For Queen and Currency: Audacious fraud, greed and gambling at Buckingham Palace

by Michael Gillard

  ‘I’m ringing to let you know that Page is a Met officer from Royalty Protection on a career break. He is part of a bigger investigation we’re doing.’

  Operation Aserio had been going now for six months. The officer in charge, Detective Inspector Michael Orchard, lobbied Avon and Somerset senior officers for his squad to take over their investigation. Orchard explained there was a ‘wider picture’ and his anti-corruption detectives were already at the stage of liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service.

  The local force didn’t want to relinquish control so an agreement was struck that the Bristol police wouldn’t arrest anyone without first consulting DI Orchard. It was an interesting accommodation between the two police forces and one that smacked of damage limitation by the Met.

  Operation Aserio was already in touch with a handful of angry St James’s Palace officers, including some who’d transferred to the Ministry of Defence Police.

  One of them, former police constable Lenny Thiel, had every reason to talk to Operation Aserio. But if loyalty to Page was an Olympic sport, Thiel deserved a gold medal for giving his friend every opportunity to come good. By late 2006, however, he was done waiting.

  Of all the people he screwed over, Lenny Thiel was the one Page most regretted. He described him as a ‘big bruiser, a muscle man, a soldier in it for the long run’. But Page also saw Thiel as a follower whose friendship and trust he would ruthlessly nurture and then exploit when he needed money.

  The pair would double date much to Laura’s annoyance, who was often kicking her husband under the table during dinner wanting to go home. Despite her pimped Range Rover, Laura felt embarrassed when Thiel, a member of a classic car club, once turned up with his date in a lime-green Rolls-Royce.

  It was the love of cars that first brought Page to Thiel’s attention. He noticed the flash motors he drove to Buckingham Palace during the Currency Club years.

  Both men had joined SO14 around the same time but Thiel’s initial investments did not begin until the first half of 2005. He was sitting on a pile of readies while living with his mum after a divorce and had £70,000 savings and cash from his share of the matrimonial home.

  Thiel was looking to buy his own house but could also see the value of an investment opportunity that didn’t tie him up too long. He knew Page was on leave and had property interests and was spread betting. The lure of preferential police rates on the barns development was enough for him to put in £110,000, most of which he invested without visiting the site. Separately, he invested £25,000 for the mysterious Premier League footballer wanting a short-term bridging loan.

  Thiel had brought into the syndicate his mother, sister and a police friend, who put in his retirement money. At first there were returns in brown envelopes filled with £50 notes, which Page handed out during his rounds of the palaces. But by the second half of the year these stopped and were replaced by excuses.

  Page told Thiel that Special Branch had frozen the ULPD bank account over a business deal in Dubai.

  ‘I need some dough for one week, Len. It’ll keep the company afloat while I deal with the Dubai problem. I’ll give you a 50 per cent return on it, mate,’ Page pleaded.

  Thiel was already committed to the tune of £150,000. But Page magically produced ULPD bank statements claiming a £500,000 balance and two large earlier transactions of £1.8 million. The six-figure sum alone must have blinded Thiel to those other parts of the statements that were curiously Tippexed out. Nor did he appear worried that Page suggested he owned a portfolio of properties, none of which were in his name.

  ‘I’ll sign over ownership of one of the barns through my solicitors. It’s worth £600,000, Len,’ a desperate Page added.

  ‘No need, mate, ‘Thiel responded. ‘I trust you. I’m not the type who takes advantage of a mate’s short-term financial difficulties.’

  Thiel was happy to help out but he did speak to a Special Branch contact who said the counter-terrorism unit would only be interested in freezing accounts where millions had passed through and not the £250,000 Page was claiming had come from Dubai.

  ‘I’ve checked your story out, Paul, and it doesn’t ring true,’ Thiel told him at their next meeting.

  ‘That’s because it’s a lie, me old mate. I am actually under investigation by the Inland Revenue. I just didn’t want to say,’ Page replied quickly.

