CHERUB: Maximum Security by Robert Muchamore Page B
Authors: Robert Muchamore
Tags: CHERUB
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hauled into a back room by casino security. He was taken to the local police station, where the Las Vegas police ran a routine check. They found that Kurt had skipped bail on a Nevada assault charge five years earlier, following a fight between rival motorcycle gangs in Reno .
Less than six hours after getting married, Kurt was locked up in Las Vegas county jail, facing a three- to five-year sentence. Jane pledged to stand by her husband, but was then shocked to discover that her husband had violated his California parole and that police there wanted to question him about an unsolved murder .
Kurt Oxford was extradited to California. On 24 January 1969, five days before his trial for murder was due to begin, Kurt became involved in a fight in the prison exercise yard. A guard fired a warning shot, but the fight continued and Kurt received a shotgun blast in his chest. He died of his wounds in the prison hospital eleven days later .
Jane Oxford – International Arms Dealer
By the time she turned nineteen, Jane Oxford had run away from her family, amassed a half-million-dollar fortune (equivalent to $2.6 million today), got married and seen her husband die in prison. Jane had no police record, apart from a missing persons report filed by her father in Oakland. Fearing a public scandal, General Hammond had honoured the bad cheques and compensated Fowler Wood for his stolen car .
Some people might have quit while they were ahead, but Jane Oxford spent the 1970s transforming herself from a thief into a big-time black-market weapons dealer. The business of stealing from the US military thrived. When the army launched an investigation into the large amount of missing equipment and tightened up security, Jane developed more sophisticated techniques for relieving the US military of its weapons. Every American base had its share of bored, broke and homesick servicemen who were willing to turn a blind eye, or drive a truck off-base in return for a car, or enough cash to put down a deposit on a home .
The next step in developing the business was for Jane to bypass her Mexican connection and deal directly with people who wanted to buy the stolen weapons. She travelled the world using a variety of aliases and disguises, making contacts with terrorist groups, drug tsars, local warlords and dictators. Jane brokered deals to sell weapons from all over the world, but most of her profits continued to stem from her unique web of corrupt contacts within the US military .
T HE G HOST
In 1982, a retired member of the Brigands bike gang called Michael Smith was arrested at the gates of an army base in Kentucky, after attempting to pass a security check with a truckload of mortars. Smith had lost the paperwork given to him by an associate of Jane Oxford and stupidly tried to carry out the robbery using crudely altered paperwork from a previous raid .
Smith had been involved in dozens of military supply thefts over the preceding decade. He offered to give the US military police information on Jane Oxford and her organisation, in return for a light prison sentence. Smith was stunned by the answer the US military police gave him: not only was nobody looking for Jane Oxford, they’d never even heard of her .
Following Michael Smith’s tip-off, Jane Oxford went from being an unknown to a spot on the FBI’s most wanted list. The FBI, CIA and US military police set up a two-hundred-person taskforce to bring Jane Oxford to justice. The trouble was, almost nothing was known about her .
After fourteen years of successfully stealing American weapons, Jane had put distance between herself and the day-to-day operation of her organisation. Nobody knew who her deputies were, what country she lived in, if she’d married again or had children. Jane had made no contact with her parents since leaving home sixteen years earlier and the nearest thing to an up-to-date picture was the photograph found in the uncollected personal effects of the late Kurt
Less than six hours after getting married, Kurt was locked up in Las Vegas county jail, facing a three- to five-year sentence. Jane pledged to stand by her husband, but was then shocked to discover that her husband had violated his California parole and that police there wanted to question him about an unsolved murder .
Kurt Oxford was extradited to California. On 24 January 1969, five days before his trial for murder was due to begin, Kurt became involved in a fight in the prison exercise yard. A guard fired a warning shot, but the fight continued and Kurt received a shotgun blast in his chest. He died of his wounds in the prison hospital eleven days later .
Jane Oxford – International Arms Dealer
By the time she turned nineteen, Jane Oxford had run away from her family, amassed a half-million-dollar fortune (equivalent to $2.6 million today), got married and seen her husband die in prison. Jane had no police record, apart from a missing persons report filed by her father in Oakland. Fearing a public scandal, General Hammond had honoured the bad cheques and compensated Fowler Wood for his stolen car .
Some people might have quit while they were ahead, but Jane Oxford spent the 1970s transforming herself from a thief into a big-time black-market weapons dealer. The business of stealing from the US military thrived. When the army launched an investigation into the large amount of missing equipment and tightened up security, Jane developed more sophisticated techniques for relieving the US military of its weapons. Every American base had its share of bored, broke and homesick servicemen who were willing to turn a blind eye, or drive a truck off-base in return for a car, or enough cash to put down a deposit on a home .
The next step in developing the business was for Jane to bypass her Mexican connection and deal directly with people who wanted to buy the stolen weapons. She travelled the world using a variety of aliases and disguises, making contacts with terrorist groups, drug tsars, local warlords and dictators. Jane brokered deals to sell weapons from all over the world, but most of her profits continued to stem from her unique web of corrupt contacts within the US military .
T HE G HOST
In 1982, a retired member of the Brigands bike gang called Michael Smith was arrested at the gates of an army base in Kentucky, after attempting to pass a security check with a truckload of mortars. Smith had lost the paperwork given to him by an associate of Jane Oxford and stupidly tried to carry out the robbery using crudely altered paperwork from a previous raid .
Smith had been involved in dozens of military supply thefts over the preceding decade. He offered to give the US military police information on Jane Oxford and her organisation, in return for a light prison sentence. Smith was stunned by the answer the US military police gave him: not only was nobody looking for Jane Oxford, they’d never even heard of her .
Following Michael Smith’s tip-off, Jane Oxford went from being an unknown to a spot on the FBI’s most wanted list. The FBI, CIA and US military police set up a two-hundred-person taskforce to bring Jane Oxford to justice. The trouble was, almost nothing was known about her .
After fourteen years of successfully stealing American weapons, Jane had put distance between herself and the day-to-day operation of her organisation. Nobody knew who her deputies were, what country she lived in, if she’d married again or had children. Jane had made no contact with her parents since leaving home sixteen years earlier and the nearest thing to an up-to-date picture was the photograph found in the uncollected personal effects of the late Kurt
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