Striding out of court with his multimillionaire caravan magnate father, Fred Sines Jnr beamed as he was spared jail over trying to sell the £4.8million gold toilet stolen from Blenheim Palace.
During the high-profile trial earlier this year, the father-of-four businessman, who lives in a mansion near Ascot racecourse, was at pains to present himself as a respectable family man who mentors young boxers.
What the jury was not told, however, is that his father, Maurice ‘Fred’ Sines, is an associate of the notorious Irish Kinahan organised crime clan.
And in a fresh twist that raises questions over their links to the criminal underworld, Sines Jnr and Snr have been dragged into another high-profile heist – a £1.1million luxury watch robbery in Richmond, south-west London, on May 25 2024.
This was the robbery in which tragic shop manager Oliver White took his own life after being accused of not putting up ‘enough of a fight’ when more than 70 uninsured luxury watches were stolen from 247 Kettles store on May 25 last year.
Mr White, 27, was placed in a chokehold and tied up with cable ties before the robbers ransacked the south-west London store and made off with a huge haul that has never been recovered.
The watches – which included a £30,000 Rolex Sky Dweller – were taken while the business owners, Conor Thornton and Joe Riley, were in New York.
But the next day, they flew back to London and held an ‘intense’ meeting with Mr White, attended by a third businessman, none other than Fred Sines, also known as Fred Doe.
In May, Sines Jnr was seen celebrating with his father outside court after being handed a suspended jail sentence for trying to sell the 18-carat gold toilet which was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019.
Jurors heard claims 247 Kettles was run by Maurice (left) and Fred Sines (right) as a ‘front for organised crime’. They are pictured here after Sines Jnr was spared jail for trying to sell the £4.8m Blenheim Palace gold toilet
An 18-carat solid gold toilet sculpture worth £4.8 million, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019 while it was featured in an art exhibition
But Sines Jnr has been dragged into another heist – the £1.1m luxury watch robbery. Salesman Oliver White (pictured), 27, was restrained with cable ties during the raid at 247 Kettles store in Kew Road, Richmond, on May 25 last year. He later took his own life after a meeting at which Sines Jnr attended
The total value of the watches that were taken is approximately £1.1million
During the trial, he posed as a legitimate businessman and family man, prompting questions over why he was caught up in such a high-value heist.
After his conviction, his father told the Mail that his son may have been ‘victimised’ because of the ‘family name and his gypsy roots.’
He went on to say being friends with Kinahan associates did not make him a criminal, declaring: ‘Being friendly with someone isn’t a crime, is it? Is it a crime to be a mate or go on holiday? Or have a game of golf? Or have a drink with somebody?
‘OK, I go to Dublin, there’s a christening, I take a Rolls-Royce, a Range Rover and Merc Jeep cos they need cars… and all of a sudden it’s me, it’s them [the cartel] it’s this, it’s that.’
The Kinahan Cartel is believed to be one of the biggest ever drugs suppliers to the UK. They are accused of importing vast amounts of South American cocaine and heroin into Europe, as well as involvement in gun smuggling, murder and money laundering.
The US has put three bounties totalling $15million on godfather Christy ‘The Dapper Don’ Kinahan Sr, 68, his son and heir-apparent Daniel ‘Chess’ Kinahan, 48, and his other son Christopher ‘Mano’ Kinahan Jr, 44.
With the Blenheim Palace heist behind them, Sines Jnr and Snr ow seem to have become associated with another high-profile robbery.
On Wednesday, in the 247 Kettles trial, Kyle Mehmet, 40, and Michael Holmes, 34, were found guilty of conspiracy to rob and will be sentenced alongside Mannix Pedro, 37, who was convicted of the same offence earlier this year.
Junior Kunu, 31, who was also on trial, was today cleared of conspiracy to rob after he claimed the heist was staged. A fifth suspect, Michael Ashman, fled abroad and is still on the run.
Alan Kent KC, defending Kunu, and Daniel Jones KC, for Mehmet, told the court their clients claimed it was an ‘inside job’ possibly involving Mr White, who ‘offered no resistance.’
Kunu told the trial he reluctantly agreed to take part after being offered £5,000 to take part in a ‘staged robbery’ in which no one would get hurt and the ‘victim’, Mr White knew what was going on.
During the trial, the defence also claimed that 247 Kettles was connected to top-level organised crime.
It was suggested the store was actually a ‘money laundering front for organised crime’ run behind the scenes by Sines Snr, whose alleged links to the notorious Kinahans have once again been thrust into the spotlight.
