Paul Lashmar - investigative journalist

Paul Lashmar is a Journalist who has covered many of the major stories of the last 30 years. He is now freelance, working for many organisations and also as a TV Producer, film and programme consultant, author and journalism trainer.

Specialist areas include: * Terrorism * Intelligence * Spying * Organised crime * Offshore crime * Business fraud * The Cold War Paul is available for commissions and appearances

Sub prime – a crisis in journalism?

By Paul Lashmar

Former BBC economics editor Evan Davis said at the Radio Festival in Glasgow earlier this month that journalists could have done more to warn the public about the credit crunch that has triggered the current housing price crash.“I do ask whether we did our best to warn people of impending problems during the upswing of the [economic] cycle,” Davis said.

He raised an interesting point. But there is an even more important overriding question of whether UK journalists did their job properly over the wider sub-prime mortgage crisis, which is proving to be more significant and disturbing than the timing of the economic cycle.

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Britain's FBI 'is a dismal failure'

By Paul Lashmar

Britain's answer to the FBI, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), has been branded a disaster by the law enforcement chief whose proposals in 2003 led to its creation.Terry Byrne, former director-general for law enforcement at Customs & Excise, said the agency was failing and its performance was "dismal".

He added: "The agency is claiming to have seized 84 tons of cocaine across the world, yet the availability of cocaine in the UK is at an all-time high and street prices at an all-time low. This is not the agency I envisaged and I would not have proposed the transfer of Customs drugs responsibilities and resources to such an organisation if I had known how it was going to be so ill-directed."

Launched in April 2006, Soca took over responsibilities from the National Crime Squad, Customs, MI5 and the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Its director-general, Bill Hughes, has dismissed criticism of its lack of high-profile success, saying it was in "a marathon, not a sprint".

For the first two years Soca's prime focus was on a list of 130 "Mr Bigs" of UK crime. Mr Byrne asked: "How professional was Soca intelligence if it took nearly two years to identify that some were dead, incarcerated or low-level criminals doing little damage?"  

Mann ready to name names in exchange for early release

Former SAS officer admits coup plot but his pact with lawyers rests on giving Equatorial Guinea hard evidence against organisers

By Paul Lashmar

The jailed mercenary Simon Mann has cut a deal with prosecutors in Equatorial Guinea, and will be released early if he provides hard evidence against the organisers and funders of a failed 2004 coup plot, according to sources in the oil-rich West African country.
Mann, a former Guards and SAS officer, last week named the London-based millionaire Ely Calil as the "architect" of the attempt to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Mr Calil has always denied any involvement. Mann also implicated Sir Mark Thatcher as "part of the team".

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The great class A drugs sale – how prices have tumbled under Labour

'Startling and shocking' figures alarm experts who say cities are awash with heroin and cocaine

Street prices for class A drugs have halved since Labour came to power, dropping almost every year since 1997, government figures confirm. Newly released statistics show that heroin cost as little as £40 a gram in 2007, just over half the price it was 10 years ago. Cocaine was £45 a gram, down from £71.

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Government in Crisis (I): Victory to the traffickers: Heroin and cocaine prices on the street are at record lows as seizures plummet

The Serious Organised Crime Agency was to be Tony Blair's FBI, and it took over as the lead agency in the battle against ever more sophisticated drug cartels last year. Unpublished figures demonstrate that – so far – it is losing.

Paul Lashmar investigates 

Hard drug seizures at the nation's borders have plummeted, leaving heroin and cocaine freely and cheaply available on the nation's streets, an Independent on Sunday investigation can reveal. Class A drug confiscations at ports and airports have tumbled for the last four years and serious question marks are now being raised about the ability of the UK's "FBI", the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), to combat drug smuggling. Less than 3 tons of cocaine was seized in 2006-07 compared with over 9 tons in 2004-05 and 1 ton of heroin seized in 2006-07 compared to nearly 2.5 tons in 2004-05, according to official government statistics.

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