A former model who stashed £5million in cash in her luggage for a flight to Dubai is facing jail as part of a smuggling ring. Jo Emma Larvin, 44, was said to be involved in one of the biggest money laundering cases ever in Britain.
The operation saw a gang transport over £100million in crooked money from the UK to the United Arab Emirates. Four other people, including Larvin's partner, Jonathan Johnson, 55, were found guilty of money laundering, reports the Liverpool Echo.
Beatrice Auty, 26, and Amy Harrison, 27, were also convicted on Tuesday, April 25, in a trial at Isleworth Crown Court. So far the ring stands at 11 couriers convicted over shipments of cash that were vacuum packed and hidden in suitcases on long-haul flights from Heathrow Airport in London.
The court heard more than £104million was smuggled from the UK to Dubai over 83 separate journeys in the period between November 2019 and October 2020. The leader, Abdullah Alfalsi, 47, was jailed for nine years after a court heard he oversaw the massive operation.
Each courier was reportedly paid around £3,000 for every trip and would travel business class due to the extra luggage allowance. According to the National Crime Agency, the couriers communicated on a Whatsapp group that was named "Sunshine and lollipops" while cash was collected from criminal gangs across the UK, believed often to be the product of drug dealing.
The money was taken to rented apartments in London to be counted. Each suitcase would on average contain around £500,000 and weighed about 40kg. They were said to have been sprayed with coffee or air fresheners to avoid sniffer dogs finding the cash.
Ex-model Larvin, who dated Welsh boxing legend Joe Calzaghe for six years, made two trips to Dubai in August and September 2020. She was joined on one journey by Harrison as they took seven cases between them containing around £2.2million and another with her partner Johnson, when they took eight suitcases containing around £2.8million.
In court, Larvin and Johnson claimed they were flying out the millions for the embassy in the UAE. Leader Alfalasi was arrested at a flat in Belgravia on a visit to London 2021. Auty was arrested following NCA raids in May of that year while Larvin and Johnson were taken in to custody at Manchester Airport in March 2022.
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.
“The criminality this enables costs the UK billions every year, causes misery and ruins lives across the world. This case demonstrates the continued commitment by the NCA to crackdown on money laundering and close the vulnerabilities being exploited.”
Five other couriers are said to have pleaded guilty at previous hearings and will be sentenced at a later date, the court heard. Other couriers are still be investigated.
NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby added after the latest guilty verdicts: “These couriers were important cogs in a large money laundering wheel. The crime group they belonged to was responsible for smuggling eye-watering amounts of criminal cash out of the UK.
“This simply wouldn’t have been possible without couriers doing their bidding, in return for a sunshine holiday and a slice of the profit. Cash is the lifeblood of organised crime groups, which they re-invest into activities such as drug trafficking. This fuels violence and insecurity around the world, which is why our investigation into other cash couriers continues.”
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