Inside elite unit hunting most wanted fugitives
Rawal Rehman holed up in a cafe in Manchester just hours after his heroin-fueled killing killed a three-year-old teen and set fire to the country. When police stormed the building and chased the 37-year-old into a storeroom, he was scrolling through his phone in a makeshift bedroom upstairs. The man had been hunted by a specialized fugitive team, the Force Critical Wanted Unit (FCWU), which was established by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in the aftermath of the hunt for serial murderer Dale Cregan in 2012. Although the team is unable to go into too much detail about their procedures, they do follow the rule that "every contact leaves a trace.
Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson said this year that the FCWU is the most feared; most agile; and most evasive of criminals.
Since January 2024, Det Insp James Coles has been the unit's manager. He was one of the first detectives on the scene when Cregan shot and killed two fellow GMP officers, PCs Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone, while also on the run for two gang-related murders back in 2012. It was in the aftermath of the FCWU's tragic case that the idea for the FCWI was born.
Det Insp Coles said.It was clear that there was no formally trained fugitive hunting team within Greater Manchester,
A lot of service agencies will stand up a fugitive hunt as and when they want to, but a lot of research goes into finding people.They were aware that they needed some sort of formal system to describe how we cope with that.
The FCWU, which Det Insp Coles took over in 2024, has voted for themselves, according to GMP. The unit made 112 arrests last year, up from 96 in 2023, but in 2025, the unit has already made around 119 arrests and identified 91 targets. Many of the FCWU's targets involve criminals who have been known to have access to firearms, posing a significant threat. Ethan Glasgow-Lattibeaudiere, whose name landed on the FCWU's desk after chasing down a taxi on an e-bike and shooting one of its passengers in the middle of a residential street in Oldham one lunchtime in January, was one of several examples. The 23-year-old, who also tried to shoot a second man but failed, fled the scene and continued on the run. However, armed officers tracked him down to an apartment in Hulme within 24 hours and arrested him within 24hrs. He was later jailed for 16 years.
Although there was no suggestion that he was a firearms danger, the fight was on to bring him to justice before he fled overseas. The convicted drug dealer had spent all night snorting cocaine in local massage parlours before getting behind the wheel of a van that sped over Louisa Palmasano's city centre on Saturday 22 February. He grabbed his phone and hurled away after finding the little girl trapped under the van's wheels in front of her parents.
Det Insp Coles said.I was with my family at a National Trust property on Saturday, and I saw it on the news and saw a suspect outstanding,
Det Insp Coles said that thanks to his colleagues' tireless efforts over the weekend, the net had come to a close in on Rehman by Monday morning. The hunt involved digital investigation methods and undercover policing.I was hoping this was going to be resolved, but it is not.
he said.I don't want to go into too much detail about how we find people and our methods,
However, we live our lives, we buy things we use on our phones, we go to places we can't usually go to but may be reassured to go to," says GMP Lancashire's this one.We use a number of lines of inquiry, and it was the individual who wanted to live a general lifestyle by adopting their kind of normal means.
'Life on the run is horrendous'
The property was under surveillance by undercover officers, but Rehman was not found. Det Insp Coles said it came to a point where he had to make a decision and ordered his cops to move in.
he said.I think we struck at the right time, with the facts and intelligence that suggested he was attempting to leave the country, and if an individual does that, it's really difficult to find them,
the narrator said, but he seemed resigned to some degree.I don't know if or not he knew we were coming for him,
Due to the job's nature, decisions must be made quickly under intense pressure. However, Det Insp Coles wrote:Life on the run is horrendous because you've got to think about everything you touched from your previous life, which we're going to use and exploit.
Quite often in policing, it's stressful because there's an excessive amount of demand and you don't know where to place your money at any given moment.It's actually the least traumatic place I've worked in some ways.
But in our work, we have one target and one goal, and it's a great place to work because we can put all our energies into one thing, which allows us to concentrate our minds and focus our attention and focus on our resources. "Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester onBBC Soundsand. Com is a cable television network.You have regular work, you have shifts in crime, and there is a lot of pressure on you that you may not be able to cope with.
