لخّصلي

- [Narrator] 18-month-old, Devinder, and his baby brother, Ravinder, were the sons of successful businessman, Anil Chohan.
- [Nancy] Hello. (laughs) - [Narrator] With a loving marriage to his wife, Nancy, Anil had everything a man could want.
- Joy in a cup. (Charanjit laughs) - [Narrator] But in February 2003,
just two days after this film was shot, all five members of this happy family simply disappeared.
(gentle music) - [Reporter] Vanished without a trace. - [Reporter] Three generations of one family.
- [Reporter] The Chohans are now at the center of a major police hunt. - [Reporter] Why would anybody want to simply walk away and leave it all behind?
- [Narrator] This is the story of a man who made an entire family disappear. - [Reporter] Detectives later found evidence
of the macabre journey. - [Reporter] Two members of an underworld. - [Narrator] The story of an extraordinary deception by a ruthless criminal who wanted to get rich at any cost.
- [Belinda] He had absolutely no moral conscience whatsoever. - [Narrator] A man who almost succeeded in outwitting the police
by committing a crime so unique and horrific no one dared to believe it had taken place.
- [Reporter] The prosecution had described the crimes as "beyond belief." (brakes squealing)
(doors banging) (suspenseful music) (forklift rumbling)
- [Narrator] In 2003, businessman, Anil Chohan, was the owner of a successful fruit importation firm
based at Heathrow, called CIBA Freight. With a wife and two children, Chohan was known to his staff as a contented family man
and an easy-going boss. - Anil's way of running the company was a relaxed, sort of happy-go-lucky attitude.
(people chatting) - We all mucked in, whenever it was busy, he'd get pizzas, get drinks.
It was almost like one big happy family. - [Narrator] But owning a freight company
had made Anil Chohan a target. (door rattling) (suspenseful music)
In January 2003, a recently released convict arrived at CIBA Freight looking for work.
His name was Kenneth Regan.
- [Anil] You must be Ken. - That's me. You're Mr. Chohan, right? - Yeah. - [Narrator] Anil Chohan had spent time
in prison for tax evasion and was sympathetic to the ex-con, who said he wanted to go straight.
- Anil was a very fair person. He'd always give people not a second chance,
but a 10th chance. He'd been in prison himself and obviously he'd had a second chance.
So why shouldn't anybody else? Ken came on as a driver,
not frightened of getting his hands dirty and as a worker, I thought he was good.
- [Narrator] But Kenneth Regan was no ordinary delivery driver. (suspenseful music)
Five years earlier, Regan had been a successful drug smuggler, known to his friends as Captain Cash.
- In the late nineties, Ken Regan was a career criminal. Regan set up freight companies in around the Heathrow area.
And he'd used those as a front to bring drugs into the country.
He knew most of the major criminals in London and criminal families,
and he was very much living the high life.
- [Narrator] It was in a fashionable London bar that Regan first met celebrity agent and socialite Belinda Brewin.
- He was a bit rough, I think. Not, it's, not well-educated, quite charming,
dressed well, nice watch, spent a lot of money. He was kind of like a rich wide boy.
(upbeat suspenseful music) (door slams) Regan's nickname was Captain Cash.
He always had a lot of money and I mean, high denomination notes.
He had a briefcase and I've seen that twice and it was just full of money. And I think he thought it bought him class
when he had none whatsoever. (gentle music)
- [Narrator] Belinda would eventually be drawn unwittingly into Reagan's world of crime and deceit.
It started when the gangster became obsessed with her. - He used to phone me quite a lot and email saying,
"I've never, I haven't felt like this in 30 years. You're like a drug. I can't." I mean, just bizarre,
considering that he didn't really know me at all.
And then one day a friend of mine said to me, "Why on Earth are you going out with someone like Regan?"
And I said to him, "I'm not." And he said, "Well, he told me that you're his girlfriend." And I said, "You've got to be kidding."
And he said, "No, I'm not." Which I found slightly worrying. And then literally I think a few days later
he got arrested. (suspenseful music) - [Narrator] June 17th, 1998. Regan was caught with 25 kilograms of heroin.
Facing 18 years in prison, he decided to become a grass.
