A pair were arrested at Manchester Airport as part of a huge investigation into a £100m money smuggling ring that saw millions stashed in suitcases and flown out to the United Arab Emirates.
Former glamour model Jo Emma Larvin and Jonathan Johnson were taken into custody at Manchester Airport by police last March. They were later found guilty for their involvement in one of the biggest money laundering cases ever seen in Britain.
So far 11 couriers have been convicted over the shipments of cash that were vacuum packed and hidden in suitcases on long-haul flights from Heathrow. The ring smuggled more than £104m from the UK to Dubai in 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020.
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Beatrice Auty, 26, and Larvin's current partner, Jonathan Johnson, 55, as well as Amy Harrison, 27, were all found guilty of money laundering yesterday (April 26).
Ringleader Abdullah Alfalsi, 47, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year, oversaw the operation. The couriers, who were paid around £3,000 for each trip, were booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance.
Gang bosses communicated with the couriers and arranged the shipments on a WhatsApp group called "Sunshine and lollipops", according to Britain's FBI, the NCA. Cash from criminal gangs around the UK was collected by the crew, believed to be the profits of drug dealing, and taken to counting houses - usually rented apartments in central London.
The money was then vacuum packed into tens of thousands of pounds and separated into suitcases which would usually each contain around £500,000, weighing around 40kg. They were also sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in bid to stop them being found by sniffer dogs at the airport.
Another courier Tara Hanlon, who was jailed in June 2021 over the plot, told another courier about the operation. This courier travelled from Heathrow to Dubai three times in August and September 2020, checking in 18 suitcases containing £6.8m.
Auty travelled the same route twice in July and August that same year, checking in seven suitcases containing £3.4m, police said. Czech national Zdenek Kamaryt, who was convicted of money laundering in March 2021, joined her on the second trip.
Auty was involved in the logistics for another 16 trips, helping to pack cash into suitcases, accompanying travellers to Heathrow Airport and collecting empty suitcases when they returned so they could be used again.
Larvin made two trips to Dubai in August and September 2020 - one with Harrison when they took seven cases between them containing £2.2m and another with her partner Jonathan Johnson, when they took eight suitcases containing £2.8m.
Harrison made three trips between July and September 2020 - taking 15 suitcases containing around £6m. In court, Larvin and Johnson claimed they were flying out millions of pounds for the UAE Embassy.
Dubai national Alfalasi, who arranged for British cash mules to travel from the UK to his homeland, was arrested at his upmarket flat in Lowndes Square, Belgravia, when he visited London in December 2021.
Auty was arrested following NCA raids in May 2021, while Larvin and Johnson were taken into custody at Manchester Airport last March.
At Isleworth Crown Court yesterday (April 25), Auty, from Fulham, west London, Johnson and Larvin, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire, plus Amy Harrison, of Worcester Park, south west London, were all found guilty by a jury.
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.
“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.”
Hanlon was jailed for nearly three years in July 2021 after being caught taking around £2m from the UK to Dubai. She had already smuggled £3.5m in five suitcases on three different trips over a four-month period when Border Force officers stopped her at Heathrow Airport in October 2020 with the latest haul.
Kamaryt was also stopped at Heathrow a month later trying to board a flight to Dubai carrying £1.4m in cash and was sentenced to just over two years in jail.
Five other couriers have already pleaded guilty at previous court hearings and will be sentenced at a later date, along with those convicted yesterday. Nicola Esson, 56, from Leeds, and Stacey Borg, 41, of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, who were arrested in May 2021 both admitted the charges.
Esson travelled from Heathrow to Dubai three times in August and September 2020, checking in 19 suitcases with a combined weight of almost half a tonne. Borg made three trips to Dubai during the same timeframe and travelled with Esson once. She declared £1.8m in cash to Dubai customs in September 2020 and £2.5m the following month.
Paige Henry, 25, from Birmingham, made four trips to Dubai in August and September 2020, one alone and three with other couriers, carrying a total of 24 suitcases containing £8.25m. Megan Reeves, 30, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, was arrested alongside Hanlon in October 2020, with five suitcases between them containing £2m.
Messages showed the pair had known each other since 2017 and at the time, Reeves claimed they were going on a ‘girly holiday’ to Dubai, but texts revealed she intended to make 13 trips to clear debts of £39,000.
Muhammad Ilyas, 30, from Slough, Berkshire, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in February 2020 after arriving on a flight from Dubai. He checked in four suitcases at the airport 10 days earlier, one of which had gone missing, and declared almost £1.5m in cash to Dubai customs. The missing suitcase was then found by Border Force officers, containing £431,360 in cash.
NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby added: “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.”
Other couriers are still being investigated and more arrests and court cases could take place in the future, the NCA said. The four defendants convicted this week will be sentenced at the same court at a later date.
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