South Yorkshire woman part of money laundering cash courier gang which smuggled millions in suitcases

A woman from Doncaster is waiting to be sentenced after pleading guilty to offences in connection with a money laundering network which smuggled over £100m out of the UK to Dubai.

Megan Reeves, age 30, of Langer Street, Doncaster, was arrested alongside Tara Hanlon, 32, from Leeds, in October 2020, with five suitcases between them containing £2m. Messages showed the pair had known each other since 2017.

At the time Reeves claimed they were going on a ‘girly holiday’ to Dubai, but communications showed she intended to make 13 trips to clear debts of £39,000.

Reeves pleaded guilty on November 30 last year, while Hanlon was sentenced to 34 months in jail in July 2021.

A further six members of the network have now been sentenced following an investigation by the National Crime Agency.

The network transported the cash to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalasi, 48, of Dubai, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year.

The couriers were paid around £3,000 for each trip and would be booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance.

Beatrice Auty, 27, from London; Jonathan Johnson, 55, and Jo Emma Larvin, 44, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire, and Amy Harrison, 28, from Worcester Park in Surrey, were convicted following a trial at Isleworth Crown Court on April 26 this year. Two other couriers from the same network, Nicola Esson, 56, from Leeds, and Muhammad Ilyas, 30, from Slough, were convicted at earlier hearing.

The were all sentenced on Tuesday, July 12, although Reeves, from Doncaster, is still waiting to discover her fate.

Auty was sentenced to 42 months imprisonment, Johnson to 12 months suspended for two years, Larvin to 24 months suspended for two years, Harrison to 24 months suspended for two years, Esson to 22 months suspended for two years and Ilyas to 15 months suspended for two years.

Adrian Searle, director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the National Crime Agency, 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 work on behalf of international controller networks, who move the finances of the international drug trade, people traffickers, fraudsters and other criminal groups."