Regan's testimony helped convict 12 major criminals, while his own sentence was reduced.
By the time he was released from prison four years later, Captain Cash had few friends and little money.
- When Regan was released from his prison sentence, he'd very much gone back to having nothing.
All his assets had been stripped from him as part of the confiscation order. And here he was, back living in one bedroom
of a very small bungalow with his father. Regan, I think very much wanted to get back
in the driving seat as a drug importer. Mr. Chohan's business was, was the perfect framework
to hang his drug dealing activities on. (door rattling)
- [Narrator] Regan came up with a plan to steal Anil Chohan's company. A plan so ruthless that no one would realize
it had taken place. He began by setting a trap.
Soon after starting work at CIBA, Regan approached Chohan and said he knew some investors who wanted to buy the company.
The bait was a cash offer of 3 million pounds, a large enough sum to tempt the businessman whose wife Nancy wanted him to retire.
- I've got investors. - I, I knew that Nancy wanted to go back to India. She, she'd made it clear. She, she missed India.
And we talked about it a couple of times because he did say that the level of education in India
was higher than the UK and Nancy, she was desperate to go back there.
- [Narrator] While Chohan considered his offer, Regan began working on the next phase of his plan. (suspenseful music)
CIBA Freight was not the only thing he wanted to acquire. (suspenseful music)
By this time, Belinda Brewin had given up her house in Chelsea for a new life in Devon.
(dog barks) Regan's obsessive calls and letters had stopped during his four years in prison, but now free,
he began to pursue Belinda once more. - A few weeks after he got out of prison
he left me a few messages on my mobile. He said that he had a business deal he wished to discuss with me.
And at the time I had this huge house, a huge mortgage and two kids at private school and I'd given up my job
and then my boyfriend left me. So I was, it was a, how can I put it?
Yes, so I rang him. - [Narrator] Regan told Belinda he was planning to take over CIBA Freight
and needed a new managing director. Although she had no relevant experience,
Regan offered her a huge salary for a two-day week. - At first, he offered me 54,000 pounds,
which is a lot of money. But I thought, you know, I've got two kids at private school and a huge mortgage,
that's not gonna cover everything. And so he said, "Fine, I'll pay you 72,000." And I thought, well, that's great.
(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] The job offer gave Regan an excuse to visit Belinda at her isolated Devon home.
- He'd come up with bizarre reasons that he'd want me to sign a letter or a form
or he'd want me to help him fill in a form. And he drive all the way from Salisbury or from London
to my house for 20 minutes. - [Narrator] Regan seemed to become strangely fixated
on the land around Belinda's farm. - He used to moan about the mud a lot, the mud in the lane.
You know, I couldn't live here. It's so disgusting. He wanted to cut down some of the trees
and built a nice wall and electric gates. I mean, this was an old farm house, not a footballers pad in Essex.
He kept saying, "I could make this place really, really nice for you. What you need is a drainage ditch."
(suspenseful music)
(gentle music) - [Narrator] By February, Chohan had made up his mind.
He would meet the investors that Regan said wanted to buy his company.
On the Thursday morning before Valentine's day, he left his office telling staff he had a meeting at Stonehenge.
- He said, "I'm going off to do a deal and sell the company."
He said, "And I'll, I'll let you know." And that was the last time I saw him.
(gentle suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] On Monday morning, the employees at CIBA were greeted with a shock announcement.
- I came in on a shift on Monday, we all gathered around and Belinda was introduced as the new owner of the company by Ken.
It came as a shock to everyone. It was something we weren't expecting.
- Everyone was thinking what happened to Anil, where he had gone, but is it real that he sold the company?
Or what about our jobs? And so many things happening at the same time.
- [Narrator] Regan produced a letter, which explained that Chohan had sold the company and was retiring abroad with Nancy, due to ill health.
It bore the signature of Anil Chohan. - Because of it being a busy company,
you couldn't sort of sit down and stop whinging about it, or, or do anything about it. You just had to go on and get on with the work,
because it was a busy company. You would have to get on with the work and get the work done.
- [Narrator] Belinda was given a desk and a computer and began examining the books as Regan had asked her to.