  Despite these flags, Thiel nevertheless went ahead and transferred another £80,000 to Laura’s ULPD bank account in August. It was his retirement money after thirty years’ service in the Met. Thiel was leaving in November to join the MoD Police.

  Days before he transferred the money, MoD officials responsible for vetting candidates had come to Thiel’s house. They wanted to go through his financial situation to ensure there was no susceptibility to blackmail. He thought he might need documentation to explain his six-figure investment in the syndicate so Page obliged with a back-dated loan agreement, which Thiel then signed.61

  For most of 2006, Thiel waited for his money. That summer he was going on holiday to Cyprus and told Page by text that he expected ‘a nice surprise’ when he got back. ‘Oh fuckin yeah! Sorry to be a dick but pls txt me a bank account. Had a recent fire u know wot I mean,’ Page texted back, referring to his burning of ULPD documents in anticipation of a visit from Operation Aserio detectives.

  A sun-tanned Thiel returned to the UK on 14 September and texted Page at 1 pm. ‘Back from Cyprus in the early hours and checked my account. Well, I guess you are consistent. Fuk me, I did everything you ever asked me to do, and fukin promptly! My pension money nearly a year ago gets me the most. I just wanted to help! You knew what it was, 30 years’ worth. My house money and every penny I ever saved! I still have to pay £25,000 to Henry [the police investor] and replace my mother’s and sister’s savings. That’s £40,000 on top! That’s me well and truly fuked! I still have no idea what you did with it or where it went. I don’t have an option but to try and get it back!’

  Page replied with more lies. ‘Lenny I banked cheque for six figure sum. Wen it clears you will be taken care of as promised. Today is a shit day for me!’ He then called to ask for another £30,000 for a too-good-to-miss deal while he was waiting for a £800,000 cheque to clear.

  Amazingly, Thiel agreed to help again but could only pull up £800, which Page collected from the MoD facility. Another £1000 was transferred to the NatWest account of Page’s father.

  Of the £231,800 Lenny Thiel gave to Page some had gone to other investors in true Ponzi style, and some had gone towards spread betting. ‘I truly believed I could generate money. [Lenny] didn’t care as long as he thought he was helping me,’ Page told me.

  But Lenny did care and finally, in early October 2006, realized that his friend had wholly betrayed him. ‘No dough and you strangely forget to phone. I think you must have fuked everybody whoever trusted you by now. Probably more than once. Easy money eh?’

  ‘Not true!’ Page texted back indignantly.

  ‘I have calmed down since you shafted us the last time,’ Thiel replied. ‘What happened to you? You weren’t always the sad, devious fucker you are now! All talk and excuses. I really thought you had sorted yourself out! Cost me another £1800 to find out I was wrong. Time for you to change your phone and hide now if I remember the format.’

  Still falsely indignant, Page replied: ‘U r out of order Lenny. I am not going anywhere. Will sort it today I hope.’ Of course, the day came and went and Thiel was still waiting for his money.

  Page sounded like a cockney Julius Caesar when Thiel told him he was taking legal action.

  ‘And u now as well! I’m blowing the lid. Final straw. Paper trail. My ass lets make it public. Talk through briefs. Lets go for it! Spoke to ur brief. Told him I’ll see him in court. Sorry mate, no choice now.’

  Thiel didn’t respond and Page followed up on 6 October with his last text: ‘It’s going to kick off massive. Laura has flipped! I’m fucked!’

  Chapter 16


  Royal Protection: the Osmans

  Tuesday, 14 November 2006: In a nondescript room somewhere in Scotland Yard, senior officers from three secretive police units began a Gold group meeting reserved for high-risk and highly sensitive matters that affect the force’s reputation and national security. Present were anti-corruption detectives from the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS), Royalty Protection and Specialist Operations.

