'We are now officially gangsters': Boast of gun-runner mastermind revealed as gang jailed for 91 years

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A gang of gun-runners who shipped an arsenal of weapons into the UK from the same suppliers that were used by the Charlie Hebdo terrorists have been jailed for a total of 91 years.

Twenty-two AK47-style machine guns and nine Skorpion sub-machine guns bought on the black market in eastern Europe were smuggling into Britain on a boat down the river Medway.

The guns were unloaded at the picturesque Cuxton Marina in Kent, with plans to bury them before they were sold on to the highest bidder.

However waiting National Crime Agency officers had tracked the crew across Europe and moved in before the cache of weapons could fall into criminal hands.

Judge Michael Topolski QC today said the mastermind of the operation, Harry Shilling, 26, and his three lieutenants Richard Rye, 24, David Payne, 43, and, and Michael Defraine, 30, were all continuing dangers to the public.

Text boast: Harry Shilling had sent a message reading 'We now officially gangsters' NCA
NCA

Shilling, likened to Usual Suspects villain Keyser Söze during the trial and who had planned to keep some of the guns to strengthen his own drug dealing operation, was jailed for 30 years. He was told by the judge: “You were in charge of this carefully planned, well financed and sophisticated operation – the sad truth appears to be you gave no thought to, nor cared about, the potentially devastating harm that could have been caused.”

Defraine, the second in command, was jailed for 27 years, the boat captain Payne was sentenced to 14 and a half years, and Rye, who was Shilling’s “man on the continent” was jailed for 14 years and three months.

“The potential was, in their hands or the hands of others, they would have been used to maim or kill and on a truly horrifying scale”, said the judge.

“It has been said that it can't be exaggerated that guns kill and maim, terrorise and intimidate. That's why criminals want them, want to use them, and why they organise their importation supply and distribution.”

All four men must serve two thirds of their sentence behind bars before being considered for release, and they will spend an extra five years on licence after being freed due to their ongoing risk to the public.

A fifth member of the gang, Christopher Owen, 30, who helped to unload the guns from the boat was sentenced to five years and four months in prison, after the judge accepted he had a limited role in the plot.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC told the Old Bailey trial the guns and bullets smuggled in were capable of “unleashing carnage on a terrifying scale”, with at least one buyer already lined up.

They had been bought for a pittance on the black market in Slovakia but could be sold on for thousands of pounds in the UK.

The NCA said the haul was four times the size of the arsenal used in the Paris terror attacks, and linked the supply chain to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January last year.

Rob Lewin, from the NCA, said: “I think we have probably got very similar weapons to those that were used in the Charlie Hebdo attack.

“The same supply route and the same methodology of de-activated and then reactivated. We think they have come from the same source in the same country.”

The trial has been conducted amid unprecedented level of security, with armed police patrolling outside the courtroom and a visible police presence at the courthouse door.

The gang planned on August 10 last year to sail a boat called the Albernina from Boulogne, France, into Kent loaded up with the firearms.

They had been in regular phone contact as the guns were being brought across Europe, and when they finally arrived, Shilling boasted in a text: “We now officially gangsters.”

Rye, of Lime Road, Swanley, Payne, of Rochester Road, Halling, and Owen, of Bush Road, Cuxton, pleaded guilty to the plot while Shilling, of Hart Dyke Road, in Swanley, and Defraine, of Franklin Road, Bexleyheath, were convicted after a seven week trial.

Following the sentencing hearing, Mr Lewin said: “The weapons seized here were hugely powerful and the evidence showed that Shilling and his gang would have had no hesitation in using them.

“They thought having this kind of firepower made them untouchable, but we were determined to stay one step ahead of them all the way.”

Shilling and Defraine denied but were convicted of being knowingly concerned in the evasion of a prohibition on importation of the firearms and conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life.

Payne, Rye and Owen pleaded guilty to being knowingly concerned in the evasion of a prohibition on importation of the firearms. Rye and Payne also admitted conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life.

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