A team of the Sweeney\u2013 police flying squad officers \u2013came up with a novel way of keeping crime under control in the 1990s. They decided to carry out their own kidnappings.<\/p>\n
The London-based cops were called in to investigate when a cash van driver\u2019s partner was kidnapped. The man was told she would be hurt if he didn\u2019t hand over \u00a350,000 of the money he transported.<\/p>\n
The dodgy officers realised that if they did a copycat crime they would also be the people called to find the villains, so they would be investigating themselves.\u00a0An informer leaked the plan and anti-corruption police started investigating the team.<\/p>\n
A report into one of the group said, \u201cThis scenario has allegedly been used on one other occasion by the officer when he netted \u00a340,000.\u201d\u00a0Somehow the rogue cops found out they were being watched and abandoned further plans.<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprsingly the investigation stopped at this point for lack of evidence.\u00a0And the stored files were among those shredded with a lorryload of other evidence of police corruption.<\/p>\n
We only know it happened at all because a duplicate of the file has been leaked to the BBC since the shredding.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said, \u201cThe nature and scale of corruption within the MPS in the 1990s was recognised at the time as entirely unacceptable.\u00a0The fight against corruption was carried out with determination, vigour and innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n
They went on to assure us that far from kidnapping people, now \u201cvictim care is of the utmost importance\u201d.\u00a0Something that probably won\u2019t surprise anyone is that one of the officers in the intelligence reports was friendly with those who were suspected of murdering Daniel Morgan in 1987.<\/p>\n