LONDON – In what appear to be a significant push against money laundering, UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed that a network which used to smuggle millions of pounds in cash to Dubai has been convicted.
The UK-based money laundering gang smuggled around £104 million ($130 million) to Dubai but eleven of the couriers involved in the crime have now been convicted.
A press release by the law enforcement agency said the money was laundered during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by 47-year-old ringleader Abdullah Alfalsi who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year.
The details say couriers were paid around £3,000 for each trip and would be booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance. They used Whatsapp group for communication which was titled ’Sunshine and lollipops’.
The National Crime Agency highlighted that the network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which was believed to be the profits of drug dealing, and took it to counting houses, usually rented apartments in Central London. After that, the money was vacuum packed and separated into suitcases containing around £500,000, weighing around 40 kilos.
The smugglers were experienced enough that the cash was sprayed with coffee or air fresheners to prevent it from being found by Border Force detection dogs.
As far as the legal proceedings are concerned, on Tuesday guilty verdicts were returned in the trial of Beatrice Auty, 26, from London; Jonathan Johnson, 55, and Jo Emma Larvin, 44, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire, and Amy Harrison, 27, from Worcester Park in Surrey, at Isleworth Crown Court.
Commenting on the high profile case which sent shockwaves through the law enforcers, Adrian Searle, Director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, said the laundering of such vast quantities of cash around the globe enables organised criminals and corrupt elites to clean or hide their ill-gotten gains.
“The criminality this enables costs the UK billions every year, causes misery and ruins lives across the world. This case demonstrates the continued commitment by the NCA to crackdown on money laundering and close the vulnerabilities being exploited,” he added.
