THEY exploited drug debts to recruit gang members and flew their foot soldiers into the UK on budget flights. More details of the murky world of the Estonian crime bosses behind a daring daylight jewellery heist on Tyneside can now be revealed. Staff were traumatised and passing shoppers stunned when an armed trio burst into Berry’s jeweller’s, on Newcastle’s Grey Street in August 2008. Brandishing a handgun and hammers, convicted murderer Marek Viidemann and accomplices Sander Sarik and Raido Ragga stole designer watches worth £250,000 in a smash and grab raid lasting just 31 seconds. But the raid in Newcastle was not a one-off, nor were the trio operating alone. It has since been revealed that Viidemann, Sarik and Ragga were part of a wider gang of Estonian crooks who were behind 150 armed robberies around the UK and Europe. And as the eighth and final member of the group, Janno Heinola, 33, was jailed for nine years at Leeds Crown Court last week, more details of their shocking crime wave were revealed. West Yorkshire Police became aware of the gang when a branch of Berry’s in Leeds was raided four times between 2005 and 2007. Detectives were eventually able to link them to at least 150 similar robberies, including the one on Grey Street. In total they are estimated to have made more than £2m from 11 raids in Britain, and taken more than £100m during heists in Finland, Italy, Sweden, and Monte Carlo. Heinola was the last of eight men to be extradited to Britain to face charges in connection with the raids, all of which have now been jailed for a total of 82 years. Detectives from West Yorkshire led investigations into the 11 UK raids, which included the one in Newcastle. And Leeds Crown Court heard how the gang, who are thought to have recruited their members by getting them into debt through drugs, caught cheap flights into the country before being met by a contact who gave them details of the robberies. It is thought the jewellery they took were shipped out of the country on cargo ships before being sold in Eastern Europe or Russia
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