A 47-year-old woman is the latest person to be arrested in a long-running police investigation that has involved numerous high-profile Liverpool figures,
Yesterday the ECHO revealed that the 47-year-old woman was taken into custody following a dawn raid by officers at a property in the Livingston Drive area of Aigburth. Two Matrix vans were seen outside the property, with numerous officers going in and out.
Merseyside Police then confirmed that during the raid, the 47-year-old woman had been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office and breaches under the Data Protection Act. A force spokesperson said the arrest had been made as part of an "ongoing operation into fraud" - which the ECHO understands is Operation Aloft.
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Later in the day the police confirmed the 47-year-old had been released on conditional bail pending further inquiries.
The arrest brought news of Operation Aloft back into the headlines, somewhere it has regularly found itself in recent years. In fact the 47-year-old is the 13th arrest resulting from the investigation.
Operation Aloft - an investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool - was launched in 2019 and exploded into view in dramatic fashion later in that year. In December 2019, Liverpool Council's then Director of Regeneration - Nick Kavanagh - was arrested at the local authority's Cunard Building headquarters on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and misconduct in a public office.
At the same time, city developer Elliot Lawless was held by Aloft detectives on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, bribery and corruption. Both men deny wrongdoing and have not been charged.
It was roughly a year later when Aloft burst back into the news in even more significant fashion. On December 4 2020, the ECHO broke the news that then Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, had been arrested at his home. He was arrested that day - along with four other men - in connection with offences of bribery and witness intimidation as part of the same investigation.
One of those four men was the former mayor's son, David. Both Joe and David Anderson have denied any wrongdoing and neither have been charged.
Operation Aloft has seen numerous other figures arrested in the nearly three years since it began, with several of those believed to be linked to Liverpool City Council. For legal reasons the ECHO cannot name all of those who have been arrested as part of the investigation.
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