British woman attempts to fly to Dubai with £2m stashed in her luggage

[markyh]

 

It still transfers the problem somewhere else to a legitimate buyer. Also, you still have the problem of meeting people to hand over large volumes in cash - the type of people who accept the offer are more likely to be criminally minded. Chances are you would receive the wrong end of a knife, not £2m.

You have never used local bitcoins have you? You wouldn't meet until it was confirmed via LBC the BTC was held in Escrow. It is only released when both buyer and seller notify LBC that payment has happened. Stealing the cash would be pointless, you wouldn't get your BTC back, and a LBC admin will award your BTC to the buyer anyway. Plus it would take many purchases, not many peeps are selling £10k+ of BTC at a time, you would used verified sellers etc. 

LBC is a $$$$ worldwide business, not a buyer/seller meet up internet chatroom!

[Ah-so]

 

You have never used local bitcoins have you? You wouldn't meet until it was confirmed via LBC the BTC was held in Escrow. It is only released when both buyer and seller notify LBC that payment has happened. Stealing the cash would be pointless, you wouldn't get your BTC back, and a LBC admin will award your BTC to the buyer anyway. Plus it would take many purchases, not many peeps are selling £10k+ of BTC at a time, you would used verified sellers etc. 

LBC is a $$$$ worldwide business, not a buyer/seller meet up internet chatroom!

No, haven't used Bitcoin, so fair enough. But if you were robbed of your cash, how would you demonstrate that the seller of the Bitcoin was responsible for the theft?

 

[steve99]

Now if she was taking this to Australia there would be no problem so long as you declared it on entering, nor would questions be asked when you were laundering it through the process of buying a house. The Chinese and some others use the Aussie housing market just like our big companies and well connected tories use the city of London to hide money in offshore tax havens. Only difference is, its 100% legal in Australia.  In fact if you want to open a betting account at the bookies you have to go through more paperwork and proof of pedigree than you do to buy a house with a suitcase full of cash, nor do agents, solicitors etc have to report dodgy property transactions to the government.

[steve99]

 

99% likely that these funds are illegitimate. Given the low cash value, we can assume it is from a business, legal or illegal, that depends on cash.

Obvious candidates will be drug dealing, but also businesses such as restaurants and nail bars where it is relatively easy to fiddle the books and downplay revenue to reduce VAT and profits.

At best, this revenue is from tax fraud at worst from a wholly criminal activity.

But if she can legitimately justify the source of these funds (bet she can't), she should be entitled to them.

Its a pitty they didnt take a bit more interest in how the city of London offshores money to the numerous havens. Im sure its 1000's of times more than this.

 

[reddog]

 

No, haven't used Bitcoin, so fair enough. But if you were robbed of your cash, how would you demonstrate that the seller of the Bitcoin was responsible for the theft?

 

I haven't used Bitcoin local either, but I would have thought the prospect of getting a reputation for being able to transact safely could earn you more money than a one off robbery.

 

Obviously it would take ages to do this and you might get robbed of the of £10k, but all in all probability less risky than sticking the cash in a suitcase.

[24gray24]

Could it be a propaganda piece? 

 

[felix]

Tara Hanlon jailed for over £5m money laundering offences - BBC News

It still makes me wonder to whom the money really belonged.

[shlomo]

3 minutes ago, felix said:

Tara Hanlon jailed for over £5m money laundering offences - BBC News

It still makes me wonder to whom the money really belonged.

Botox on her lips

[MonsieurCopperCrutch]

59 minutes ago, shlomo said:

Botox on her lips

[andrewwk]

1 hour ago, shlomo said:

Botox on her lips

Dim Kardashian...

[scottbeard]

On 10/10/2020 at 14:48, 24gray24 said:

In a decent country, you'd be allowed to keep your own money. 

Strange how envy and spite seem to dominate everything. 

People who make £2 million legitimately and pay tax on it don’t put it into eight suitcases and fly to Dubai.

Confiscate away I say- that’s what criminals deserve. 

[Riedquat]

2 hours ago, scottbeard said:

People who make £2 million legitimately and pay tax on it don’t put it into eight suitcases and fly to Dubai.

Confiscate away I say- that’s what criminals deserve. 

Almost certainly criminal, sure. But there used to be a little principle in law of "innocent until proven guilty." Suitcases stuffed with cash are very much a reason to investigate, but it should be up to the investigators to prove that, not the person to demonstrate there's nothing questionable going on. Hopefully being jailed means that's been done, rather than following on from the "looks suspicious as hell, that'll do, bang her up" attitude prevalent in this thread earlier.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Riedquat

[Badhairday]

12 hours ago, shlomo said:

Botox on her lips

It's like she cut up 1 strip of fake lashes and put half on each eye...

[spyguy]

2 hours ago, scottbeard said:

People who make £2 million legitimately and pay tax on it don’t put it into eight suitcases and fly to Dubai.

Confiscate away I say- that’s what criminals deserve. 

She coughed up to ~5m - she was stupid enough to make a few trips before the one she was caught on.

Where was the money made?

Where was it going?

If I was to guess -heroin money, from the West Yorkshire Mirpuri-Heroin trade .

