iPad mini Recovered After 5 Years at Bottom of the River Thames Cracks Murder Plot
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Police investigating a shooting from 2019 that left a man paralyzed were searching England’s River Thames for a gun. The victim, identified as 45-year-old Paul Allen, survived 6 shots but was left wheelchair-bound after one of the bullets struck him in his throat and hit his spine. The Metropolitan Police didn’t find a weapon in the river, but they did find an iPad mini.
Sure enough, forensic investigators were able to clean and open the SIM tray and recover a pink Vodafone SIM card. The data recovered from the SIM card linked three men to a carefully planned murder attempt as well as a museum robbery.
The victim, Paul Allen, was one of the ringleaders in the 2006 armed robbery of the Securitas depot in which a gang with AK-47s stole $68 million in Bank of England cash notes. It remains Britain’s biggest armed robbery. Allen was caught in Morocco and extradited to the UK, where he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was released from prison in 2016 and shot 10 months later by three men. Allen was somehow connected to the three men’s robbery of the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva just a month earlier, during which they stole over $3 million worth of Chinese Ming Dynasty antiques.
The three thieves and would-be assassins, Louis Ahearne, Stewart Ahearne, and Daniel Kelly, had a busy month leading up to the shooting. This time included the Geneva museum heist, flying to Hong Kong in an attempt to sell the stolen goods, renting a car and robbing an upscale apartment in Kent, and finally tracking and shooting Paul Allen on July 11, 2019. It was the iPad mini discovered on November 7, 2024, that tied everything together just months before the trial began.
A defense statement made by Louis Ahearne led to the discovery of the iPad. He stated he stopped the rented car on John Harrison Way, hoping to be seen on CCTV footage “getting some air” while his accomplice Kelly disappeared toward the Thames River. Working off of that information and the proximity of the river, police immediately thought to search for a gun. They found the iPad mini instead.
Miraculously, authorities were able to extract data from the SIM card, even after it had been submerged under water and mud for 5 years. The SIM card showed the iPad and an iPhone 6 belonging to Kelly had been used to call the Ahearne brothers. They also found email accounts linked to Kelly, which revealed 59 Amazon and eBay purchases that included Nokia burner phones used in the planning of the attempted murder. Finally, the SIM card was linked to GPS tracking devices found inside the rental car upon their arrest. The tracking device was used to follow Paul Allen’s Mercedes.
It’s far from shocking that digital evidence was used to seal the deal in a complex criminal prosecution. What’s remarkable is the iPad mini’s ability to provide useable evidence after five years underwater. Even when crooks think they’re successfully disposing of or destroying evidence, they could be surprised years later. Apple devices have only become more resilient, designed to withstand drops and survive time submerged in water. Still, this iPad mini surviving the extreme conditions for years shocked everyone.
