Money-laundering kingpin who got Kim Kardashian lookalike and 35 others to fly more than £100m cash from Heathrow to Dubai is jailed for more than nine years
- Emirati national Abdulla Alfalasi, 47, recruited dozens of couriers to fly suitcases
- This included lookalike Tara Hanlon, 31, who was jailed for nearly three years
- She was caught taking around £2million while ringleader smuggled £100m
- Alfalasi was arrested smuggled more than £100 million in dirty cash to Dubai
- The father-of-six called an ‘idiot’ by his lawyer is jailed for 9 years and 7 months
The kingpin who smuggled more than £100 million in dirty cash out of Heathrow to Dubai has been jailed for more than nine years today in the biggest money-laundering case of its kind.
Emirati national Abdulla Alfalasi recruited people who wanted a jet-setting lifestyle including ‘party-loving’ Kim Kardashian lookalike Tara Hanlon, 31, to fly suitcases stuffed with bank notes out of the UK on business class flights.
The 47-year-old, whose own lawyer branded him a ‘useful idiot’, paid mules £3,000 and £8,000, depending on how much cash they were smuggling.
Carrying up to £500,000 in each suitcase – packed with coffee grounds or air fresheners in a bid to fool sniffer dogs – they would use Alfalasi’s firm Omnivest Gold Trading to cover the cash declarations on arrival.
For a total of 83 trips, the group took at least a 10 per cent cut from the money smuggled, so between them are likely to have made in excess of £12 million from the venture.
It all came to a head when recruitment consultant Hanlon was stopped at Heathrow Airport carrying luggage containing wads of bank notes in vacuum-packed bags totalling £1.9 million.
The father-of-six, who was arrested at a flat in affluent Belgravia and used an Arabic interpreter at the hearing, was jailed on Thursday for nine years and seven months.
Two of those couriers are already in prison – including Tara Hanlon, 31, (pictured) who was jailed for nearly three years in July after being caught taking around £2million from the UK to Dubai
Undated handout photo issued by National Crime Agency of some of the money found in the possession of Hanlon when she was stopped at Heathrow Airport
Abdullah Mohammed Ali Bin Beyat Alfalasi, 46, was the kingpin behind the moving of more than £100million in crooked cash from the UK to the UAE, has been charged with money laundering. Pictured: Some of the money found by authorities which was destined for Dubai
Emirati national Abdulla Alfalasi (left), 47, ringleader of a gang that smuggled more than £100million in dirty cash out of the UK to Dubai has been jailed for more than nine years in the biggest money-laundering case of its kind. Hanlon (right) had been previously later jailed for two years and 10 months
Hanlon – who was later jailed for two years and 10 months – had already smuggled £3.5m in five suitcases on three different trips over a four-month period when Border Force officers stopped her in October 2020.
They discovered the vacuum-packed wads of cash in her luggage covered in coffee before the recruitment consultant boarded a flight to Dubai.
Expenses included business class tickets that increased their baggage allowance and allowed check-in more close to departure time decreasing the chance of being checked by security.
Hanlon is the ‘party-loving’ Kim Kardashian wannabe arrested at Heathrow
Julian Christopher prosecuting said: ‘Further steps were taken to minimise the cash being discovered such as vacuum packing the cash and packing air fresheners and coffee grounds or including coat hangers and mouthwash to give the impression of normal luggage.’
Around a month after Hanlon was caught, Czech national Zdenek Kamaryt, 39, was held as he tried to board a flight from Heathrow to Dubai with £1.3 million of cash in his bags.
Alfalasi, who carried £6 million on 10 cash trips himself before recruiting a network of couriers, was arrested at a Belgravia flat owned by his wife’s wealthy family while on a family trip to London on December 14 last year.
Three mobile phones with a large number of WhatsApp chat messages were uncovered.
Mr Christopher added: ‘These show examples of him seeking and being provided with step-by-step progress when they arrived, when luggage was checking in, when they were on the plane and when they had taken off.
‘Confirming that he would meet the couriers when arriving in Dubai, typically couriers would be sent back to the UK with empty suitcases.’
Many others were also involved in tallying expenses and keeping their eyes on the planes at Heathrow.
‘Mr Alfalasi would be sent photographs and in some cases videos of large bundles of cash laid out on the floor as part of the packing process,’ he explained.
‘This was all part of a money laundering service provided by Mr Alfalasi to an unknown number of organised criminals in this country and across Europe.’
Hanlon arrives at Isleworth Crown Court, west London, where she was jailed for two years and 10 months after pleading guilty to more than £5million worth of money laundering offences
Alfalasi was ignorant as to where the cash came from but understood it came from the proceeds of crime, the court heard. There was effectively a ‘Chinese Wall’ between couriers and the masterminds who remain at large, the court heard.
Alfalasi admitted removing criminal cash from the UK between April 3 2019 and November 3 2020.
Judge Simon Davis said at his sentencing: ‘You were involved in facilitating the removal of a vast amount of cash from this country, through Heathrow Airport, to Dubai.
‘You used yourself on a number of occasions as well as a network of 36 hired couriers, who were given somewhere around £3,000 plus expenses per trip and covered with a letter from a company with which you were intimately involved, called Omnivest Gold Trading, to vest this criminal enterprise with a veiled cloak of legitimacy.’
Alfalasi also enlisted Michelle Clarke – a British woman he had met in Dubai – to help recruit a total of 36 couriers, ‘typically young people, attracted by the money’, said prosecutor Mr Christopher QC.