  Seven days earlier, the Intelligence Development Group (IDG), a secret intelligence-gathering cell known as the ‘Dark Side’, had received information about a threat to the life of Page and his family. The IDG had worked on the intelligence for two days and believed it to be true so a Gold meeting was convened to discuss how to deal with it.

  An officer from the ‘Dark Side’, only referred to in the Gold meeting minutes as ‘Simon’, was the first to speak. He started with a brief overview of Page’s financial history.

  ‘At this point in time, information indicates PC Page is £3m in debt,’ he told the group. It was the first time the scale of Page’s losses had been estimated.

  ‘A group of Asians have lent £750,000,’ Simon went on to explain. ‘This group have adopted legal methods and now intelligence suggests that PC Page will be kidnapped by [the] suspect.’

  The kidnap plot was known to a number of those in the Asian group because the person behind it had been ‘talking about it for some time,’ said Simon.

  The strong inference was that someone within the Asian group or close to them had tipped off the police directly or indirectly about the kidnap plot.

  In his assessment of the threat, Simon referred to a ‘hit-man’ apparently contracted to carry out the kidnap. The minutes put it this way: ‘Has the hit man got ability – yes (high risk).’

  The suggestion appeared to be that the Met knew the identity of both the contract killer or kidnapper and the person who had contracted him. They believed the motive was the loss of money and presumably the hit-man had been asked to kidnap Page with a threat to harm or even kill him if he didn’t pay up.

  Overall, the risk to Page and his family was assessed as medium to high, which meant the Gold meeting had to consider invoking a very special procedure for such cases.

  The procedure, known as an Osman warning, was a response by British police forces to a European Court of Human Rights ruling in October 1998.

  The Osmans, a London family of Turkish-Cypriot origin, had brought a case against the Metropolitan Police and a north London school for their collective failure to protect them from a psychotic teacher. He had become ‘obsessed’ with their son, a former student. In 1988 the teacher shot dead Mr Osman and wounded his son. He then wounded a senior teacher and shot dead his son.

  On his arrest, the psychotic teacher told the police, ‘Why didn’t you stop me before I did it? I gave you all the warning signs.’ The school claimed it had alerted the Met to the key issues and concerns about the boy’s possible kidnap, but the police denied this. The teacher pleaded guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility and was locked away in a secure mental hospital.62

  As a result of the Osman case, since 1998 the police were liable to being sued if they failed to act on information suggesting a threat to someone’s life. Acting on the information meant more than telling the intended victim of the threat but extended to keeping them safe and, wherever possible, neutralizing the threat. The police had a duty to tell someone of a threat to their life even if that person was secretly under investigation.

  The DPS told the Gold meeting that they believed Page was aware of the threat to his life. However, Detective Chief Inspector Jill McTigue from the specialist operation unit that dealt with kidnaps was unwilling to accept the assertion. She was an astute woman who had risen through the ranks of a male-dominated force including a recent stint in the anti-corruption squad. So McTigue knew exactly how much weight to attach to their claim.

  ‘We can’t just presume that Page knows about the threat,’ she told the Gold group. ‘The Met should err on the side of caution and serve him with an Osman warning immediately, while my unit researches the kidnapper.’

  McTigue was right. Page had no idea that someone in the BAT circle or close to it was plotting to have him kidnapped or possibly worse.

  Simon was tasked with drawing up the Osman warning letter to be hand delivered to Page the next day. He was told it should be carefully worded as the Gold group was concerned how the whole situation would look for the Queen and Scotland Yard if it ever got out.

  Detective Sergeant Jim Wingrave then addressed the meeting. He was the investigator on Operation Aserio whose report into Page’s finances and welfare two years earlier had been almost entirely ignored by senior management at SO14.

  Wingrave reminded everyone that when he submitted his report in January 2005, while there was no intelligence to suggest criminal activity, it was clear that Page was dealing with very large sums of cash, involved with other police officers in high-risk spread betting linked to property investments and had a ‘gambling problem’.

  Wingrave had initially identified six individuals involved with Page. Now, sixty-one possible investors were known to Operation Aserio and Page’s personal debt, separate to his gambling losses, had quadrupled from £250,000 to just under £1 million.

  ‘Our plan is to arrest PC Page in the New Year. We have identified some of his victims as fellow SO14 officers, such as PC Richard Humby, and others who have joined the Ministry of Defence Police from the Royalty Protection command,’ Wingrave told the Gold meeting.

  Once again, McTigue piped up with an incisive question directed at the most senior officer present from the DPS.

  ‘What was done in January 2005?’ she asked.

  ‘The aim is to get this officer out,’ Detective Superintendent Tony Evans replied, sidestepping her pointed question. A more fulsome answer might have been that nothing had been done to interrupt the fraud or protect investors from Page, and Page from himself. Instead, SO14 and the DPS had secretly agreed a strategy that Page would never come back to work from his period of extended leave.

  The discussion among the Gold group then turned to a list of concerns. At the top of that list was ‘MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) reputation’.

  It was decided to implement some immediate welfare for Page. The stated reason recorded in the minutes was not a concern for his spiralling mental state, but ‘to regain some ground from January 2005’. In other words, the Met realized it had failed Page and his victims and had to recover the position to appear less exposed if it became public.

  Another area where the Met had badly messed up was over its failure to monitor ULPD. The company had been approved as Page’s outside business interest exactly three years before the Gold group meeting. Approval is required at a very senior level in the Met and the policy is in place to prevent an officer bringing the force into disrepute.

  Page’s application to register ULPD was authorized by then Assistant Commissioner for Human Resources Bernard Hogan Howe, in November 2003. In a letter to Page, he wrote, ‘I consider that this business interest is compatible with your membership of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)’.

  The letter also reminded Page that he should only conduct ULPD business in his own time, never on police premises, not with police resources, never to give any indication that he was a police officer to promote the business, immediately report any significant change in circumstances and, finally, ensure that his business activities ‘do not cause embarrassment to the Commissioner or become detrimental to the image and dignity of the MPS’.

  In every respect, by the time of the Gold group meeting in November 2006 Page had breached all these conditions. However, the failure was by no means only his.

  The Met, through SO14 and its Human Resources Directorate, was required under police procedure 33/02 to review Page’s outside business interest every year before renewing it. However, this hadn’t happened and the simplest of checks were not carried out. No
one spoke to Page about ULPD or checked official records, which would have revealed it was a ghost company suspiciously trading without having filed any financial accounts.63

  The consequences of this failure to review would surely have dawned on some of those now sitting around the table at the Gold group meeting at Scotland Yard. It meant that for three years Page had been able to use ULPD as a vehicle for his fraud and tell potential investors that it had the Metropolitan Police’s seal of approval.

  The revelation is a personal embarrassment to Bernard Hogan Howe, who is the current Met Commissioner.

  Back at the Gold group, it was decided that Operation Aserio would have to go from being covert to an overt operation. Serving the Osman on Page the next day would be an opportunity to also tell him that his financial dealings were formally under criminal and disciplinary investigation.

  At this point, those present at the meeting took an extraordinary decision, which on the face of it appeared to have little or no regard for the victims of Page’s financial shenanigans and everything to do with saving the Queen and Scotland Yard further embarrassment.

  It was decided to give Page the opportunity to resign, which would be accepted there and then if he agreed. The value of such a Machiavellian offer was that Page would no longer be a royal police officer if the scandal ever became public.

  Operation Aserio knew by November 2006 that many officers across the Met’s specialist units and other forces were involved with Page’s hedge fund. The easiest way to assess the scale of the fraud and vulnerability of officers would be to get Page to name names in return for leniency at court. But that was not the plan. The plan devised between SO14 and the DPS and underwritten by the Gold group was to get Page out of the police with as little fuss as possible.

  The line that would from now on be spun was that this was a simple case of a rogue cop and not a scandal involving Royal Protection officers and Buckingham Palace.