Asylum seeker who stole £220k in whopping 31 armed robberies is jailed for 16 years
Illegal immigrant had been arrested and let off TWICE before being charged with just 8 of the 31 armed robberies he committed
AN illegal immigrant stole £220,000 in 31 armed robberies after authorities missed three opportunities to deport him.
Armenian Hayek Madoyan, 43, arrived in the UK in 2001 seeking asylum because he claimed the KGB were hunting him.
The former special forces soldier was given an identity card to allow him to work here while the Home Office assessed his application.
Shortly after he was arrested for shoplifting in London but rather than being kicked out of the country he was given a police caution and allowed to remain.
His application for asylum was rejected in 2003 but he dodged immigration officers when they went looking for him and fled to Scotland.
He was arrested a second time, again for shoplifting in London, in 2004 but instead of being detained and then deported he was given another caution and allowed on his way.
Unable to work, he began staging armed robberies at travel agents across England and Wales.
Madoyan - a Karate black belt who was a former Armenian national team coach - used his military training to stage brazen daylight raids.
He finally fled to Switzerland on a fake passport in 2008 after Crimewatch broadcast his picture as part of an appeal.
Police there arrested him on other matters and he was extradited back to the UK last year.
He has now been jailed for 16 years after a four-week trial at Hull crown court during which he claimed he was once approached by MI5 and asked to become a spy.
He reckoned an agent called George asked him to spy on Russians in London and when he refused they arranged for his asylum application to be rejected, triggering his life of crime.
He lived in bedsits in Edinburgh and Inverness, rented in false names and travelled hundreds of miles to stage the raids across England and Wales before heading back north of the border with bagfuls of cash.
The jury heard that he terrified a series of female travel agents when he threatened them with a gun and demanded money.
In June 2006, he told a cashier at Co-Operative Travel, in Worcester: "Be quiet.
"I have a gun.
"It is loaded.”
He fled with £14,848.
A few weeks later he handed a note to a cashier at Going Places, Cardiff, which read: "This is armed robbery.
"Hand over all the cash.”
The brave woman refused and he left empty-handed but minutes later he went into a nearby Thomson travel agents and escaped with £5,378 after producing a handgun and announcing: “This is a raid."
He also robbed premises in a string of other towns including Darlington, Scunthorpe and Weymouth.
He never wore a disguise and staff were able to give excellent descriptions to police with many noting his "wandering right eye" - he had a false one after losing his eye while fighting in Armenia.
Crimewatch made two appeals in 2008 forcing him to flee to Switzerland where he lived for more than six years on the proceeds of his crimes before being extradited on an international arrest warrant.
Police said he was responsible for 31 armed robberies although only eight were put before the jury.
He denied all the charges but was convicted of five robberies, three attempted robberies and eight charges of possessing a firearm between May 2006 and December 2007.
The court heard that two of the women he threatened in the raids were pregnant and many have suffered mental trauma, with one being unable to return to work.
Jeremy Lindsay, for Madoyan, said: “One can appreciate the nature of the experience for the women in this case."
Judge David Tremberg told Madoyan: "I am satisfied you were confident you could stay under the radar and against that background began a series of armed robberies.
"There has been evidence you had military experience and you used that to plan your offending in a cool, calm and calculated way.
"You targeted bureaux de change in small travel agencies where you expected to find relatively rich pickings and the level of security was much less than banks and building societies.
“I have no doubt you left a lasting emotional impact on your victims.
"You risked causing serious emotional harm and have done so.
“You have tried to fight the overwhelming case against you with the same audacity you showed in your crimes.
"Your defence was more in keeping with crime fiction than the hard reality that you had been set up by the British security services."
Detective Sergeant Gary Peck, of Humberside Police Major Incident team, said after the case: "The UK and the countries abroad are a safer place after his arrest.
"Justice has been a long time coming for Mr Madoyan who targeted females in Bureaux de Change across the country.
"You never forget an event if you have been held up by a man with a gun.
"This trial has forced the women to re-live those robberies."