What Caused Him to Be a Crime Fighter

John Jay Wiley (0:00): He's a former law enforcement officer in England. He left the department at the rank of police detective. He was involved in investigating organized crime, terrorism. He's involved in the three one one TSA travel rule. He'll explain that.

John Jay Wiley (0:16): Growing up in England, policing, violence, and much more. Welcome to the law enforcement talk radio show. In the law enforcement talk radio show, we are joined by special guest talking about their experiences, their realities of investigating crimes, plus those who've experienced horrendous trauma, police, first responders, military, and victims of crime share their stories. Hi. I'm John Jay Wiley.

John Jay Wiley (0:41): In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website, letradio.com, and also like us on Facebook. Search for the law enforcement talk radio show. And if you're on the clubhouse drop in audio chat app, be sure to look for me and follow me. My name's John, the letter J, Wiley, w I l e y.

John Jay Wiley (1:06): You can also search for at LET radio show. That's John J Wiley, w I l e y, at LET radio show on the clubhouse drop in audio chat app. Calling us from the great state of Minnesota, we have Simon Ozzamo on the phone. Simon, well, we're all familiar with the term bicoastal. Meaning, someone spends significant amount of time on the East Coast United States and a significant amount of time on the West Coast United States.

John Jay Wiley (1:35): Simon is kind of by Atlantic or by Pondle. Is that a right phrase? I don't know. He was born and raised in United Kingdom. He's a former English police detective living in Minnesota.

John Jay Wiley (1:46): Simon, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciated.

Simon Ozzamo (1:49): Well, thanks, John, for the invitation. I'm really excited to talk to you and, hopefully share some wisdom and and let people know a bit of it more about my life and my experiences in the in The UK police.

John Jay Wiley (2:00): One of the things is Americans are and I don't know why. I'm a just put it out there. Americans are fascinated with their British accent. And I know I've had friends that he was in the the British Air Force for lack of better terms, stationed in Southern Maryland, and she's from a different part of England. And the kids are born in different parts, and they all had different accents.

John Jay Wiley (2:21): And when you put them together, you could understand and see the differences. Where in The United Kingdom were you born and raised?

Simon Ozzamo (2:29): Yes. So I'm from a town called Reading, which is around sort of forty, fifty miles west Of London. So for some people listening, it might sound sort of very London sort of s, but it's actually just sort of West Of Of London. But, John, you raised an interesting point because for your podcast, people actually won't know from my accent, but I'm actually, my dad is black Nigerian. My mom is white English.

Simon Ozzamo (2:52): So I'm actually, mixed race, and I've been stopped by the police before. And when I start talking, it confuses them very greatly to see this black guy with an English accent talking. So we often have a laugh and a joke at the side of road about that. It's quite it's quite funny to see when I talk how it can counter people off guard. They're not experiencing it.

John Jay Wiley (3:12): It's one of the things I love about doing this show across The United States and a successful podcast. But one of the reasons we launched this show is to break the the Hollywood stereotypes about what police are like. And granted, Simon, you're from a different country, but you were a police officer, and there's many similarities or some differences, but you break all those stereotypes, which I applaud and I love.

Simon Ozzamo (3:35): Yeah. And one of the things, John, it's interesting you say that because what I always say to to people is that, you know, the police departments or police force that we call in England, they should be of the communities. Shouldn't people should be surprised to find, you know, black people or Asians or any ethnicity, because you've got to reflect the community that you serve. So it does fascinate me when people don't expect to see certain profiles, we've got to reflect those communities. But yeah, I grew up in a very humble background.

Simon Ozzamo (4:08): It's important for my story that people know that my parents separated before I was born, so I've never met my father. That meant that I lived in a council house. In American terms, that means sort of social housing. You know, it wasn't sort of, what didn't grow up in poverty, but lived in sort of very poor and humble, backgrounds. And there was key times in my life, John, where, you know, perhaps I could have gone in the opposite direction, and people from my school age might be saying, hey, Simon.

Simon Ozzamo (4:35): I'm surprised to hear that you spent fourteen years in the police force. I thought you'd end up in prison yourself. You know? So that that's part of my sort of journey journey as well. So, yeah, we're we're we're all different people, all different backgrounds, you know, serving the serving the community at heart.