Kyle Mehmet (front) and Junior Kunu (back) are seen during the heist at the jewellery store in Richmond . Mehmet was found guilty but Kunu was cleared
Mr White had been restrained with cable ties during the raid at the 247 Kettles store (pictured) in Richmond, west London, on May 25 last year
Mehmet, Kunu and Holmes were also warned by police their lives were in danger after a ‘£100,000 bounty’ was placed on each of them by Sines Snr, according to an agreed facts document read to the jury.
In the document read to the jury, Prosecutor Edward Brown KC said: ‘Kyle Mehmet, Junior Kunu and Michael Holmes were issued with a threat to life warning notice by the police on arrest.
‘Those notices stated: ‘Following the robbery at 247 Kettles a substantial bounty was placed on those suspects responsible. As a result of your suspected involvement in this offence it has come to police attention that you may at risk of serious harm due to the above.’
Mr Brown told the jury the Met Police had done ‘absolutely nothing’ after issuing the warnings and had not even spoken to Sines Snr to make him aware they knew of any plot or to warn him off.
He sought to exclude ‘bad character’ evidence about Sines Snr being admitted following an application by Rupert Bowers KC, the barrister for Holmes.
Mr Bowers wanted the jury to hear about allegations that Sines Snr had made threats to kill two other people not connected to the trial this year, after they allegedly crossed him and was still under police investigation.
He also said the jury should be allowed to hear about police intelligence linking him to an organised crime group.
Mr Brown argued it should not be admissible on the grounds of being ‘hearsay, allegations and intelligence,’ with Sines senior not convicted in connection with it.
Yet, Judge Shorrock, allowed it to go before the jury saying that ‘in the round it does potentially have substantial value in showing Mr Sines might indeed have been the victim of an offence and, in reality, the watches belonged to him’.
Fred Sines, also known as Fred Doe, was handed a suspended jail sentence earlier this year for trying to sell the £4.8million gold toilet which was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019
Multi-millionaire residential park owner ‘Fred’ Doe Senior, pictured with a luxury car, claimed his son may have been ‘victimised’ because of the family name and his gypsy roots
Daniel Kinahan, Christy ‘The Dapper Don’ Kinahan Snr and Christy Jnr are all wanted, with US rewards totalling $15million
He reminded the jury that Sines Snr had not been charged or convicted and denied the offences. But, he said that ‘taken together’ the jury may conclude he was potentially involved with serious crime.
On paper, the jury was told 247 Kettles was owned by Joe Riley and Connor Thornton, both 27, who are its registered directors at Companies House.
Mr Bowers suggested to the jury it was actually ‘a front for money laundering’ owned behind the scenes by Sines Snr and Sines Jnr.
Sines Jnr was convicted in May this year of his involvement in a conspiracy to handle gold from the theft of a £4.8 million 18-carat gold toilet stolen from an exhibition at Blenheim Palace in September 2019.
During the trial, he wore a £3,000 Louis Vuitton parka and often parked his £149,000 Range Rover Sport on double yellow lines and bowled into the court building flanked by minders.
In the witness box he said he ran a successful construction vehicle company and did some work for his father’s business.
He also told the jury how he coached and mentored 35 ‘kids who haven’t had the best start’ at a boxing club in Camberley, Surrey and said one of his sons had represented England as a junior boxer.
Like his father, he also brought up his charity work that raises up to £40,000 each year for sick and terminally ill children.
The court heard 247 Kettles was an ‘unusual’ business with no shop front and only advertised on social media.
Sines Jnr visited the shop on May 25 while police were there and before Mr White made a 999 call about the robbery at 3:15pm, he first called Mr Thornton, who was in the US, with Mr Riley.
Mr Thornton did not call police either, but rang Sines Jnr who he described as ‘another partner’ in the business, it was heard.
After Mr White later called 999, uniformed police officers arrived at the premises, followed by Sines Jnr, before DC Tom Waller, the Senior Investigating officer of the Met Police’s Flying Squad, arrived.
Mr Brown told the court: ‘PC Ross noted: ‘Oliver seemed more stressed at what his boss would say to him, as an associate, apparently called Fred, arrived on scene and berated him for seeing two clients on his own and having every watch on display, when the usual protocol is only to show the exact watches that have been asked for and nothing more.”
The jury was earlier told about a meeting the next day at the premises attended by Mr White, Mr Thornton, Mr Riley, and Mr Sines at just after 4pm.
It ended at around 5pm and about three hours later Mr White, who left separately from the other three, was found dead in a wood near Shepperton, West London, where he played as a boy, and was later found by a friend.
