The group ferried more than £104 million to the UAE via 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, communicating with each other through a WhatsApp group called "sunshine and lollipops".
Eleven of the couriers have now been convicted after guilty verdicts were returned in the trials of Beatrice Auty, 26, from London; Jonathan Johnson, 55, and Jo Emma Larvin, 44, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire; and Amy Harrison, 27, from Worcester Park in Surrey, following hearings at London’s Isleworth Crown Court.
The criminal enterprise was overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalsi, 47, who was jailed for more than nine years last July.
Investigators established courier Tara Hanlon, who was convicted in June 2021, had briefed another courier about the operation. The courier had travelled from Heathrow to Dubai on three occasions in August and September 2020, checking in 18 suitcases which contained £6.8 million.
Auty was involved in the arrangements for another 16 trips, helping pack cash into thejr suitcases, accompanying travellers to Heathrow, and collecting empty suitcases when they returned so they could be used again.
Larvin, meanwhile, made two trips to Dubai in August and September 2020 – one with Amy Harrison, when they took seven cases between them containing £2.2 million, and another with her partner Jonathan Johnson, when they took eight suitcases containing £2.8 million. Larvin and Johnson were arrested at Manchester airport in March 2022.
Five other couriers have pleaded guilty at previous hearings and will be sentenced at a later date, along with those convicted yesterday.
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."