John Jay Wiley (4:50): So many people in police work that I've met came to a point in their life where they're like, which side of this fence are the law do you wanna be on? The good side, the bad side, or whatever terms you wanna use. Did you have a point in your life where you decided, look, this is the direction I wanna take my life in. I don't wanna be a part of the street life. I don't wanna be a part of crime.

Simon Ozzamo (5:10): Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, if you take, you know, the area that I grew up in, like I said, I mean, I grew up on a council in a state, which is sort of social housing. So by nature and demographic, most people on there were poor or living on some type of government assistance. And, you know, I look at my time in the police force, and I should say, you're listening, I spent some of my time in uniform, police in the town where I grew up.

Simon Ozzamo (5:37): And I think I'm mostly arrested between five and ten people that were sort of my age, that I've sort of gone to school with. And I do look at that and say, well, why why why didn't I go in that direction? I've got to be the very understanding and loving son to say that how my mom raised me was was crucial to that at times when I could have been going on the wrong path. And I was talked about hard. I was talked about sort of hard work perseverance, you know, determination, having respect for for for property.

Simon Ozzamo (6:10): So all those things made me always stay in a straight line. But I've come to understand in my life, John, like a lot of us do, that not everyone has that stable environment. I always craved a father figure, but I don't think you necessarily need two parents in your life, but you do need someone that places faith in you. So I think that's that that is a key reason why I didn't drift into the wrong circles like like some people do is I had a very, very loving mother who was always very supportive of everything I wanted to do. And I know now, age 42, not everyone has that luxury.

John Jay Wiley (6:47): Not everyone does. And I I've met people that came from very similar backgrounds that never got in trouble, that were and are very accomplished in life, that are very successful. And I met people who were very successful and came from what's considered a privileged background, very wealthy families that are hardcore criminals. And sometimes it's got a lot to do with it, and sometimes it doesn't. And I'll be honest with you, Simon, I don't know the rhyme or reason behind it anymore.

Simon Ozzamo (7:15): Yeah. No. Well, and I'll tell you an interesting story time. You know, what I learned, John, was the criminal mind fascinates me, and I became a detective at 23, which, again, on US terms, is my probably very young. But what I was used to say to people, if you're good enough, you're old enough.

Simon Ozzamo (7:34): You know, if anyone would would challenge my age inside the police, you know, I'll just never look at my track record for Darwin Crime. But I can remember a a a pedophile ring was sort of, caught on the West Coast Of LA, and they had all these credit card details from across the world, and they gave us these credit card details in The UK of all these men that accessed this this pedophile site. And basically, we went around their houses and, seized their computers. If we found anything on their computers, then we'd then go back and talk to them because all we knew was their credit card had been used on this child pornography site. And there was one guy, I'll name him because he was convicted, a guy called Graham Jerome.

Simon Ozzamo (8:13): And we went around there and I said, are we going to find anything on your computer? And he said, well, you tell me what you found, and I'll tell you what I'm gonna say. So I was like, okay, John, listen. If he wants to he wants to be that type of person, we can do that. And it took three or four months to do an analysis of his computer, and it was something ridiculous, John, like 15,000 indecent images of children cataloged, folded all on his hard drive.

Simon Ozzamo (8:38): And I went back to him and said, it doesn't really matter what you say. You're going to prison. And this guy said to me, John, he looked me in the eye and said, 'Someone has downloaded all these images of children.' He said, do you find men or women attractive?' I said, I find women attractive.' He said, 'So you can do whatever you want to me, but why do you think you can change my sexuality and my preference Because I like you know, and he went on to tell me what he what he likes. I won't trouble your listeners with with having that burden. But in that moment, John, it really fascinated me because I thought, okay.

Simon Ozzamo (9:14): This is the conversation. You know, he was saying to me, you know, as much as you can't, change your sexuality to find men attractive, why do you think incarceration is going to change me?

Unknown Speaker (9:25): And on that note, we're gonna take a short break. We're talking with Simon Osimo on the law enforcement show, a former police detective for United Kingdom. He's an author. He's a podcaster, and he's also heavily involved in a case that impacts travel for terrorism reasons. Don't go anywhere.

John Jay Wiley (9:42): We'll be right there. Of all the radio stations in The United States, there are no other shows like the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. And on Facebook, there's only one official page. Do a search on Facebook for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and be sure to like the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show Facebook page. Returning conversation with Simon Osimow on the law enforcement show.

John Jay Wiley (10:11): Simon is a former police detective from England. He's also a podcaster and author and and breaking all kinds of stereotypes from Hollywood about law enforcement. Before we break Simon, we're talking about understanding the criminal mind, and we're talking about sexual preference and look. I I had to deal with rapists and sex offenders and child sex predators, and that's a part of the job that, I'll be honest with you, doesn't really quite go away. And it didn't matter if the victim was 80 years old or eight months old.

John Jay Wiley (10:47): The younger ones were really hard, and the older ones, they were all difficult, to be honest with you. But I never understood those cats.

Simon Ozzamo (10:54): Yeah. And and I'll tell you, you know, about understanding the criminal mind, John. And on one thing that my time as a detective talking to so many sophisticated criminals is that, you know, that line is very thin between which way that they can walk. And it's actually a guy that I incarcerated around fifteen years ago who was a white collar criminal, very well known in in England, now in his forties. It's been over sort of twenty years incarcerated.

Simon Ozzamo (11:24): But even when I used to investigate him time and time again, I could see something in him, John, thinking, you know, he's very entrepreneurial. I used to think if only he could harness that sort of spirit and that sort of, you know, entrepreneurial spirit for the good, he could achieve so much in in his life. And, really, some people find his story amazing. I'll have a say that it is a Hollywood movie. But when I immigrated to America, you know, ten years ago, around five years ago, this guy was out of prison, started to turn his life around.

Simon Ozzamo (11:56): There was a news article on him, and I actually rang him up, John, and said, hey. I'm the person that put you in prison for a while. Me and him held a very, good and deep conversation. You know? And I've sort of remained what I now consider a friend in his life because he has turned his life around.

Simon Ozzamo (12:14): He's taken what used to be a criminal mind and now has become an entrepreneur, and he's incredibly successful, John. Must be more successful what what I will ever do, and he's doing well with it. So it is it is interesting on that criminal mind as to how it can really change and develop with age and just sort of where where people are. Some life is about perspective, isn't it? It's fascinating.

John Jay Wiley (12:36): It is. And when we look at what the news media and social media and Hollywood puts out, they they they portray this image that every encounter of the police, especially when there's an arrest made, it's always hostile. It's always aggressive, and the people are almost pugilistic with each other and and enemies. And that's not the case. I had many people that got sober and they got clean, and they would come up to you and say, you know, you helped save my life by locking me up.

John Jay Wiley (13:03): And I remember clearly having a conversation with drug dealers, armed drug dealers saying, dude, you're out here every day of the year, twelve, fourteen hours a day. It doesn't matter if it's snowing, raining, windy, cold. Doesn't matter. You're out here. You're trying to dodge the police.

John Jay Wiley (13:17): You're trying to dodge people ripping you off. You're trying to dodge other dealers trying to steal from you. And if you put that kind of energy into something legitimate, you'd be a wealthy, wealthy man.

Simon Ozzamo (13:28): Yeah. And a lot of people mean, a lot of them. I mean, you mentioned yourself. You know, there are some very sophisticated criminals. So I've come across a few that had everything in life, and then they've been given opportunities, they've had wealth in their family.

Simon Ozzamo (13:40): But the the basis of most of the people that I met, there are people that have had no trust in their life. They've had no direction. They've had no role role models. And believe it or not, you know, I mean, I lost count one time as to how many years I'd incarcerated people for. I think it was hundreds of years.

Simon Ozzamo (13:56): I lost Council. We used to work in organized crime, so we used to dish out big sentences. But I'm not too sure that incarceration is the full way because when they get incarcerated, what rehabilitation is there for them? A lot of these people need social skills. They need to know how to hold down a job.

Simon Ozzamo (14:13): They need to know how to interact in society. So so there's many components of it, but I'm not truly convinced that solely incarceration is the way way forward because of the upbringing that a lot of these criminals have had. But they they need guidance in life with some some people who, just for whatever personal circumstances don't have. Fascinating.

Unknown Speaker (14:37): Yeah. I'm I don't know the answer to that either. And I I'll be honest with you. I swing like a pendulum on it sometimes. And Yeah.

John Jay Wiley (14:43): And a lot of it has to do with the individual. There are so many people in prison in The United States that I encountered that were there. If it wasn't for drugs and alcohol, they'd never would have done the things they did and wound up being incarcerated. Now granted, they're responsible for what they've done, so they had to pay a price. The other ones are people that had ten bad minutes of their life where they made a bad decision, and they wound up paying the price by spending a similar amount of time in prison.

John Jay Wiley (15:06): And then you have the hardcore career criminals. The hardcore career criminals, I think a lot of them are beyond rehabilitation. At least by techniques, I would know. The other two, man, it's a different situation. And many of them come out and lead great lives afterwards and are happy, healthy, productive members of the society.

John Jay Wiley (15:26): And I I welcome them with open arms. I really don't know what the answer is, but I know part of the problem is, you know, economic. But I grew up poor. You said earlier, you grew up poor. I grew up in a a military family, and everybody's a military family.

John Jay Wiley (15:39): And back then, we made they made next to nothing. And we all had hand me downs. We grew into our clothes. We bought clothes too big. We bought sneakers that were too big and put newspaper in their toes to grow into them.

John Jay Wiley (15:52): And I got a job so I could save enough money to buy a pair of Levi's jeans because we couldn't afford them and Converse sneakers, and that was my motivation time. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna work every day of the summer so I can have one pair of jeans and one pair of sneakers.

Simon Ozzamo (16:07): Yeah. You know, and it's very true because I would say that, you know, if you look at my personal life growing up, you know, I sort of mentioned that, you know, I had a an absent father I've never met, you know, lived in social housing, you know, sort of my mom didn't work, so there was only sort of government assistance coming in. You had free school school meals. You know, life would mostly look at me and say, well, but some, you know, some of the victim here of society or circumstances, but I mean, one of the things that I see about myself is, I've never seen myself as a victim. What I say to myself is, well, how do I change this?

Simon Ozzamo (16:40): And I I changed through I changed my circumstances through hard work, determination, and finding a a strong career where I could find purpose in. So, yeah, it is interesting.

John Jay Wiley (16:51): So those are definite choices you made back then, and I would suspect you have to make those choices on a daily basis. It may not be right in front of you saying, oh, I gotta do this. But somewhere along the lines, you have to decide, look, There's no easier softer way. If I want certain things in life, I gotta get busy, and I gotta work for him.

Simon Ozzamo (17:09): Yeah. Absolutely. And even within my police career, I mean, there were, there are not many times when, you know, if I if I want if I wanted a job within the police, John, you know, generally, I would go for that job and I would get it. If I wanted to become a sergeant when I left the police, I was a detective sergeant. You know, I would work for it and and get it.

Simon Ozzamo (17:29): And it might sort of see results. But what I would say where I became very successful is is that consistency of studying, working hard, building those blocks. And someone might just say, well, any job Simon goes for, he wants to go the property. He gets it. He wants to go on organized crime.

Simon Ozzamo (17:47): He gets it. But behind the scenes was the hard work, the consistency to to get there. And those were, for sure, learned behaviors because at school, know, I left school with my high school diploma. I'm not very clever, John. I'll I'll be the first to admit that, but I can work very hard.

Unknown Speaker (18:04): No no one will work harder than me is one one of my sayings in life, for sure.

John Jay Wiley (18:09): Look. I I was not a great student. I begged for one point to pass algebra and geometry because I got a 69 all the time and had to get that extra point, but I will outwork just about everybody else. We're talking with Simon Osimo. He's Simon is a former police detective from England.

John Jay Wiley (18:26): He's also a podcaster and author. He lectures and trains law enforcement in United States. When we return, we're gonna talk about organized crime investigation in The United Kingdom and more. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back.

Speaker 2 (18:41): Someone asked, what's the catch? What's the cost? There is no cost for anything on the law enforcement talk radio show and podcast website. Letradio.com? Letradio.com.

Speaker 2 (18:53): Again, that's LET radio dot com.

John Jay Wiley (19:01): Back to our conversation with Simon Osimo on the law enforcement. Simon is calling us from Minnesota. He's originally born and raised in The United Kingdom in England. He is a former police detective. Was it from Reading Penn Reading, Pennsylvania.

John Jay Wiley (19:15): Reading, England. Correct?

Unknown Speaker (19:18): Alright. That's correct, John.

John Jay Wiley (19:19): See, my my background in the Mid Atlantic is popping up because Reading, Pennsylvania was where you went to the outlet stores to go shopping and buy bags and bags of socks and underwear and all that stuff. So totally different environment. But you immigrated to The United States. You did about fourteen years in law enforcement. And before winter break, you were talking about if you wanted something in your law enforcement career, you're very driven.

John Jay Wiley (19:40): And if you wanted to get in a robbery squad, you you you work to get it done. And part of your career was involved in organized crime and terrorism. And I know that's something that affects a lot of people. Terrorism is something that's international. The organized crime portion of it, we tend to think of American organized crime, and we don't think of the organized crime aspects in The United Kingdom.

Unknown Speaker (20:04): Brief overview. What was that like to get into that form of policing? How was how difficult was it for you?

Simon Ozzamo (20:11): Yeah. That is so it's very, difficult. So in my police department, so our police force, we call it England, was Thames Valley Police, and there's around 4,000 sworn officers and maybe two or 3,000 support staff. So it gives you an idea very large. I believe, John, in England, population of 65,000,000, there's only around 50 different recognized police departments.

Simon Ozzamo (20:35): We govern that entire country populations. A lot larger, you're a lot more powerful, you have a lot more control, and a lot more more influence. And so there was around 40 detectives in organized crime out of a department of, you know, sort of 4,000 sworn officers. So so to get into the team, you have to be very good. And to stay there, you have to be very good because there was always someone wanting to take your place, which means that you attract people that are highly motivated, highly dedicated.

Simon Ozzamo (21:07): And also when that phone call comes in at 02:00 in morning to say we're on for surveillance, you're gonna get those people that sort of jump out of jump out of bed. Now I was I was that guy and I was like everyone. You know, you see these cop shows, you're fascinated by it. And I always love to see, John, what happens when someone close their close their door. And I believe another sort of skill that I have, you need in organized crime, is you need patience.

Simon Ozzamo (21:33): I believe it's why the the Chinese and Russians are very good at sort of infiltrations because they have they have patience. But different to The US, we, in England, our chief of police can authorize and can sanction many different covert police tactics because in England, we don't have federal law enforcement. We just have you we just have law enforcement. So within my team of 40 detectives, we would do phone tap investigations. We would do what we call covert entries.

Simon Ozzamo (22:04): It's a police term, really. You're breaking into people's houses and planting nesting devices. We would do surveillance following people around. We would monitor people's personal finances through sort of the the financial institutions. And most of that, John, can be authorized by the chief police which is very different culture than here in The US.

Simon Ozzamo (22:27): The British system is based on it's difficult to catch these organized criminals as it is. If you're following Simon Osimov and you have an opportunity to break into his house and find a list the device, we're not gonna slow you down to have these 16 different levels of authorities. The chief of police can give you a a verbal authority, and then you go in and do it. And then retrospectively, you can get the written authority. So how organized crime is investigate here between the two countries is is very different.

Simon Ozzamo (22:56): I say that to some law enforcement. They say, oh, I'd love to be a detective in England. And I said to some people, and they're shocked how easy it is to get these authorities. But, you know, we're talking about those that are bringing in drugs, terrorism, you know, those real bad things in society. But you do want the police to be able to investigate and tackle very quickly.

Simon Ozzamo (23:20): And if there's too many authorities, it slows down the investigations because like I said, the Chinese and Russians are very good at this because they have patience. And for us to investigate and actually, sort of, arrest these people, we also need patience to do them because you might even get one opportunity once in twelve months where Simon's gonna ring up someone and say, have you got the the 2,000,000? Because I've got the the sort of 60 kilos of cocaine. Let's let's get our people talking to each other. So very different culture, John, is what I'm really telling you there.

John Jay Wiley (23:52): When we talk about organized crime over there, what are some of the the kind of organized crime groups that that plagued a part of England you policed in?

