What would you do if you stumbled upon a package full of guns and apparel relating to The Third Reich? According to Cerberus' newshounds north of the Border, that was the dilemma facing staff at Parcel Force in Thurso only last month when they intercepted a package from Northern Ireland containing guns and Nazi uniforms.
Playing it by the book, the frightened 'posties' followed stringent security guidelines, informing the powers-that-be about this shipment of illegal weaponry. Unbeknown to them, at the very same time members of the Stromness Drama Club were eagerly anticipating the arrival of props being sent to coincide with the opening night of their latest production, 'The Sound of Music'...
Graham Carson, the show's producer, told Cerberus: "Efficiency by the security services is all very commendable, but Parcel Force commandeered our box of uniforms and now they can't locate it."
It transpires that the props were posted to Nacha O'Mairthini by her father Jon, who lives in Louth on the border with Armagh. "I guess my name and the location of posting must have aroused suspicion," said Ms O'Mairthini. In any event, a spokesperson for Parcel Force has offered the Scottish thespians compensation if the parcel and its contents are not retrieved.
If any SMT readers should happen to see a battalion of Stormtroopers goose-stepping down the High Street, do let Cerberus know.
He was a Day Tripper
A detective inspector who admitted fiddling £156 in expenses for fictional trips in his Porsche sports car has been left facing a bill topping £90,000.
49-year-old Graham David – former acting chief inspector of the CID special operations section for South Wales Police – has been forced to give up his career and £185,000 home in Porthcawl after being found guilty of four charges of false accounting by the assembled jury at Cardiff Crown Court.
He's also been fined £2,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £60,000, plus a further £24,000 towards his defence costs.
Referred to as a man of "exemplary character" by prosecuting council Greg Bull, David has obviously lost his mind.
Not to mention his mathematical powers.
How To Steal A Car: Part One
When 33-year-old accountant Tina Minister found her stolen car parked close to home, the first thing she did – and rightly so – was telephone the police. As Cerberus has since discovered, the response from the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) left the mother-of-two in a state of shock and total disbelief.
Apparently, officers urged the D-reg Toyota Corolla owner to steal the car back – by using a hacksaw to cut through the steering wheel lock! There simply weren't enough officers available to have someone lying in wait for the thief to return to the street near Mrs Minister's Gorton home where the vehicle had been found.
Cerberus is extremely proud to present GMP with this month's 'Crimestoppers Award for Vehicular Maintenance'.
Inside the Magic Lantern
Not surprisingly, rumours surrounding the US Federal Bureau of Investigations' (FBI) development of its own Trojan computer program – Magic Lantern – have attracted keen interest from the IT 'underworld'.
Magic Lantern is a classic keystroke-tracking bug. By logging a suspect's keystrokes and transmitting them to a secret file, FBI authorities are able to decipher encoded files and messages containing supposed evidence.
Quick off the mark, a 17-year-old Argentinian hacker known as 'Agentlinux' has already developed a Trojan – Malantern – that poses as the Magic Lantern proper.
So far, there haven't been any reported incidents caused by Malantern.
When Cerberus contacted his FBI colleagues Stateside about the rumours, the response was predictable. "We will not confirm or deny Magic Lantern's existence, nor our intention to develop such a program".
What program was that, then?
Police net slippery catch
Officers from Paddington CID in west London have finally snared a notorious burglar known as The Eel who earned his nickname after consistently evading the clutches of our much maligned 'Boys in Blue'.
Claiming Kensington and Notting Hill as his 'patch', The Eel took a fancy to expensive mews addresses, opening doors by fishing for keys through letterboxes. With bounty, he would then avoid capture by leaping out of windows, wriggling free in the street and – on one notorious occasion – driving off in the patrol car being used by officers to hunt him down! Sadly for the 24-year-old (as yet unnamed) thief, his days of evading capture are over. Will he now be mashed by the courts? Only time will tell. Certainly, any dreams of freedom in the short term are very much pie in the sky.
What the media says
Scotland Yard’s ‘Call to Arms’Police chiefs at New Scotland Yard have announced plans to train an extra 400 armed officers in the biggest expansion of its firearms capability for over two decades. The Yard will also buy up to 800 more sub-machineguns and pistols, at the same time growing its armed fleet of dozens of bomb-proof cars and armed response vehicles. A report in The Sunday Times suggests that the move follows a detailed assessment of the new risk to Britain’s security in the wake of last September’s attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Blunkett bows to The Lords
New powers to investigate and detain foreign terrorist suspects have finally been approved by Parliament – although Home Secretary David Blunkett has been forced to back down on the inclusion of incitement to racial hatred as being an offence. The Daily Telegraph states that Blunkett is now allowed to detain indefinitely – and without trial – foreign nationals suspected of terrorist activity. Nationals who cannot be deported under the terms of the Human Rights Act because they may face either torture or the death penalty on home soil. Is US airport security taking off?
US officials at JFK Airport have seemingly woken up to the need for stringent security. Or have they? All luggage is now screened through X-ray machines before it’s even allowed in the terminal building proper. Once inside, hand baggage and luggage to be stored in an aircraft’s hold is separated and all hold luggage x-rayed again. However, writing in The Daily Mail, Philip Baum – former security chief at American airline TWA and now editor of Aviation Security International – remains sceptical. Currently, around 70% of hold baggage across all US airports is cargo, which is unrelated to the passengers and, he argues, remains largely unchecked. “What America should be seeking,” argues Baum, “is an efficient federal aviation security authority to parallel its effective customs and immigration authorities.”
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