleared of causing grievous bodily harm to a businessman who had failed to repay £1.4 million to Terry Adams.
• Michael Adams, born in 1965, a younger brother of the gang leaders, was convicted of possessing a firearm in the mid 1980s.
• Robert Adams, (deceased) a relative of the family was imprisoned for his part in a huge attempted robbery at the Millennium Dome, London.
• Anthony Passmore, a conman jailed in 1999 for six years over a multi-million-pound fraud who escaped from an open prison two months after his trial and has not been seen since.
• Scottish gangster Pat McCadden, who was born in 1954.
• Anthony Jones, 42, and David Tucker, 62,who were suspected, in 2005, by authorities in Florida of trying to smuggle cocaine worth $8 million on behalf of the family.

Connections to other gangsters

The Adams family have long been connected to the Brinks Mat Robbery and other individuals who helped sell the stolen gold, including Kenneth Noye. Hatton Garden diamond merchant Solly Nahome was also linked with the Adams Family and his disappearance was said to have angered Patrick Adams.

References

External links

• Organized crime in Great Britain - Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate