Six members of a money laundering network which smuggled more than £100million from the UK to the UAE using suitcases have been jailed.
The network transported the cash to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalasi, 48, who was jailed for more than nine years in July 2022.
London-based couriers Ali Al-Nawab, 40, and Mehdi Amrollahbibiyouki, 41, were among those paid up to £5,000 a trip to smuggle cash out of the country on business class flights due to the extra baggage allowance.
The pair communicated on WhatsApp groups with titles such as ‘Sunshine and lollipops,’ alongside Paige Henry, 26, from Birmingham, Samantha Horst, 51, from Staines-upon-Thames, Craig Bramall, 42, from Wigan, and Bridget Taylor, 44, from Edinburgh.
Amrollahbibiyouki, who was arrested at his home address in April 2022, made three trips to Dubai in February and March 2020, checking in 12 suitcases containing £4.3million.
His phones also revealed he had also been responsible for counting and packaging criminal cash totalling £11.1million for eight trips made by other couriers, including the ones he made himself.
Meanwhile, Al-Nawab was arrested in May 2022 as he was leaving the UK to travel to Turkey. He made two journeys in March 2020, checking in nine suitcases containing £3.2million.
Al-Nawab was sentenced to two years, suspended for two years, at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday. Amrollahbibiyouki was sentenced to four years.
Adrian Searle, Director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, said: “Money laundering fuels the global drugs trade, human trafficking, fraud, ransomware and many other crimes that cause misery and ruin lives.
“Today is an important step in removing one transnational criminal gang responsible for laundering at least £100million.
“Gangs such as this smuggle cash on behalf of international controller networks – apex criminals who deploy sophisticated techniques to move and conceal the proceeds of crime in eye watering volumes and, sometimes, at the click of a button.
“The world’s most dangerous organised criminals and corrupt elites cannot operate effectively without them.”
Jurors previously heard how the pair’s co-conspirators also made trips to the UAE to smuggle dirty money out of the UK, all of whom were sentenced earlier this year.
The multiple trials heard how the network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which was mainly the profits of drug dealing, and took it to counting houses that were rented apartments in Central London.
The money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases, which would typically each contain around £500,000.
They were sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in an effort to prevent them being found by sniffer dogs.
NCA officers said the smuggling was on a “breath-taking scale”.
Senior investigating officer Ian Truby described the ongoing case, which is the subject of a podcast, as one of the largest of its kind in the UK.
“Although many of the couriers regarded these trips as paid for adventures in the sun, the stark reality is that this cash was generated from real-world harm,” he said.
