A man has been charged with drugs and human trafficking offences after being arrested at Manchester Airport. Michael Whitty was detained by police at 9.20am today (Monday).
Pair arrested at Manchester Airport as part of £100m smuggling ring that saw wads of money stashed in suitcases
26.04.2023 - 17:47 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A pair were arrested at Manchester Airport as part of a huge investigation into a £100m money smuggling ring that saw millions stashed in suitcases and flown out to the United Arab Emirates.
Former glamour model Jo Emma Larvin and Jonathan Johnson were taken into custody at Manchester Airport by police last March. They were later found guilty for their involvement in one of the biggest money laundering cases ever seen in Britain.
So far 11 couriers have been convicted over the shipments of cash that were vacuum packed and hidden in suitcases on long-haul flights from Heathrow. The ring smuggled more than £104m from the UK to Dubai in 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020.
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Beatrice Auty, 26, and Larvin's current partner, Jonathan Johnson, 55, as well as Amy Harrison, 27, were all found guilty of money laundering yesterday (April 26).
Ringleader Abdullah Alfalsi, 47, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year, oversaw the operation. The couriers, who were paid around £3,000 for each trip, were booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance.
Gang bosses communicated with the couriers and arranged the shipments on a WhatsApp group called "Sunshine and lollipops", according to Britain's FBI, the NCA. Cash from criminal gangs around the UK was collected by the crew, believed to be the profits of drug dealing, and taken to counting houses - usually rented apartments in central London.
The money was then vacuum packed into tens of thousands of pounds and separated into suitcases which would usually each contain around £500,000, weighing around 40kg. They were also sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in
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