But on her second day, she felt ill. Instead of going to CIBA where Reagan was expecting her,
she drove home to Devon. (gentle suspenseful music)
- When I pulled into the drive, I couldn't believe it. There was this old beaten up Jaguar.
And I thought, what on Earth is going on here? And I saw these two guys in my field with a digger.
(suspenseful music) - The two men were William Horncy and Peter Reece,
both friends of Ken Regan. (suspenseful music) (digger rumbling)
- I went absolutely mad and I swore a lot.
And I said, you know, what on Earth did they think they were doing? And he said, "Well, we're building you a drainage ditch."
You know, and then there's this bloody, great big ditch in the middle of my field, running along the side of the hedge.
I just couldn't believe it. (digger rumbling) Regan arrived.
I said, "You know, it's not the fact that I might not need a drainage ditch. It was my land. You never asked my permission.
You just don't go digging up people's land." He said, "Well, I thought you would appreciate it." I mean, it just looked like a car park.
You know, I just hated it, but I was going to have it taken up
and they said, "Wait til the summer." But as it happened, the Metropolitan police dug it up for me.
(ground shuffling) (suspenseful music) - [Narrator] In 2003 convicted drug smuggler,
Kenneth Regan was on the verge of regaining his former millionaire's lifestyle.
Anil Chohan, the previous owner of CIBA Freight had disappeared. Now, Regan was in control of his bonded warehouse,
an ideal front for importing drugs. For five years, Reagan had been obsessed
by socialite Belinda Brewin from afar but now she was on his payroll.
It seemed as if Regan's dreams had all come true, but the secret behind his success was about to be exposed.
12,000 miles away, Onkar Verma was working as a journalist in New Zealand.
His sister Nancy was raising a family in England with her husband, Anil Chohan. And Onkar was planning to visit the family
for the very first time. (suspenseful music) - I was very excited
because I was going to see Nancy after nine years. And it was like a family reunion after a long time.
- [Narrator] Onkar used to speak to his sister and mother almost every day. But on the 15th of February, the phone calls simply stopped.
(phone beeping) - When I was trying to get hold of Nancy, I was trying to get hold of mom, and nobody was here.
So, you know, I thought something's not right.
- [Narrator] Concerned for his family's safety, Onkar contacted the Metropolitan police.
A routine missing persons inquiry established that the family home was empty, but neighbors and colleagues seem to think
the Chohans had all gone to India. - You have to remember that if people wish to leave a country
and relocate to somewhere else, then it's their right to do. In this particular inquiry, the friends and family
in the UK were very much of a belief that Mr. Chohan had decided to do that.
(somber music) - [Narrator] Onkar decided that if the police couldn't find his family,
he would fly to Britain to investigate the disappearances himself. Alone in a country he'd never been to before,
Onkar went to the family home in Hounslow and was shocked by what he discovered.
- As I entered the house, I could see the kids toys on the floor, the baby feed bottles, all the baby feed
and the clothes, they were still in the house. I opened the fridge, there was uncooked food inside.
- [Narrator] Onkar became even more suspicious when he discovered his mother's most treasured possession.
- My mom's prayerbook was there inside the house. That was something strange because my mom used to carry it with her all the time.
One thing I couldn't figure out that how would a family disappear?
You're talking about two, three adults and two kids,
you know, two babies. And how can they just disappear, without telling me?
- [Narrator] With compelling evidence that his family had left the house against their will, Onkar went to the police and convinced them
to launch a full investigation. DCI Andy Rowell began his inquiry
by interviewing the last person who was known to have seen Chohan on the day he disappeared.
Kenneth Regan. - Mr. Regan told us that Mr. Chohan was trying to sell his business.
And he was very much trying to steer it down the lines of that Mr. Chohan
was an unsavory businessman who had, who had got himself into deep water financially.
And that had no other choice really, but to disappear. (somber music)
- But detectives were unconvinced by Reagan's story. Using new forensic technology,
they were able to track the movements of both Regan and Chohan's mobile phones on the day of the disappearance.
- Initially, we could see that Mr. Chohan's telephone was in the Hounslow area. We then tracked the phone down to the Stonehenge area.
(somber music) - Of course, Mr. Regan lived not far from Stonehenge,
in a village called Wilton in Salisbury. What we could see is that Reagan's telephone
met up with Mr. Chohan's telephone.
