For many people Manchester Airport is the starting point on a dream holiday or long awaited trip abroad, a place of excitement and anticipation. But for these criminals, the airport represented the end of the road, where their double lives were exposed.
They were all arrested at the airport, either after trying to leave the UK or as they arrived back on home soil after police had amassed damning evidence against them. And after being hauled before the court, they were all jailed for their crimes.
Here are four offenders whose freedom ended at the airport.
Sayam Ali
Ali, 18, was at Manchester Airport waiting to board a flight to Malta when armed police stopped him from leaving the UK. Two weeks earlier Ali had committed a horrific machete attack on a 16-year-old boy, stabbing his pal in broad daylight with a 12-inch blade over a drugs debt.
Ali had told police via his solicitor that he would hand himself in. But he never showed up and instead plotted to leave the country.
He turned up at the airport with four large suitcases on his way to Malta. Police body-cam footage released by GMP showed drug dealer Ali in the airport being escorted away by armed officers, as holidaymakers waited to board their flights.
Asked whether he had anything to say when he was read his rights, the teenager shook his head and replied quietly 'no'. Last month, Ali, of Hayes Close in Rochdale, was jailed for five years and four months after he admitted GBH with intent.
Fatemah Sheibani
Her son was a playboy international drugs boss who lived a lavish lifestyle from crime, and is now serving a 37 year prison sentence. And when 75-year-old Fatemah Sheibani landed in the UK after Aram Sheibani had been rumbled, the police then came for her.
The septuagenarian was arrested at Manchester Airport as she stepped off a flight which had arrived from Turkey. Aram Sheibani, from Bowdon, Trafford, portrayed himself as a legitimate businessman, but the real source of his wealth was his almost decade long involvement in a high-level cocaine conspiracy.
From his international drug dealing, Sheibani funded a £5m property empire, stayed in luxury accommodation, travelled around the world and drove top of the range cars such as a Bentley and a Porsche. His mother, who fled the UK in 2019, was 'embroiled in her son's criminality'.
She dishonestly obtained money and transferred property worth £150,000 in the knowledge that it was the proceeds of criminal conduct. She pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud and money laundering and in July was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Faye Dunn
Former England footballer Faye Dunn was flying back from Spain when her double life was rumbled. Arrested at Manchester Airport when she returned to UK soil, the successful businesswoman was revealed to have been embroiled in a million pound cannabis trafficking operation.
The 38-year-old mum became involved in the criminal underworld when her business ventures began to falter due to the impact of Covid pandemic. She acted as an accountant for the drugs gang and was using an EncroChat phone, a highly secretive communications network used by organised criminals.
As well as acting as an accountant, Dunn smuggled ill-gotten cash abroad and arranged meetings between criminal associates. Dunn a former director of several companies including a restaurant and a popular children's play centre, previously played professionally for Tranmere Rovers and Leeds United and appeared for England under 19s.
She had travelled to Spain in May 2020 during lockdown and was in contact with an EncroChat user during the journey. Dunn, of Walpole Avenue in Whiston, Merseyside, was arrested on her return to Manchester Airport on June 13.
She admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis and money laundering and in September was jailed for three years and nine months. She began wailing as she was taken down the cells at Liverpool Crown Court and said: "I can't believe it."
Andrew Moores
Police were alerted after drugs boss Andrew Moores checked in at Manchester Airport for a flight bound for Dubai. Officers had previously tried to arrest him at his luxury tenth floor apartment in the West Tower block on Deansgate, but he wasn't there.
But they got their man as Moores was about to leave for the Middle East. Moores claimed he had 'every intention' of coming back to the UK, as he had bought a return ticket, and claimed he was going to Dubai as there was no coronavirus lockdown in force there.
When he was arrested at the airport, among the items seized from him were personalised bath robes, flannels and slippers embroidered with 'Mooresy'. But he is now serving a 16-and-a-half year sentence after his vast drugs conspiracy was exposed.
Moores, 37, from Denton, Tameside, set up 'shops' on the dark web named Vanilla Surf, Staxx and GovUK to peddle vast quantities of cocaine across England the rest of Europe. He played a leading role in a gang which trafficked drugs worth millions including cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamine and cannabis via the internet using encrypted EncroChat mobile phones. Moores was sentenced in January.
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