Money launderer jailed for nine years over scheme to smuggle £104m to Dubai
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The head of a money laundering operation, that saw millions smuggled out of Heathrow airport in suitcases and sent to Dubai, has been jailed for nine years.
Emirati national Abdullah Mohammed Ali Bin Beyat Alfalasi, 47, ran a scheme that saw cash believed to be profits from drug dealing, collected from criminal groups across Britain and processed in rented central London apartments, before being sent to the UAE.
The scheme saw Alfalasi and his associates take a cut of the more than £100m smuggled to Dubai that earned the operation at least £12m.
The smugglers were paid sums of £3,000- £8,000 each trip, for carrying suitcases of vacuum-packed cash worth £500,000 each, on business class flights to Dubai.
At the central London counting houses, the money was sprayed with coffee and air freshners in a bid to prevent the cash being discovered by Border Force sniffer dogs.
The sentence comes after Alfalasi was arrested at his Belgravia flat last December after various members of his smuggling network were arrested by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Those arrested include Nicola Esson, 55, from Leeds, and Muhammad Ilyas, 29, from Slough, following raids by the NCA.
Ilyas’ arrest came after one suitcase containing £431,360 in cash went missing on a flight to Dubai.
Two of Alfalasi’s other associates later admitted taking part in the money laundering scheme, including Tara Hanlon, 31, from Leeds, and Czech national Zdenek Kamaryt, 39, after both were stopped at Heathrow airport.
NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: “This money laundering network smuggled astronomical sums of money out of the UK, and is one of the largest we’ve ever investigated.”
“Cash is the lifeblood of organised crime groups, which they re-invest into activities such as drug trafficking which fuels violence and insecurity around the world.”