Gangsters Murdered Family, Dumped Bodies at Sea

A millionaire businessman and his family were murdered and their bodies dumped at sea by gangsters in 2003, in a crime that began with a staged business meeting and ended with a massive cover-up.

Amarjit Chohan, owner of CIBA Freight, disappeared on February 12, 2003, after telling his employees he was leaving for a business meeting near Stonehenge. His wife, Nancy, their two young sons—aged 18 months and eight weeks—and Chohan's mother-in-law, Charanjit Kaur, vanished from their Hounslow home two days later.

The family's disappearance was only reported when Nancy's brother, Onkar Verma, who lived in New Zealand, became concerned after not hearing from his sister for several days. He noted that his sister and brother-in-law typically spoke daily, and that the voicemail left by Chohan, which stated he was fine, was in English, not Punjabi, their native language.

Former Detective Inspector Tony Bishop, speaking on The Crime Desk's "On the Case" podcast, detailed how the investigation quickly escalated from a missing persons case to a murder probe. "Suddenly it was all hands to the pump. That's when we realised 'this is obviously a murder, Regan has been lying'," Bishop stated.

Kenneth Regan, a former prison associate of Chohan's and an employee at CIBA Freight, had initially claimed Chohan had handed over the company and fled to India. However, Chohan's body was discovered floating off Bournemouth pier three months after his disappearance, showing signs of torture and gagging with packing tape. This discovery shattered Regan's fabricated story.

Regan, who had a history of drug smuggling, money laundering, and counterfeit passport operations, had befriended Chohan in prison. After Chohan was released, he offered Regan employment. Within a year, Regan orchestrated the murders, intending to use Chohan's legitimate business as a front for international drug smuggling.

Regan, along with associates William Horncy and Peter Rees, lured Chohan to a car park near Stonehenge under the pretense of a business meeting with a Dutch buyer. There, they kidnapped him, tortured him to sign blank documents, and forced him to record a misleading voicemail for his wife. While Chohan was being held and tortured in Wiltshire, Regan and Horncy drove to the Chohan family home in Hounslow, where they murdered Nancy, Charanjit Kaur, Ravinder, and Devinder.

The bodies were subsequently buried in a mass grave on Belinda Brewin's estate in Tiverton, Devon. Brewin, an acquaintance of Regan's, was unaware of the murders but later told police she had seen the men digging on her property, a fact they explained away as fixing a drainage issue.

As the investigation intensified, Regan attempted to mislead police by sending them on a wild goose chase to Newport, Wales, claiming the family was alive and there. After this diversion, Regan and Horncy exhumed the bodies from Brewin's estate, transported them in a hired van and then a boat, and dumped them into the sea off the south coast.

Chohan's body washing ashore in Bournemouth alerted police to the murder, and forensic examination of the disturbed ground on Brewin's estate uncovered fragments of Indian jewelry, baby clothing poppers, and hair. Regan and Horncy fled to France but were eventually arrested. Regan and Horncy received whole-life sentences, while Rees was sentenced to 23 years.

More than two decades later, the bodies of the two infant sons, Ravinder and Devinder, have never been recovered, though evidence suggests they suffered the same tragic fate as their parents.