Gang smuggled $130m into Dubai hidden inside suitcases on business class flights

Dubai smugglers convicted after bringing $130m in cash into UAE

Members of a criminal gang based in the UK caught smuggling millions of dollars in cash into Dubai have been convicted.

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) announced that eleven couriers have been convicted in a massive criminal network from the UK smuggled £104m ($130m) in cash into Dubai.

UAE authorities supported the UK’s NCA to help secure the convictions against cash smugglers.

Dubai cash smugglers

On Tuesday, UK nationals Beatrice Auty, Jonathan Johnson, and Jo Emma Larvin were handed guilty verdicts by a UK court.

The criminal network smuggled suitcases full of cash from the UK to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalsi, 47, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year.

Adrian Searle, Director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the UK’s 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 couriers, were paid around $3,700 for each trip and travelled on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance.

The gang set up a WhatsApp group called “Sunshine and lollipops” to plan the money-laundering visits.

Auty, who was arrested following NCA raids in May 2021, travelled from Heathrow to Dubai twice in July and August of that year, checking in seven suitcases containing $4.2m.

Auty was involved in the logistical arrangements for another 16 trips, helping to pack cash into suitcases, accompanying travellers to Heathrow 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 Amy Harrison when they took seven cases between them containing $2.7m and another with her partner Jonathan Johnson, when they took eight suitcases containing $3.5m.

Larvin and Johnson were arrested at Manchester Airport in March 2022.

The network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which was believed to be the profits of drug dealing.

The money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases which would typically each contain around $625,000 and weighing around 40kg.

They were sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in an effort to prevent them being found by Border Force detection dogs.

A number of British couriers are under investigation in the UAE and cannot leave until inquiries have been completed by UAE law enforcement.