He would book them business class flights so they could make use of the extra luggage allowance, with suitcases weighing up to 40kg each and packed with mouthwash and coat hangers in an attempt to fool the X-ray machines.
The couriers would declare the money to customs on arrival in Dubai before returning home days later with the empty bags.
One, Nicola Esson, 55, from Leeds, checked in 19 suitcases with a combined weight of almost half a tonne on three trips in August and September 2020, declaring a total of £6.4 million.
Hanlon (pictured left and right), 30, was arrested at Heathrow Airport on October 3 when Border Force officials found £1.9m stuffed into five suitcases
Muhammed Geyas Ilyas, 29, from Slough, who took a total of £2.5 million in two trips was arrested off a flight back to Heathrow in February 2020 after Border Force officers found a bag that had gone missing at the airport containing £431,000 in cash.
Both have pleaded guilty to removing criminal property and await sentencing, while Clarke is still believed to be in Dubai and is wanted by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Party girl Hanlon, from Leeds, Yorkshire, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to remove criminal property from England and Wales between July 13 and October 4 last year, which has been left to lie on file.
But she admitted three counts of removing criminal property, relating to cash amounts of £1.4million on July 14, £1.1million on August 10 and £1million on August 31 last year. The defendant also pleaded guilty to attempting to remove £1.9million in criminal cash from the country on the day she was arrested.
The find, vacuum packed in five suitcases and covered in ground coffee to hide the smell from sniffer dogs, was described at the time as the largest individual cash seizure at the border that year
Hanlon appeared at Isleworth Crown Court, where she was jailed for two years and 10 months. Prosecutor Nathan Rasiah told the court that the charges related to three trips taken to Dubai last summer and one failed attempt in October.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline before her granddaughter admitted the crime, Maureen Downs, 80, said: ‘I know my granddaughter and she would never do anything like what she is accused of. She has a heart of gold. She is a lovely girl and she had never, ever been in in trouble.’
Suggesting her ‘naive’ granddaughter may have been the victim of a set up, she added: ‘I want to know if somebody switched her bags. I can’t see her having the confidence to go through an airport like that.’
Her grandmother went on: ‘Tara has never taken any drugs. She has always worked and when she was 14 she had a job at a golf club. She has always been working. She was into partying. She liked a bit of glamour did Tara.
‘She wanted to look like that Kardashian woman and she had her lips done like her.’
Tara Hanlon, 30, from Yorkshire was caught in Heathrow, trying to board on a flight to Dubai
The NCA said the ‘international controller network’ operated at the pinnacle of global money laundering.
The gang is believed to have charged between 10% and 13% to service the funds generated by dozens of criminal gangs across the UK with cash believed to have come from street drug dealing, including cocaine.
On arrival in Dubai, the money would be converted into dirhams, with some used to buy gold in Africa or cryptocurrency, before being released back to the customers in the UK.
The NCA said it is believed to be the biggest cash money laundering conspiracy brought to justice in the UK.
Senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: ‘Cash is the lifeblood of organised crime groups which they reinvest into activities such as drug trafficking, which fuels violence and insecurity around the world.
‘Disrupting the supply of illicit cash is a priority for the NCA and our partners.
‘The investigation is ongoing and we will do all we can to bring further offenders to book.’
John Werhun of the CPS said: ‘This is one of the largest money laundering cases the CPS has ever prosecuted to date.
‘A colossal amount of dirty money, totalling £104million, was transported to Dubai under Alfalasi’s instructions.
‘The evidence against Alfalasi was overwhelming, with invoices, declaration documents and images of cash-filled suitcases, pointing to his culpability.’
Earlier H.E. Hamid Al Zaabi, Director-General of the UAE’s Executive Office of Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, said: ‘This case is a practical example of how the UAE and UK are working closely to increase cooperation and coordination on illicit financial flows as intelligence sharing and joint operation capabilities are enhanced.
‘This is the essence of the partnership’s ambitions, as illustrated by the new strategic partnership signed in September this year and following the most recent meeting the UAE held with the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) on November 25.
‘The individuals in question are currently under investigation by the UAE authorities, and all related assets linked to them have been frozen.
‘We will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the UK in the global fight against illicit finance.’
Adrian Darbishire QC, defending, described Alfalasi as a ‘family man and a businessman in a small way’, who was ‘worth something to some people’ as an Emirati citizen and was the ‘useful idiot’ for others.
Hanlon had worked as operations manager at international recruitment firm Goodall Brazier, which has an office in Leeds (above)
Hanlon appeared at Isleworth Crown Court, where she was jailed for two years and 10 months
Hanlon was remanded in custody ahead of her appearance at Isleworth Crown Court on November 5
‘He has done something very bad and something very stupid and he is the one who finds himself in court saddled with the implications of £100 million,’ Mr Davis also told the court.
‘You used yourself as well as a network of 36 hire couriers given some money and covered with a letter from a company which you were intimately involved, it is said, to vest this criminal enterprise in a veiled cloak of legitimacy.
‘This was a considerable network under your charge, not your sole charge, but you were principle. It is clear that there were others involved. You are to be sentenced for a leading role principle.
‘You are a devoted family man. Against that background you involved yourself in a significant criminal enterprise.
‘Your name is all over the documents, those are the hazards of the crime. When you are involved in the way you are it is very difficult to conceal yourself.’
Referring to Alfalasi’s relatives Judge Davis said: ‘The horrible tragedy is that those ripples affect those people. Your behaviour affects those people.’
Alfalasi prayed in his cell before he was jailed.
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