Two couriers smuggled cash from the UK to the United Arab Emirates in scented suitcases as part of a £100m money laundering network.
Ali Al-Nawab, 40, from Golders Green, London, and Mehdi Amrollahbibiyouki, 41, from Finchley, were found guilty on January 11 following a three-week trial at Isleworth Crown Court.
The pair flew business class due to the extra luggage allowance and were paid up to £5,000 for each trip.
They travelled with coffee or room-freshener scented luggage to foil sniffer dogs and communicated on a number of WhatsApp groups including one named ’Sunshine and lollipops’.
Amrollahbibiyouki, who was arrested at his home address in April last year, made three trips to Dubai in February and March 2020, checking in 12 suitcases containing £4.3 million.
Evidence on his phones revealed that he had also been responsible for counting and packaging criminal cash totalling £11.1 million for eight trips made by couriers, including the ones he made himself.
Al-Nawab was arrested in May 2022 as he was leaving the UK to travel to Turkey. He made two journeys in March 2020, checking in nine suitcases containing £3.2 million.
The two men are the 15th and 16th members of a money laundering network to be convicted following a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into cash smuggling.
Evidence gathered from Alfalasi’s phone showed that Al-Nawab and Amrollahbibiyouki both worked as cash couriers.
They were part of a network which smuggled more than £104 million during 83 separate London to Dubai trips between November 2019 and October 2020.
The criminal conspiracy was overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalasi, 48, who was jailed for more than nine years in July 2022.
The network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which was believed to be the profits of drug dealing, and took it to counting houses, usually rented apartments in central London, the NCA said.
The money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases which would typically each contain around £400,000, weighing around 40 kilos. They were sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in an effort to prevent them being found by Border Force detection dogs.
Adrian Searle, director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, said: “The money carried in these suitcases was directly linked to the harm and violence associated with organised crime.
“The very purpose of organised crime is to make money. By going after it and those who launder it, we are targeting the heart of the criminal business model.
“Those involved will now rightly also realise the consequences for them personally – a criminal conviction.”
NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: “Al-Nawab and Amrollahbibiyouki were part of an industrial-scale money laundering operation that saw huge amounts of criminal cash smuggled out of the UK.
“Their convictions mark a further dismantlement of this prolific and extensive criminal network.
“Our investigation will not cease until all those involved are brought before the courts and made accountable for their crimes.”
Al-Nawab and Amrollahbibiyouki are due to be sentenced at the same court as their conviction on March 8.
A total of 14 other couriers have been convicted previously.
The NCA investigation has been supported by Border Force and the UAE authorities.
A number of British couriers are under investigation in the UAE and cannot leave until inquiries have been completed by UAE law enforcement.
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