The Real Chloe Rogers

In the first three books of the Cornish Crime Thrillers series, readers meet the somewhat unpleasant character Chole Rogers, a civilian police analyst who works at several of the stations in the Western peninsula.

She’s a contemporary of Tamsyn’s, whom she knew at school and has never liked. The feeling is mutual. Tamsyn suspects that Chloe accessed her home address from a police computer and passed it onto a suspect under investigation, which led to the vandalism of Tamsyn’s private car.

The low-level bullying continues, until it reaches a climax in Dead Reckoning, and Chloe finds herself on the wrong side of the law.

The role of civilian investigators is an important one although they’re not widely known to the public. The London Met has over 200, and although Devon & Cornwall Police don’t publish the exact number they employ, the force does have a Criminal Investigation Division responsible for major crime investigations.

Thankfully, it’s rare to come across corruption, but I came across a fascinating true case: meet the real Chloe Rogers.

Natalie Mottram was a civilian analyst employed by Cheshire Constabulary but seconded to the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit.

NCA officers (the National Crime Agency that Vikram works for in DEAD WATER) had gained access to EncroChat, a Europe-based comms network and service provider that sold modified smartphones allowing encrypted communication to subscribers. Although marketed to celebrities who wanted extra security on smart devices, law enforcement agencies believed that the majority of users were criminals.

But cyber specialists working for French and Dutch police had cracked the encryptions. When Mottram learned about this, she passed on information about the breach to a friend whose partner was a known criminal – Jonathan Kay, 39. According to the NCA, Mottram told Kay about the covert operation and that police had intelligence on him.

After discovering a leak and beginning to suspect Mottram, investigators asked her to look over a fabricated intelligence log referring to Kay. After work that day, Mottram briefed both Kay and his partner, unaware that she was under surveillance by NCA officers.

Mottram, Kay and Kay’s girlfriend were arrested and £200,000 in cash was recovered from Kay’s house.

Mottram was just 25 years old at the time, and I can’t help thinking that she was groomed by Kay and his partner Leah Bennett
to provide exactly the kind of intel that earned her a prison sentence of 3 years and 9 months for misconduct in public office, perverting the course of justice and unauthorised access to computer material.

EncroChat closed the same year but not before law enforcement agencies gleaned intelligence that was subsequently used to arrest thousands of suspects across the continent.

To read more about Operation Venetic and EncroChat click here