A burglar who was part of a gang which stole around half-a-million pounds worth of jewellery has no assets which can be found, a judge has been told.
Michael Casey was involved with a family-based crime group which broke into dozens of carefully selected houses across south Wales and stole a huge haul of mainly gold jewellery.
The 21-year-old was the last member of the gang to be caught and jailed after spending two years on the run from the police.
Read more: See the latest cases from courts around Wales
He came back before Swansea Crown Court this week for a proceeds of crime hearing where it was revealed that financial investigators had been unable to locate any assets.
Casey carried out a dozen burglaries or attempted burglaries across Ynystawe, Llansamlet, Skewen, Morriston, and Aberavon in 2018 as part of a sophisticated operation being run from the travellers site at Mill Stream Way on Swansea Vale. In total the wider gang was responsible for more than 70 burglaries all following a similar method - small groups of three or four family members wearing masks and gloves and driving stolen cars would smash their way into target properties and steal jewellery.
They would often target half a dozen houses in a single night then dump their vehicles and burn their clothes. During one burglary alone, at a house in Skewen, the gang stole gold and other jewellery items worth £70,000.
Police launched a major operation to end the spree - Operation Timmia - which resulted in the members of the gang being identified, caught, and jailed. During the investigation police discovered the gang had carried out reconnaissance missions to identify suitable targets, often using the cover of being scrap merchants driving the streets looking for metal. You can read the full story of how police painstakingly pieced together the clues in the case here.
In total the gang stole jewellery worth around £500,000 but almost none of it has ever been found, nor has any money from its onward sale been traced.
While other members of the group were arrested in January 2019, Casey disappeared. After a manhunt involving police around the UK and in the Republic of Ireland he was arrested in Greater Manchester in April last year with a Mercedes car full of tools and stolen catalytic converters.
In October last year Casey, of Mynells Gorse travellers site, Golf Course Lane, Leicester, was sentenced to four years in prison. On that occasion Eugene Hickey, for the defendant, said his client was part of the traveller community and had grown up in Limerick in Ireland where his mother had kept him away from crime. However, at the age of 16 - as was the custom in the community, and like his father and grandfather before him - he went "travelling" and moved to the UK. The barrister said that once away from home the impressionable teenager fell under the "entirely corrosive influence" of older and "more criminally inclined" uncles and cousins who "should have known better". Mr Hickey said Casey had written a letter to the court in which he expressed his remorse for his actions, and said he now just wanted to settle down, find work, and start a family
Casey returned to the dock for a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act where the court heard he had benefited from his criminality to the tune of £121,117.89 but financial investigators had been unable to find any available assets. A nominal £1 confiscation order was requested and made.
In granting the order judge Paul Thomas QC said if the defendant were to come by an assets at a future date, they could be recovered by the court.
To get the latest news from WalesOnline sent to your email inbox click here
