A man who evaded police for more than 20 years was detained by Nottinghamshire Police officers as part of a European arrest warrant last night.
The man had been living in London, away from his close family in St Ann’s in Nottingham, and using fake identities to avoid police.
A 45-year-old man was finally located and arrested at around 7pm at a house in Robertsbridge Road in Croydon by the force’s Foreign National Offending team.
Nottinghamshire Police officers were able to track him down after a month-long investigation after picking up the case in November 2020 and searching through data from hundreds of phone calls to track him down.
The man was wanted on a European Arrest Warrant issued by Polish authorities in 2014, however police have been searching for him since 1999.
He was wanted in connection with offences of kidnap, armed robbery, possession of firearms and membership of an organised crime group.
Police Sergeant Tim Cuthbert, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “We are delighted with this arrest and it’s taken a lot of hard work to get to this point.
“The man was detained following extensive research and thorough enquires conducted by Nottinghamshire Police’s Foreign National Offending (FNO) team and is the latest in a string of recent European arrest warrant successes’ by the team.
“The people we’re searching for often use a variety of alias names, use fake identification, and are very challenging individuals to locate, so to have been so successful of late in locating these wanted persons is a real credit to the hard work and tenacity of the Foreign National Offending team.
“I’d like to thank the team for their relentless work, as we continue to assist out European colleagues with their investigations.
“I’d also like to praise PC Patryk Krasinski for his tenacious, outstanding work on this matter which led to the arrest.
“The man was wanted for several years and has evaded capture by several forces previously.
“He was using every method he could to avoid being caught and was living under at least two alias names meaning he was particularly difficult to pin down, but once again, the FNO team have gone above and beyond to achieve a superb result.”
The man has been remanded to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court today (Friday 18 December) for his initial extradition hearing with Notts Police continuing to assist the Polish authorities where needed.