Simon Ozzamo (24:02): Well, you get different sort of ethnicity ethnicities, if I can say, that that do it. I mean, predominantly, everything, you know, funds through, money laundering. You know mean? That that is the but behind organized crime, it's easy to say, but, you know, money laundering has to be behind it because there's legitimate businesses because they've got to clean their their money to then sort of integrate it back into the finance institutions. So you have various different ways and business types of them, but they'll do that.

Simon Ozzamo (24:31): But when I was leaving sort of towards the end of 2000 and 2011 when I come over, a lot of Eastern European crime was coming into The UK, and that was getting a lot more violent with, knife crimes, with sort of weapons and with sort of firearms. So firearms as as a sort of a a generalization are outlawed in The United Kingdom, and it tend generally tends to be the organized criminals and the sort of criminals who use the firearms or the high level criminals that use firearms generally for their own enforcement. As a police officer, very rarely did I see a firearm used. It does happen.

Unknown Speaker (25:09): So we encounter them quite often.

Unknown Speaker (25:11): And Yeah. But

Unknown Speaker (25:12): You guys well, we have a conception here in United States that all British police are unarmed. That's not accurate, is it?

Simon Ozzamo (25:20): Correct. That is accurate. So we just have roving, sort of roaming police cars that have firearms, and when they can be called. Just every town, every police department would have a roaming armored vehicle that has, you know, AR firearms on board. But you have to remember, John, as a starting point, firearms, far a few shotguns and hunting rifles are predominantly outlawed in The United Kingdom.

Simon Ozzamo (25:48): So there is the basis that most people you come across won't have those firearms. And if you see them in organized crime, and I did come across a few few guns, a lot of those are generally tending for enforcement of their drug transactions, not necessarily geared towards the police. But it does. I don't wanna say it doesn't happen. It does happen that police become the victims of those firearms.

Simon Ozzamo (26:12): But as a whole, they're used for enforcement because, you know, firearms are outlawed. So we don't tend to see too many people with guns and nor do they expect the the police to be carrying.

John Jay Wiley (26:22): One of the things that I tell people all the time, and this is a bona contention I have with the American media. They they have thrown this term out there, gun violence, gun violence, and gun violence. And what I would say is violence is violence. You may not have come from an environment where there's a lot of gun violence because of legislation, but you came from an environment where you had a tremendous amount of knife and sharp edged weapons violence. Correct?

Simon Ozzamo (26:46): Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean, you spoke about this one time, John, offline surrounding. The easiest thing to really say is that people are no matter where you are. And I think I've visited maybe 30 countries now My life is like that.

Simon Ozzamo (26:59): And, you know, people are people. So, brokenness is brokenness. If you replace incident of mass violence here in The US, you can hopefully change that in England to mass violence with with a with a knife. You know, someone was gonna take out their firearm, more likely they're gonna slash with a knife or or some other weapons. So the the outcome is the same as someone is injured, just the style of weapon is different.

Simon Ozzamo (27:24): So, yeah, I wouldn't having lived in The US now for ten years and thirty three years in The UK, there isn't really a difference in the criminal mind. Just the outcome of their weapon of choice changes. It's really crucial for the American audience to to know that crime is just crime.

John Jay Wiley (27:41): We used to have a saying that you could do your best with police to try to eliminate the opportunity to commit a crime by being as omnipresent as possible. You couldn't take away absolute access to the tools to commit the crime, and certainly, you couldn't take away their motivation to commit the crime. When we return to the law enforcement show, our interview with Simon Osimo, former police detective from England, also a podcaster and author, we're gonna talk about investigating terrorism, international terrorism, and ties to travel, a case that he was involved in. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

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John Jay Wiley (28:51): Back to our conversation with Simon Osimo on a law enforcement show with a fascinating character. Simon is a former law enforcement officer, police detective from the Reading, England area, living in Minnesota. He's also a podcaster and author. We'll talk about his book, his podcast a little bit. One of the things you're involved in and by way, the thank you for your service.

John Jay Wiley (29:12): I forgot to say that earlier. I'm really working on getting better at saying to everyone, and for some reason, I just blanked out when it involves England, but it's very much appreciated what you did over there because one of the cases you're involved in has ramifications for people travel. The the three one one rule, what is that about? I know what it is. Explain it from your point of view perspective.

