Encrocops: Pc Shareen Kashif hid £100,00 stolen drug money for police officer husband

A corrupt Met officer admitted hiding a ‘box of cash’ for her husband who was jailed for robbing nearly £1,million off drug dealers he set up on the encrypted application, his wife was arrested when her house was raided by police. Shareen Kashif, 29, from the Central East Command Unit, admitted knowing her husband, who was also a Met officer, was involved in an organised crime group. Kashif Mahmood was jailed for eight years in May for seizing at least £850,000 in drug money. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to acquire criminal property and misconduct in a public office in August. Mahmood would appear to be carrying out his job as he seized the money while in uniform and travelling in marked and unmarked police cars. His wife admitted concealing criminal property today at Southwark Crown Court.

The court heard it is not clear how much cash was in the box when she hid it during the raid in April last year. Another change of entering into a money laundering arrangement was ordered to lie on the file. Prosecutor Tom Williams said this decision was made as it would have been difficult to prove Khashif allowed her husband to use two bank accounts under her name to launder money. Mr Williams said: “She’s a serving police officer she felt it was worth the risk of hiding the box when police arrived. “There must have been a substantial amount in it otherwise there wouldn’t have been a risk worth taking. She knew it was money and she accepts that now – it’s something she did not accept in interview. “Realistically if it was a box that could be carried around and successfully concealed… it seems it was no more than £100,000.” Allan Compton QC, defending, said Kashif is now the sole carer for a two-year-old daughter she shares with her now imprisoned husband. He said: “She knew it was a box, she moved it at the request of her husband at 2.40am in the morning when police raided the premises and she accepts it’s not containing a few loose coins or a few hundred pounds.

It’s not a huge box. It’s likely that the focus of sentencing will not be whether the custody threshold is crossed but where any sentence should be suspended.” Kashif, of Harlow, Essex was bailed with a condition of living at her address. The police constable was suspended from the force after her arrest in July last year. Sentence was adjourned until October 27 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared. Today the policewoman has been sacked from the Metropolitan Police without notice for hiding cash she knew had been illegally obtained by her husband. An accelerated misconduct hearing was held for PC Shareen Kashif, following her guilty plea at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday, September 15 to concealing criminal property. The hearing on Thursday, 2 December was to determine allegations that her actions breached the standards of professional behaviour in respect of discreditable conduct and honesty and integrity.

The allegations were all found to be proven. The officer, who was based at the Central East Command Unit, will be added to the Barred List held by the College of Policing. Commander Paul Betts said: “It is plain that PC Kashif’s behaviour was dishonest and deceitful. Put simply, there is no place in the Met for officers who act in such a way. “Her behaviour was exposed because of the work of the Met’s Anti-Corruption Command, within our own Directorate of Professional Standards, and directed by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. “The DPS are committed to rooting out those who let us and the public down.” Her husband Kashif Mahmood, 32, used his police car to stop vehicles he knew were carrying ‘significant quantities of criminal cash’ after being tipped off by the east London group. He also travelled to locations where the gangsters knew money would be exchanged and took it himself while pretending to be doing his duties. Judge David Tomlinson said Mahmood ‘abused his position of power, trust and responsibility’ and his actions were an ‘exploitation’ of his policing colleagues.

Mahmood’s eight-year sentence was reduced from 12 years due to an early guilty plea at Southwark Crown Court. The court heard he was a member of a ‘highly lucrative’ operation which seized at least £850,000 from criminal couriers under the pretence of a ‘lawful exercise of his powers’. He was accompanied by Romanian bodybuilder buddy Ioan Gherghel, 34, posing as his police partner, on two occasions last March. Mahmood was sentenced after admitting conspiracy to acquire criminal property and misconduct in public office, although he did not receive any additional jail time for the latter charge. Judge Tomlinson said the group put criminal couriers in harm’s way, as they would not have been able to explain to their bosses how the money had been seized. Investigations by the Met’s anti-corruption unit began after the French authorities infiltrated the EncroChat encrypted phone network last April. Peter Ratliff, prosecuting, said: ‘Mahmood was at the heart of the most audacious aspect of the organised crime group’s criminal conduct, the conspiracy to acquire criminal property. ‘It was this aspect of the criminality which led to their downfall. As and when required by the organised crime group, Mahmood would take marked and unmarked police vehicles, and, dressed in his police uniform, travel to locations where the organised crime group were engaged in or aware of the transfer of significant quantities of criminal cash, which was either to be laundered or reflected payment for wholesale quantities of drugs.

