Directors of raided Edgware Safe Depository to face judge in January

TWO bosses of the Edgware Safety Depository where a police raid uncovered drugs, cash and guns will appear in front of a judge early next year along with an ex-colleague.
Milton Woolf, 53, of West Heath Drive, Golders Green, north London, Jacqueline Swan, 45, of Hexham Road, Barnet, north London, and Leslie Sief, 61, of Ranulf Road, West Hampton, north west London, were charged with various offences following Operation Rize.
That was where the Metropolitan Police swooped on the secure storage warehouse in High Steet, Edgware, on June 3 last year and came across not only £19.3 million but handguns, ammunition, fraudulent passports, credit cards, cheque books and narcotics such cannabis, crack cocaine and opiates, and three paintings by 17th-century Dutch artists.
Woolf and Swan, two current directors of Safe Deposit Centres, the company that ran Edgware Safe Depository, Hampstead Safe Depository and Park Lane Safe Depository, and ex-director Sief were charged by police following an inquiry lasting 15 months.
The trio have had their court cases committed to Southwark Crown Court in south-east London where a plea and case management hearing will take place on January 6 next year.
Woolf is accused of:
n possessing ammunition without a firearm certificate or authority;
n doing an act tending and intending to pervert the course of justice;
n having custody or control of a c-ounterfeit of a currency note with intent;
n conspiracy to fail to disclose to a nominated officer or authorised person;
n failure to disclose;
n concealing criminal property;
n having a false instrument;
n possessing false identity documents;
n possessing articles for use in fraud;
n possessing a prohibited firearm.
Swan faces:
n concealing criminal property;
n having a false instrument;
n possessing false identity documents;
n possessing of articles for use in fraud;
n conspiracy to fail to disclose to a nominated officer or authorised person;
n failure to disclose;
Sief faces a single charge of having custody or control of a counterfeit of a currency note with intent.