A former Team GB boxer has escaped prison after helping mastermind a nationwide black market network of stolen telecommunications equipment that cost BT almost £400,000.
Former lightweight professional Antonio Counihan, 33, broke into Openreach vans to steal fiber optic installation kits after becoming a cable installer when his ring career foundered and he ran up gambling debts of £25,000.
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Counihan and an accomplice used high-visibility jackets and hard hats to pose as workers at secure BT exchange sites before climbing into vans and using cutting equipment to “remove” the roofs.
They also used their telecommunications expertise to identify the most expensive items inside before looting the vehicles.
The stolen equipment was then surrounded by a corrupt businessman who used his fiber optic business as a front to sell it.
Counihan, from Sollihull, near Birmingham, who won 66 of his 80 amateur fights before boxing for England more than 20 times, was jailed after police attributed 34 robberies to the gang, carried out across eight counties over a nine-month period , from May 2019 to January 2020.
All equipment worth £113,192 was stolen, while £149,561 worth of damage was caused to the vans.
BT estimated the racket cost £390,627, including lost business caused by the robberies.
In two cases, three Openreach vans were targeted in a single night.
At Warwick Crown Court, the father of a Counihan faced up to six years in prison under sentencing guidelines, but was given a 16-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months after a judge was told of a “painful” end. in his promising boxing career when he had been tested for brain cancer.
Details of the case emerged this week at the Court of Appeal, where three judges rejected the Attorney General’s appeals that the suspended sentence imposed on Counihan was “unduly lenient”.
Three other men who also had suspended sentences for their part in the extortion also had appeals against their terms rejected.
Counihan joined the Team GB boxing team in 2009 and became captain, but turned professional after narrowly missing out on a place at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
He was hired by boxing manager Kelly Maloney, then known as Frank, but his career began to decline after a ‘shadow’ was discovered in his brain.
He was unable to box competitively for three years and underwent a series of tests before doctors discovered the shadow was in fact a birthmark.
The theft began in 2019 after Counihan got a job as a cable installer at a fiber optic installation subcontracting company run by Michael George, 35, and which was used by BT for contract work.
O court I heard that the gang “had specialist knowledge of the operational workings of BT and the high demand on the black market for specialist fiber optic installation equipment”.
They would go target BT Openreach vans parked overnight and cut holes in roofs with metal cutters.
Initially a small hole would be cut in the roof to allow the contents of the van to be seen and if a high value fiber optic kit was seen inside a larger hole would be made by cutting and peeling a section of the roof.
The gang began their criminal enterprise in the West Midlands, but their activities spread to Warwickshire, West Mercia, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset and Essex.
In one attack, the gang stole a splicing machine worth £2,225, an optical time domain reflectometer worth £2,400, a red light generator worth £135, a light source worth £564 , a fiber cleaver worth £225; hand tools worth £450; and a label maker worth £23.
A fiber blowing head worth £1,480 was damaged in the operation.
Counihan received £2,100 in his bank account just a day after one of the raids and went on a spending spree buying designer clothes.
Police began investigating after an off-duty BT employee took a photo of him driving the gang’s getaway vehicle.
They examined text messages he exchanged with an accomplice discussing “doing a peeling”, i.e. going robbing, wearing high-visibility jackets and helmets so they could “blend in” during one of the raids.
They also discussed the need for “new clippings” after the metal cutters they used were discarded during a previous operation.
There were also messages where items were requested and custom-made robbery plans.
Counihan sent messages to an associate asking if he wanted a splicer and discussing fiber optic equipment that was available for purchase.
He then sent screenshots claiming he was “putting out feelers.”
When he was arrested in June 2020, Couniham initially denied any wrongdoing.
He later said he participated as a driver and lookout during some of the raids and was only involved in selling stolen goods in one of them.
He accepted that he received “a few hundred pounds on average”.
Counihan later wrote a letter to the court describing how he became part of the Great Britain squad as a boxer, supported by lottery funding, and went into schools to inspire other children to take up boxing.
He decided to turn pro after narrowly missing the 2012 Olympics and won his first 8 fights as a pro before the shadow was identified in his brain.
He said he can no longer continue boxing and that his life has “become a complete mess”.
He said he was in a “bad position” when he joined the gang.
Sentencing judge Anthony Potter said the racket was a “brutal and highly effective national conspiracy” but cited two-and-a-half year delays in the case that allowed Counihan to “turn his life around”.
The judge admitted that at the time of the disturbance, Counihan was “processing the loss of a career that you followed for most of your childhood and into adulthood,” but said he had since undergone a “significant change” after have a child. .
George, from Birmingham, was sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years, and was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
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