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The Burger Bar Boys: 6. Breaking Bad

The Burger Bar Boys: 6. Breaking Bad

Released Friday, 8th December 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
The Burger Bar Boys: 6. Breaking Bad

The Burger Bar Boys: 6. Breaking Bad

The Burger Bar Boys: 6. Breaking Bad

The Burger Bar Boys: 6. Breaking Bad

Friday, 8th December 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Despite the landmark trial of 2004-05 leading to several convictions for the murder of Charlene and Letisha - the gang murders in the city continued. What more could be done to tackle the violence?

In the final episode in the series, we look at how a combination of one man’s brilliant gang mediation and West Midlands police’s Operation Ventara slowly started to turn the tide and begin the process of restoring peace to the city of Birmingham. At the same time as the police were making inroads into dismantling the Burger Bar Boys’ operation in the city, the gang’s ambitions had begun to stretch to neighbouring cities –even as far as Aberdeen. The absence of crack cocaine and lack of rivals in other cities made spreading their net wider an easy task, but law enforcement continued to fight back.

We’ll hear from an undercover police officer who was sent into Northampton to join the city’s Burger Bar Boys offshoot there, and how developments in ballistics allowed police to trace the movement of guns like the MAC-10 as they were passed around the country from one gang member to another.

We conclude the series by looking at where things stand now in the city. What became of the convicted gang members, and how the Burger Bar Boys name still echoes around the streets of Handsworth to this day. We will hear how the families who lost loved ones feel as they reflect on the events of the last few decades, and how back in the Burgers’ home territory of Handsworth, there is at last some optimism.

New episodes are released on Fridays. If you’re in the UK, listen to Gangster: The Burger Bar Boys first on BBC Sounds. bbc.in/40W5Chz

Presenter – Livvy HaydockSeries Producer – Hayley MortimerTechnical Producer – Nicky EdwardsProducer – Patrick KiteleyResearcher – Megan JonesArchive Researcher – Nicola HanFixer in Jamaica – Nick DaviesJournalism Assistant – Tim FernleyCommissioning Executive – Louise KattenhornAssistant Commissioners – Lorraine Okuefuna and Natasha JohanssonEditor and Executive Producer – Carl Johnston

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From The Podcast

Gangster

Gangster presents... A 6-part true crime podcast documenting the biggest organised crime bust in British policing history. It happens in 2020 when police in France penetrate an encrypted phone network called EncroChat. According to police, the phones were used exclusively by criminals. For over two months, police forces across Europe were reading the secret communications of major league criminal networks. The Metropolitan Police, working with the National Crime Agency and other forces, used this information to uncover the workings of organised crime groups. “It was like being in a room with them and they are talking freely, and they don't see you there,” says DCI Driss Hayoukane, the Senior Investigating Officer who led the Met’s EncroChat operation. Police went public about the EncroChat hack in July 2020. This is the first time that the inside story of some of the Met’s biggest EncroChat cases has been told to a broadcaster. Talking exclusively to BBC Sounds, police officers reveal how they used the gangsters’ messages to uncover arms dealing and expose murder plots as well as major drug trafficking and money laundering operations. Stories featured in the series include: - A murder plot unearthed by the Met in a joint operation with South Wales police. - Two apparently legitimate businessmen, living in a Buckinghamshire village, whose wealth really came from cocaine trafficking and major league money laundering, - A corrupt police officer who was working for a notorious London crime group. At a time when the Metropolitan Police Service has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, it’s a rare story of an extraordinary success: nearly 1000 arrests; over 400 convictions; the seizure of £19 million in cash, three tonnes of Class A and B drugs and 49 guns. But presenter Mobeen Azhar does not shy away from what have been difficult issues for the Met police: an officer from the Met’s anti-corruption unit speaks for the first time about how hacked EncroChat messages helped to expose the worst case of police corruption he had ever seen; and Mobeen asks the officer leading theMet’s EncroChat investigation about the experience of being an ethnic minority officer in a force found to be institutionally racist. Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Series Producer: Andrew Hosken Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen Sound designer: Peregrine Andrews Assistant Commissioner: Lorraine Okuefuna Commissioning Editor: Louise Kattenhorn Production Executive: Laura Jordan-Rowell Creative Director for BBC Studios: Georgia Moseley Unit Manager: Lucy Bannister Production manager: Elaina Boateng Development Executive: Anya Saunders Editorial Policy Advice: Su Pennington Legal advice: Hashim Mude and Andrew Downey Consulting editor: Steve BoultonProduction Co-ordinator: Juliette Harvey Thanks also to Beena Khetani, Adele Humbert, Hugh Levinson, Ali Rezakhani, Rhiannon Cobb, and Jack Griffith.

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