Then the two telephones traveled from that meeting point further down into the West country towards Exeter.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The only lead the detectives had in Devon was that it was home to the new managing director of CIBA,
Belinda Brewin. They decided to pay her a visit. - When Reagan found out
that the police were coming to my house, he was furious. And he said to me, "You know, you mustn't allow the police to come to your house.
They'll just cause you aggravation. You know, once they get a foot in your house
you mustn't let them come to your house. I want you to phone them back and go and meet them somewhere else."
And I thought, well, why would I want to do that? - [Narrator] Later that day, DCI Andy Rowell
received a phone call from Reagan's associate. - I've got some information about Anil Chohan. - [Narrator] William Horncy
claimed he'd recently spoken to Anil Chohan, and that the missing businessman was still in the UK.
- I don't know, but he told me he's on the run. - Mr. Horncy told me that he was going to meet with Mr. Chohan in Newport, in Wales,
by the passport office to supply him with stolen passports. So what he was saying to us was, is that
he was happy to deliver Mr. Chohan into our hands.
- And then what happened was I got a phone call from DI Rowell saying, "Listen, thank you very much, Belinda, but we won't be coming to see you today.
We have other information. And in fact, we probably won't need to come and see you at all."
Regan then rang me up, obviously to check to make sure that the police had canceled their meeting.
And he seemed to know that they had and I said, "Yes, they're not coming." He said, "Yes, I know, they're going to go
to Wales and arrest Anil Chohan." So that was the end of that.
(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] The meeting with Chohan was due to take place on Easter Monday.
But over the weekend, Belinda received an unexpected visit from Regan, Horncy and Reece.
- Regan said, "I'm going to do the lane by your stables." Which actually did need graveling.
And that would have been a great place for the gravel. So I thought, well, okay. So when a digger arrived, I wasn't, it didn't surprise me,
because I thought, oh, they're going to come and grade the lane. (digger humming)
And it was a Saturday and I took the kids into town and I let them get on with it. (digger rumbling)
(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] Two days later, detectives traveled
to the spot where Horncy said he was planning to meet Chohan. - In Newport, where the passport office is,
is this quite an iconic bronze statue of a pig. And that's where Horncy said
that he would bring Mr. Chohan to notice. On the day in question he in fact turned up
with Mr. Regan as well. And the pair of them stood there for some moments.
They then enacted receiving a phone call and a text
and then made it plainly obvious through their body language that something had gone wrong with the, the arrangement.
They explained they'd received a phone call from someone saying, we know you've told the police. We're friends of Nil's or Anil Chohan's, the deal's off.
- [Narrator] Police traced the calls, but only to an unregistered phone. They were no closer to finding Nil Chohan.
And all they knew for certain was that they had been led on a wild goose chase.
- I don't think personally he was having a swipe at the police and that the sort of the subtle joke about pigs.
I hope not, anyway. - [Narrator] While Regan returned to work at CIBA, the police reverted
to their original plan and called in Belinda Brewin for questioning. - The DI Rowell said to me,
"I want to have a full and frank discussion with you." And as I was leaving, Regan said to me,
"Listen, Belinda, if the police ask you what I was doing on your land."
He said, "You ought to tell." He said, "Just tell them that I was helping you with your water system."
I thought that was very odd. I mean, he'd said, he'd look at it, but no work had been done on it. And I just thought it was odd.
When I went to meet the police, they said to me, "What do you think's happened?" And I said, "Well, I don't really know." I said, "I've told you everything that I know."
And he said, "Is there anything else that you think is odd?" And I said, "Well, when I was leaving today,
Regan asked me not, he'd said that if you were to ask me what he was doing on my land,
I was to say that he'd been working on my water system." And they said, "Well, what was he doing?"
And I said, "He dug a drainage ditch." And the two of them looked at each other and said,
"He did what?" (upbeat suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Detectives rushed to Devon, convinced that a gruesome discovery awaited them on Belinda's farm.
