EncroChat: Uncovering gangster's plan to shoot rival
- Published
A judge said Frankie Sinclair was part of a nationwide criminal network
When a drug world kingpin bought a gun to kill a gang rival, he thought he had little chance of getting caught.
Frankie Sinclair, from Cardiff, had long been suspected of being involved in drug trafficking, assaults, violence, vehicle thefts and handling stolen goods.
Officers in south Wales admitted they were hitting a brick wall trying to bring him to justice.
But Sinclair was finally nabbed when the Met Police hacked secret phone network EncroChat.
The criminal had used it to buy a £3,000 Walther PPK handgun from "middleman" Paul Fontaine, of north London, to kill a gang rival.
The EncroChat phones guarantee anonymity to users who paid £900 for the device plus a six-month subscription of £1,350.
About 60,000 people were signed up - 10,000 of those in the UK - when the France-based service was shut down in 2020.
While they look like any other smartphone, they in fact have a hidden operating system allowing criminals to trade drugs and guns undetected.
Frankie Sinclair, from Cardiff, arranged to buy a £3,000 Walther PPK
Sinclair already had 43 convictions for 95 offences, but at that time he was still managing to evade officers, Det Sgt Paula Eveleigh Williams told a new BBC true crime podcast.
"Frankie Sinclair was just creeping into almost everything we were doing in the intelligence world - drug trafficking, assaults, bit of violence, motor vehicle thefts, handling," she said.
"He was always there or thereabouts, but not named - not that we had the evidence against him.
"He was what I called 'Frankie the facilitator'. If there was something going on, Frankie Sinclair knew about it."
She described him as someone children looked up to, adding: "He's got fast cars, plenty of them.
"He's got the gear, he's got the clothing, he's got the watch, girlfriends.
"He is what the television would tell you everything a person involved in organised criminality would be."
Frankie Sinclair arranged to buy a new Walther PPK handgun, made famous by Sean Connery in the 007 film Dr No
It was after an attack on the home of Sinclair's mother, in the Tremorfa area of Cardiff, in March 2020 that police started looking more closely at him.
"We had intelligence from an unreliable source that suggested that the house had been shot at," Det Sgt Williams said.
But Sinclair claimed to be "unaware of anything happening at all" during the attack before the Covid lockdown.
"We asked them both for statements to corroborate what happened, [but] they both denied that Frankie's house had been shot at," Det Sgt Williams explained.
"It was never reported to police. No-one in the street confirmed it actually happened.
"We asked them both for statements to corroborate what happened, they both categorically denied that Frankie's house had been shot at."
Paul Fontaine denied all the charges against him
She said residents on the east Cardiff street had said that they did not know if they had heard a car backfiring or a gunshot.
"From an investigative point of view, we were hitting a brick wall then," Det Sgt Williams added.
But their plot was uncovered after the Metropolitan Police gained access to messages on EncroChat.
Following a criminal trial, Sinclair, 34 at the time, and Fontaine, 36, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder along with a string of other offences at the Old Bailey in London on 14 March 2022.
Judge John Hillen said the plot had arisen from an ongoing dispute over who was "going to dominate the drug dealing" in Cardiff, and jailed the two men for life with a minimum 18 years.
Prosecutor Kevin Dent told jurors during the trial that Frankie Sinclair "wanted help from Mr Fontaine supplying a firearm and ammunition so that Mr Sinclair could carry out a revenge murder".
After years of trying to catch him, Det Sgt Williams admitted that celebrations followed Sinclair's guilty conviction.
"We did have a small party in the office," she said. "I'd been chasing Frankie Sinclair for almost five years."
Gangster Presents… Catching the Kingpins is available to hear as a boxset on BBC Sounds and every Sunday on BBC Radio 4 at 13:30 GMT.
- Published27 May 2022
- Published4 June 2021