‘Mahmood would then endeavour to seize this, under the pretence of the lawful exercise of his powers as a police officer. ‘In that regard he was assisted on two occasions by Gherghel, who would purport to be a police officer. ‘On the basis of the encrypted messages obtained from 19 March 2020, £850,000 in cash was certainly seized in this way. ‘There was a further unknown but significant seizure on 8 March 2020; two incidents where at least attempts were made to seize substantial quantities of cash, and one attempt to seize £500,000 in cash. ‘It was focused on the criminal activity of a corrupt police officer and his criminal associates. ‘The investigation revealed Moshin Khan and his brothers Shazad Khan and Shabaz Khan were engaged in the wholesale movement of significant quantities of class A drugs and were laundering thousands of pounds in cash.’ Mahmood seized unsuspecting criminals cash ‘under the pretext of lawful exercise of his powers as a police officer’, said Mr Ratliff. He also ‘misused police computers’ to gather intelligence on behalf of his criminal associates. The defendant was working at the Emergency Response Team at Stoke Newington police station at the time of the plot, between November 2019 and July 2020. He was formally kicked out of London’s police force at a disciplinary hearing last year. The tribunal found he had driven a marked police car while his associate posed as an officer to seize cash which was due to be laundered or was payment for drugs. He was dismissed without notice after the panel ruled he had breached standards of professional behaviour in respect of discreditable conduct, honesty and integrity and duties and responsibilities.

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The officer had already survived a misconduct hearing after assaulting a man in Lower Clapton when he was based at Stoke Newington Police Station in May 2017. Mahmood was sentenced to 200 hours community service at Hendon Magistrates’ Courti the following year but allowed to remain an officer. Mitigating, William Emlyn Jones told Southwark Crown Court today: ‘He accepts that this is no one’s fault but his own. It is his own fault he has lost his good character and his hard-earned reputation.’He said Mahmood achieved his ‘boyhood dream’ of becoming a police officer at the age of 21, despite having a ‘challenging’ childhood during which he was stabbed when he refused to join a neighbourhood gang. ‘The punishment he has brought upon himself is substantial. It seems that in the end his background has caught up with him. ‘He thought he had escaped but it called him back in.’

Mr Emlyn Jones said Mahmood’s remorse was ‘genuine’, and added that he was ‘misled’ about the extent of the gang’s criminal activity and did not take a cut of the money seized. He told the court Mahmood did not live a ‘lavish lifestyle’, as suggested, and three of the four designer watches submitted as evidence were ‘cheap knock-offs’. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said former Met Police officer Mahmood was ‘audacious, corrupt and criminal’. Director of major investigations Steve Noonan said: ‘His actions were a complete betrayal of public trust and confidence, and have no place in policing. As a body completely independent of the police, the IOPC oversaw this matter to provide assurance it was being investigated thoroughly and impartially by the Metropolitan Police Service. ‘This investigation has now resulted in a conviction and lengthy sentence for Pc Mahmood. It sends a clear signal to police officers who engage in corrupt activity that they will be caught and they can expect to pay a high price for their crimes. ‘While all the evidence we have seen points towards this being an isolated case of police corruption on this scale, we have to remain vigilant and will continue to pursue allegations of corruption vigorously.’ He was sentenced today alongside brothers Mohsin Khan, 36, and Shazad Khan, 33, both of Babbacombe Gardens, Ilford; Shabaz Khan, 33, of Barkingside, east London; Mohsin Khan’s partner, Maria Shah, also of Ilford; and Ioan Gherghel, 34, of Keogh Road, Stratford. Mohsin Khan was sentenced to 16 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, conspiracy to transfer criminal property and conspiracy to acquire criminal property. Shabaz Khan was jailed for 14 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, conspiracy to transfer criminal property, conspiracy to acquire criminal property and possession of a controlled drug of class B with intent to supply. Shazad Khan and Shah were sentenced to 15 years and five years and four months in jail respectively for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, conspiracy to transfer criminal property and conspiracy to acquire criminal property. Gherghel was jailed six years for conspiracy to acquire criminal property

All were banned from travelling outside of the UK for five years after their release. 

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