Simon Ozzamo (29:35): Thanks, John. Yeah. In August 2006, there were some British born Muslim extremists, which basically had they've taken the idea a step further, but rather than try to get on actually, it's quite a a genius plan when you really think about it. Rather than actually take a bomb onto the plane, they're actually going to make the bomb when on the plane. So it's tied to, as you mentioned, the TSA three one one rule.

Simon Ozzamo (30:02): And the British security services, very similar to ensure sort of CIA here, John, in the in The US, They are intelligence services. They're not sort of apprehension prosecution. So after nineeleven, like a lot of people, every country created these sort of terrorism laws. When the plot became known to the security services, it was one of the sort of first times they said, we're going to actually apprehend these individuals in the act, and then we're going to prosecute them using this new legislation rather than just preventing this before it even gets there. So there was a lot of there was a lot of risk for those at the senior level for sure because this hadn't really been, been done before.

Simon Ozzamo (30:47): But that was the basis of the plot that some British bombers and the streamers were actually gonna get onto a plane and make the the bomb use liquids they were gonna take and take on their hidden within their within their luggage and hand luggage, hence, no longer being able to take liquids onto a onto a plane.

Unknown Speaker (31:04): So they were actually followed onto a plane, and they tried to start this act, and they were intercepted before they can complete it, obviously.

Unknown Speaker (31:11): No. Yeah. They weren't followed onto planes to read the the sort of plot was fooled before then, I should say. But that was that was the basic as to what they were intended to do. Yes.

Unknown Speaker (31:20): So we the performance before before then.

Unknown Speaker (31:22): That's really scary.

Unknown Speaker (31:24): Very close.

Unknown Speaker (31:25): Yeah. Because, look, there's always a rule of thumb that we had in law enforcement. I imagine the same with with you guys over there is when I say guys, I mean men and women. If we allow them to go a step further, can they commit a crime and harm or kill people? So it's always it's always questionable.

John Jay Wiley (31:42): It's always fear driven. We've gotta we gotta catch them, but we gotta better make the case. So that must have been an overriding factor for you guys.

Simon Ozzamo (31:50): Absolutely. And and, you know, I'm not gonna betray that I was at that level involved in any of those decisions, but I do understand from doing a lot of reading and research afterwards that actually America because the planes were destined to come to America. That's where these, guys wanted to go. But America was saying, well, let us, you know, get let us know who they are, and we'll basically, you know, take it from here. But the British, security services and law enforcement were really no.

Simon Ozzamo (32:16): We want to use this this legislation and to apprehend these individuals. So it was fascinating to to work on, and there was one individual in particular. I can remember at a time when we were doing surveillance on someone. I can remember looking around John and sort of the observation and the sort of plot was in my mind. I was thinking this person here that we're following intends to kill, you know, two or 3,000 people.

Simon Ozzamo (32:43): I can remember stopping, pausing, and thinking about that, but someone that appears so normal and someone who is blended into suburbia has this mindset and has this intent. So there was numerous different facets and things that I learned during that investigation, but it was also very key to me that I had to look in the eyes almost of someone that intends to cause so much harm and haven't appeared so normal to me. It was, it was quite a unique time and moment in my life, John.

John Jay Wiley (33:15): Yeah. I've never understood them. I don't understand the thought processes. Look. I can and it helps when you're trying to catch someone, whether you're in uniform patrol or you're a detective, whatever, and you've got a criminal to think like a criminal, which way would I go?

John Jay Wiley (33:30): What would I do? It makes it a little easier to apprehend them. But when you talk about terrorists or serial criminals, look, they think in a different way that doesn't that doesn't really fit in a normal brain like yours and mine. So in a way, and I hate the term fascinated, but I I find them intriguing because I don't understand them and their motivation at all.

Simon Ozzamo (33:54): Yeah. And it is really hard. And I think one of the things working in organized crime is understanding people's mindsets and motivations as well and their sort of ideology. You need to to have empathy towards them, and you never should because these horrible, horrible people. But really understanding their minds, what is it that they're truly trying to accomplish?

