CONVICTIONS TOP-OFF NCA OPERATION AGAINST CASH SMUGGLING GANG

[THE NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY has dismantled a network of criminal cash couriers that laundered more than £100m by smuggling it out of the UK to Dubai in the UAE.

Guilty verdicts returned in the trial of Beatrice Auty, Jonathan Johnson, Jo Emma Larvin and Amy Harrison at Isleworth Crown Court on 25 April brought the number of couriers convicted to 11. Their network smuggled more than £104m from the UK to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020. The operation was overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalasi, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year.

Adrian Searle, director of the National Economic Crime Centre at 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.

“Cash smugglers typically work on behalf of international controller networks, who move the finances of the international drug trade, people traffickers, fraudsters and other criminal groups, making the source of the money difficult to trace. 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.”

The couriers, who were paid around £3,000 for each trip and would be booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance, communicated on a WhatsApp group entitled ’Sunshine and lollipops’.

The network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which is believed to be the profits of drug dealing, and took it to counting houses, usually rented apartments in central London. The money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases, which would typically each contain around £500,000 and weigh around 40 kilos. They were sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in an effort to prevent them being found by Border Force detection dogs.

NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby explained: “These couriers were important cogs in a large money laundering wheel. The crime group they belonged to was responsible for smuggling eye-watering amounts of criminal cash out of the UK. This simply wouldn’t have been possible without couriers doing their bidding, in return for a sunshine holiday and a slice of the profit.

“Cash is the lifeblood of organised crime groups, which they re-invest into activities such as drug trafficking. This fuels violence and insecurity around the world, which is why our investigation into other cash couriers continues.”

Five other couriers had pleaded guilty at previous hearings and will be sentenced at a later date, along with those convicted on 25 April. Other couriers remain under investigation. q