(upbeat suspenseful music)
- We exhumed the dig site, painstaking, fingertip forensic examination,
using highly trained forensic archeologists, and pathologists. (upbeat suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The murder squad spent the next five days digging in Belinda's field. But the bodies they had expected to find
were nowhere to be seen. (waves smashing)
In April, 2003, police had been searching for the Chohan family for over two months,
but they'd been looking in the wrong place. (suspenseful music)
- We'd planned to go out for an evening's canoeing. Nice quiet day, nice calm sea,
pleasantly warm this time of year. Yeah, so it was such an enjoyable evening, that we decided to venture out further
than what we normally would do. (suspenseful music)
After a short while I noticed something floating in the sea.
It appeared to be three floating objects, which, distance was unusual.
- As we were sort of just canoeing, mucking about, I had noticed something, but I just totally discarded it.
It wasn't until he sort of shouted body at me and was just like, what?
(suspenseful music) - As I approached, then I realized that
it was obviously a body. A large body, because he was oversized, somewhat inflated
but the feet were floating on the water. And the torso, the head was face down, was in the water.
- He got me to go in, call up 999. (somber music)
- I was determined to stay with the body, come what may, but I did expect the rescue service
would have been there sooner rather than later.
Leaving the water canoeing, in the dark for nearly three hours.
It does get a bit unnerving. You can't ignore a body, once you find a body, it just stays there.
I can still see the body floating. (somber music)
- [Narrator] The body was taken to a mortuary in Bournemouth but it would be almost a week before it was identified
as that of missing businessmen, Nil Chohan. - I went to Bournemouth and saw the body.
The first time I had a look on Anil's face,
I could, I could see that he suffered a tragic death.
He was, he suffered while in death. (somber music)
- He had received a blunt trauma injury to the back of his head. He had had packing tape wound round his mouth.
But the main blow to the head, followed by subsequent suffocation
is the likely cause of death for Mr. Chohan.
- [Narrator] While Nil Chohan's clothes were removed for forensic analysis, a hundred miles away,
police were still searching for evidence that his body had been buried in Belinda Brewin's field.
- The site of the dig obviously became extremely important and we recovered some substantial evidence from that dig site,
namely hairs from their, burnt clothing, jewelry,
which suggested that it had in fact been a burial site.
Those hairs were subsequently identified as Mr. Chohan's.
He had been murdered, at some stage he had been placed in the grave down in Devon,
that he had been exhumed from that grave at a later date, put into a boat, the boat had gone out
into the middle of the bay at Bournemouth and dumped it into the sea.
(forklift buzzing) - Until his body was found, we all hoped that he would be back one day.
Even if he had sold the company or not, he would still be back one day just to, to visit us or whatever.
But when his body was found, you had just lost all hope. And that was, it was the end of end of him.
- But then our concerns sort of, we knew what happened to Anil, but then our concerns drifted towards Nancy and the kids and their mother.
(somber music) - The fact that the dig site was so big.
And that if, if you had wanted just to hide one body, you wouldn't need it to have gone to the extent
of digging such a huge site. Coupled with the fact the entire family had gone missing.
Coupled with the fact there had been a bonfire there. We had recovered some items of jewelry,
which we believed to belong to Nancy. And also there was some small poppers found,
the type that one would find on babygrow suits.
So we believe that the family had all been put into the ground at that point.
(somber music)
From that my moment on the entire investigation changed focus and became a category A,
which is the highest category of, of murder inquiry.
Kenneth Regan, obviously from that point on became prime suspect. At that stage Reagan's whereabouts were unknown
as were Horncy's. They were very much on the loose, so to speak.
(somber music) - I was a bit overcome by the whole thing really.
And I don't really know what I thought but it never sort of, maybe I just didn't want to think that somebody had been buried in my field.
So I tried to make myself busy. And I noticed that my horse had ripped it's horse blanket.
So I took it off the horse put it in the car and I drive up the lane.
And lo and behold, I bumped into Regan and Horncy, who were in a car. (somber music)
I was really shocked to see them. And Regan wound the window down. And I said to him, "What are you doing here?"
And he said, "We need to have a little chat." And Horncy then said, "Why don't you get in the car?
We'll go and have a coffee." And I thought, oh, I don't want to get in the car with them. So I, had the horse blanket next to me,
and there was a little cottage, just up. And I said, "I've got to take this back. I've borrowed this from."