His suicide was as a direct result of the robbery, according to Mr Brown.
Mr White offered to compensate the owners with £14,000 he had been saving for a deposit on a flat with girlfriend, and he even attempted to transfer the money to them before his death.
Mr Brown said: ‘He was still very shaken up and did not want to speak even to his girlfriend, Alana Dredge, about the attack – they had been together for seven years and had been planning a life together.
‘But he insisted on going to the meeting with his friends – the two owners – and with another man (Sines) who was part of the business the next day.’
The jury was told that Mr White was ‘devastated’ when the men suggested that he did not put up enough of a fight during the robbery.
The court heard CCTV of the ‘intense’ meeting on May 26 is missing.
A statement from Mr White’s girlfriend, Alana Dredge, read to the court said: ‘Ollie did not want to talk to me.
‘He told me Fred told Olly he didn’t put up much of a fight and made it easy, alleging he had something to do with it and Connor agreed he might have had something to do with the robbery and Joe said he didn’t know what to think and couldn’t look ollie in the eyes.’
When police tried to obtain CCTV evidence of the meeting, it was discovered that the harddrive had been replaced with a new one and the recording of the meeting has never been found, the court heard.
Mr Bowers asked how the two men had started the business and recovered after an earlier uninsured burglary at an earlier premises in 2021 when about £250,000 of stock was taken in the safe.
Mr Riley said they used savings to set it up and other watch traders on a Whatsapp group had an extensive whip round after the burglary, but he was unable to name any of the firms who chipped in under cross examination.
Mr Bowers said the 2023 accounts for the 247 Kettles company filed at Companies House were ‘a work of fiction’ and included no details of the value of the watches.
He suggested the watches were ‘stolen’ at a convenient time so as to avoid paying tax on them.
He went on to ask why Mr Thornton had called Sines Jnr from the US and asked him to attend the premises rather than police.
‘I don’t know, I didn’t make that call. The police had already been called by Ollie prior to that,’ Mr Riley said.
Mr Bowers said: ‘So why call Fred? What has Fred got to do with it?’
‘He’s a good friend of Connor’s, who he trusted to deal with it,’ Mr Riley said.
Mr Bowers asked: ‘Or is it really that the entire enterprise is really funded by the Sines family?
‘This is just money laundering? It’s just a criminal enterprise from start to finish with Fred Sines and his father behind it isn’t it?’
Mr Riley denied all of this.
Mr Bowers also suggested that Sines Snr was behind the three £100,000 ‘bounties’ placed on the robbers, but Mr Riley insisted these were just rewards that he and Mr Thornton would have paid out of the value of the watches had they been found.
Mr Bowers also asked what happened in the meeting on May 26, why Fred Sines was there and why the CCTV was deleted.
Mr Riley said he didn’t know, and denied the watches were the property of Sines when this was suggested by Mr Bowers.
Mr Bowers said: ‘How frightened was Oliver White at that meeting?
‘Were threats made by you, Mr Thornton or Mr Sines?’
‘No, he was not frightened, just startled from the robbery,’ Mr Riley said.
Mr Bowers said: ‘You or Connor destroyed that footage because you knew it would reveal what happened in that meeting, so it had to be destroyed before the police got hold of it.
‘Are you responsible for what took place, for staging this robbery, together with Mr Sines, maybe so these accounts can be doctored?
‘Are you scared of Mr Sines, of Fred Jnr, of Fred Snr, are you scared of them?’
‘No,’ said Mr Riley.
In closing submissions on Tuesday, Mr Bowers suggested Mr White may not have been in on the ‘inside job’ created by those above him in 247 Kettles to make ‘it look real’.
He said: ‘I suggest his suicide was not the direct result of the robbery, but hopefully it has been demonstrated that there was a lot more going on (at 247 Kettles) than at first meets the eye.
‘The business 247 Kettles is rotten to the core. It can still be a set up even if Oliver White was not in on it because it can be set up by others. It might make more sense if he was not in on it for the purposes of a fraud because they would want it to look realistic… and so he would give a realistic account to police.’
He suggested Mr Riley had lied about the reason for having no insurance and how the business recovered financially after two raids.
He also suggested the accounts the firm filed after the robbery showing losses of £500,000 were fictitious and to defraud HMRC.
He said: ‘The watches go round in circles and are happily reunited with their papers and the false accounts are submitted without having to pay tax.’
He suggested Mr Thornton and Mr Riley were in the US at the time to ‘distance themselves from what was happening.’
He also suggested they purposely destroyed the CCTV of the meeting with Mr White on May 26 as they did not want anyone to see what happened.