Simon Ozzamo (34:19): How are they hoping to do that? What does that mean for the gooder society? For me, or the badder society in some cases, for me really trying to get into that mindset really helps you to understand. Okay, so then we know this. What are they going to act like?

Simon Ozzamo (34:34): What are they going to walk like? What are they going to be like? How do we find times or disrupt that crime, opportunities to infiltrate them, to get intelligence that we can then use against them to bring down their sort of cell or their organized crime group and stuff. You know? Imputation is is a big big part of really understanding people's lives and and motivation to to be able to then get and follow them and do a lot of these covert police tactic.

John Jay Wiley (35:01): Right. And the the motivations oftentimes boil down to money, greed, jealousy, anger, so called crimes of passion. Those, you know, you can kinda think like a criminal and kinda try to figure it out and say, if he's motivated by money for doing this, then this should probably be his next step or that'd be next step. So that's one way of what we talk about serial criminals, rapists, sex offenders, pedophiles, terrorists, they operate on a totally different plane, and I've never been able to figure them out. And I'll be honest, the the the profilers that have got it down to a science, I don't get it whatsoever.

John Jay Wiley (35:38): But I wanna shift gears. I wanna talk about you as an individual. After your life in law enforcement, You immigrated to United States, and you have a podcast. You've written a book. Let's talk about your podcast first.

Simon Ozzamo (35:51): Yeah. Thank you, John. So the Who Became podcast is really about, people that have found their purpose, overcome adversity or created a positive mindset because I've met a lot of interesting people in my life. I've seen a lot of change and transformation in their lives. I've seen a lot of change and transformation in in my life.

Simon Ozzamo (36:12): And I just love to share the story because we often think that we're going through things alone. I am the only one that this has ever happened to, and we know that isn't the case. So I just love to learn about the Became piece. How did you get your success? How did you overcome your your transformation?

Simon Ozzamo (36:31): You know, your sorry, your adversity to really help them other people grow and learn and be inspired by the stories to know that they can make a positive change in their lives. So I I just I just love people that I get to meet, through the Who Became podcast.

Unknown Speaker (36:46): And what is the name of your book?

Simon Ozzamo (36:48): Yeah. So the book's actually been two books. So because of my background in safety and security, when I first moved to America, I was in charge of counterterrorism at Mall of America, now one of the largest pieces of infrastructure in the Midwest. I got into, safety and security for nonprofits. So I've got one called securing church operations.

Simon Ozzamo (37:10): And then the second one is understanding suspicious behavior. Most acts of, criminality generally start with breaking social boundaries. So I sort of teach people what to go looking for around suspicious behavior and then how to try and intercept that with a sort of more positive outcome.

Unknown Speaker (37:28): And where can people get more information about you in all the things you do?

Simon Ozzamo (37:31): Yes. So, I mean, there's a lot of different things that I I did on from Overcame Podcast, safety consultant, coaching young men that have been through similar circumstances to me. But the best thing is just to head over to my own personal website, which is simonosamo.com. My last name is o s a m o h, which is simonosamo.com, where you'll find all the information on there. Or my consulting business, my safety and security is kingswoodsc.com.

Simon Ozzamo (37:58): Kingswoodsc.com. So that's how people can can connect if anything guys said has has resonated with them today.

Unknown Speaker (38:03): Simon, I wanna thank you for all you've done, and I wanna thank you for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciated.

Simon Ozzamo (38:09): John, I'm really appreciative of your time today, and I love what you're doing on your radio show and your podcast. So I want to thank you for inspiring many people and remain in the positive heart about law enforcement. That's really, really, important in today's world. So thank you for everything that you do, John.

John Jay Wiley (38:27): This was the podcast version of the nationally syndicated law enforcement talk radio show, and we are so glad that you decided to join us. Big thanks to our guests for tone or story on the show. Two simple things you can do. Be sure to check out our website, letradio.com, that's letradio.com, and be sure to follow us or like us on Facebook. Do a search on Facebook for law enforcement talk radio show, and be sure when you see a post that we put up that you like, that you resonate with, that gets your attention, be sure to share it with your friends.

Unknown Speaker (39:03): We'll be back in just a few days on another great episode of the show. See you then.