You know, pointing to that. "I've got to take it back. And they're expecting it back. I'll be back in two minutes." I said. So, he said, "Okay."
So I drove off and I drove around the corner and I phoned DI Rowell.
And he said, "Whatever you do, don't get in the car with them." So I said, "Okay." He said, "I'm gonna send two police officers back."
Two police officers arrived, but Regan and Horncy, they'd gone.
(upbeat dramatic music) - [Narrator] Regan and Horncy had escaped to Europe, leaving Peter Reece behind.
But alone and on the run, Reece developed a guilty conscience.
- [Wendy] I think he was cornered. He didn't know me from Adam. He just came in, sat down and more or less
started pouring his heart out. - [Narrator] At the time Wendy Powles was staying at a boarding house when a new lodger moved in,
within hours Reece made a startling confession. - Well, I just took him as any, you know,
new lodger that came there. Until he started saying, have I seen him on TV?
And I said, "No, should I have done?" And so I just wondered.
He said, "'Cause I have been on TV." And he's not celebrity or anything.
You know, he didn't look that way. And he just said that he was involved with an Asian family that had disappeared.
"They could put me at the scene of where the bodies were buried,
but I didn't, I didn't I didn't kill anybody." He was going, "I, you know, they can't do that. They can't pin that on me." And I, I say to him, you know, "What is going on?"
You know, he just said that Regan was crazy, 'cause he'd killed two children.
I gasped and I said, "How did you, were they killed?" He said that Regan had shot them.
"It was Regan, he's a psycho," he said. "He killed them all."
I knew what I had to do. Because how many people come into your home every day
and say they've killed five people and two babies? Well, three adults and two babies.
(Wendy sighs) - [Narrator] Wendy Powels alerted the police.
And after just 12 days on the run, Peter Reece was arrested at a nearby pub.
Despite his confession to Wendy Powels, Reece refused to answer any questions and the whereabouts of the Chohan family remained a mystery.
But three weeks later, a fishermen discovered another body floating in the Solent.
- I was told that Nancy's body was decomposed. But I insisted on seeing the body,
because for me it was not as scary then, for me it was my baby sister.
For me, she was, she was still alive and I was talking to her and that was it.
A tearful goodbye. That's what I said.
I felt sorry that I couldn't save her. I did say that, Nancy, I tried my best,
but I couldn't save you.
(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] Kenneth Regan was tracked down by police in Belgium after two months on the run.
And just six weeks later, William Horncy gave himself up.
The three prime suspects were now in custody but they refused to answer any questions.
With three family members still missing and no witnesses to the murders, police needed hard evidence to link their suspects
to the crime. Little did they realize that the vital clue they needed had been left by Anil Chohan himself.
April, 2005 saw the start of the longest criminal trial in the history of the old Bailey.
Police were trying to prove that Kenneth Regan, William Horncy and Peter Reece had abducted and murdered all five members
of the Chohan family. The nine-month trial saw almost 4500 different exhibits,
from financial transactions to petrol receipts. But it was telephone tracking evidence which provided the foundation for the whole case.
- We got ourselves into a position, where we pretty much knew exactly what had gone on
and could give a very clear indication to the trial. The enormity of the crime, and who'd committed it.
(somber music) - [Narrator] Initially, police had established Regan and Chohan's movements by tracking their mobiles.
Once they gained access to Horncy and Reece' phones, they had compelling evidence for an abduction.
- Our telephone intelligence had suggested that Mr. Chohan had been with Mr. Regan,
Horncy and Reece, then the telephones traveled down to Wilton in Salisbury,
namely 3, Forge Close, which was Ken Reagan's home address.
- Over the critical period, when Mr. Chohan had initially been, had gone missing, there was never a time that one of those telephones
wasn't in that area, leading us to believe he was being guarded
at number 3, Forge Close. (tape shuffling) (somber music)
- [Narrator] All the men could now be placed at the scene but detectives still needed further clues as to what really happened at 3, Forge Close.
In the run-up to the trial, they unexpectedly received some vital new evidence from one of the suspect's own relatives.
- Mr. Horncy's son approach police and produced to us Lexmark color printer, and also this gray suitcase,
which contained a number of pieces of A4 paper with Mr.