 

 

[AThirdWay]

On 10/10/2020 at 17:02, Hullabaloo82 said:

For a forum that prides itself on being hard nosed and cynical hpcers are often surprisingly naive. 

The reality is that £2m is probably one of several similar packages and the loss of one of them is seen as a cost of doing business. Drugs mules operate in the same way; you go with a scattergun approach, assume 1 or 2 will get caught and price it in.  

You think, in this modern age, that they're carry suitcases of cash through customs on a regular basis.... surprising!

[shlomo]

9 minutes ago, spyguy said:

She coughed up to ~5m - she was stupid enough to make a few trips before the one she was caught on.

Where was the money made?

Where was it going?

If I was to guess -heroin money, from the West Yorkshire Mirpuri-Heroin trade .

 

 

I think it was Charity money, all the billions raised has to be cleaned not put into Charity accounts where the spending is recorded 

[Locke]

12 hours ago, MonsieurCopperCrutch said:

Should have used bitcoin or eth to move it. Would have been a lot cheaper than a plane ticket.

[scottbeard]

4 hours ago, Riedquat said:

Almost certainly criminal, sure. But there used to be a little principle in law of "innocent until proven guilty." Suitcases stuffed with cash are very much a reason to investigate, but it should be up to the investigators to prove that, not the person to demonstrate there's nothing questionable going on. Hopefully being jailed means that's been done, rather than following on from the "looks suspicious as hell, that'll do, bang her up" attitude prevalent in this thread earlier.

Of course it needs investigating rather than summary justice, but this is one where I’m actually happy if the presumption is it’s fishy until proved innocent.  Same as if someone is carrying a dangerous knife in a public area - my starting point is that’s more likely to end up in bodily harm than chopping vegetables.

[markyh]

20 hours ago, felix said:

Tara Hanlon jailed for over £5m money laundering offences - BBC News

It still makes me wonder to whom the money really belonged.

Idiot, why didnt she just send it to Kraken, £10k a day,  buy Bitcoin with it and send it abroad from the comfort of her Desk with zero chance of the police catching her? 

[yelims]

Should have used bitcoin 

which can be used to buy property in uae

Edited November 23, 2021 by yelims

[Pop321]

5 hours ago, scottbeard said:

Of course it needs investigating rather than summary justice, but this is one where I’m actually happy if the presumption is it’s fishy until proved innocent.  Same as if someone is carrying a dangerous knife in a public area - my starting point is that’s more likely to end up in bodily harm than chopping vegetables.

The knife is slightly different…harder to prove intent. So that is why it is an offence to carry a weapon rather than only when you use a weapon. And it’s the same with money laundering. 

So it’s not so much ‘guilty’ but rather ‘sensibly explain why you have £2m in suitcases’. 

It’s to avoid money laundering which in turn helps prevent terrorism, sex traffickers, the drugs economy and many serious crimes. That’s why it carries a prison sentence….it’s not the money it’s what the money hides.

If you can’t explain why you have £2m stashed in suitcases and there is no direct connection to organised crime then it moves to tax evasion. Again a prison sentence.

The anti money laundering regime now in place have helped deal with lots of organised crime.

Now if she has a perfectly acceptable audit trail and declared it at the airport and is just being ‘a bit daft’ carrying so much cash then she will be let go….but for 99% of people in this position that isn’t the case.

[Casual-observer]

On 10/10/2020 at 5:37 PM, markyh said:

Jesh. Criminals are dumb. I legit you would just pay the cash in the bank , and bank wire it for a fee, or wire it to a bitcoin exchange and buy Bitcoin, and transfer that. 

If a criminal i would slowly pay it into dozens of of bank accounts, they could be fake identity theft ones as long as you had access, £1000 a day at a time, then transfer it £5k a time to a non KYC crypto exchange, then buy Monero with it, and then transfer and sell the Monero in a local exchange in Dubai. 

Pretty sure Muslim's have declared crypto all good with the Koran as there is no interest involved. 

It's too easy to trace ultimately when busted plus the drugs come in from abroad which ultimately  means people aboard need their cuts to keep the operation running. 

My acquittance actually worked with this lady. Her bf was an ex con and the bottom line is the authorities are onto these people already, hence it's too easy to trace the money since they the police already have a rough idea who's doing what. 

Unsurprisingly from her photos she had a fascination with Kim Kardashian.

She quit her job months earlier very suddenly and dropped off the radar and the first they heard of her was when she hit the headlines. Supposedly she got £20k per trip which to me is surprisingly low considering the risks involved. 

I guess on the other hand there's an endless supply of people willing to take that gamble. 

[scottbeard]

3 hours ago, Pop321 said:

The knife is slightly different…harder to prove intent. So that is why it is an offence to carry a weapon rather than only when you use a weapon. And it’s the same with money laundering. 

So it’s not so much ‘guilty’ but rather ‘sensibly explain why you have £2m in suitcases’. 

It’s to avoid money laundering which in turn helps prevent terrorism, sex traffickers, the drugs economy and many serious crimes. That’s why it carries a prison sentence….it’s not the money it’s what the money hides.

If you can’t explain why you have £2m stashed in suitcases and there is no direct connection to organised crime then it moves to tax evasion. Again a prison sentence.

The anti money laundering regime now in place have helped deal with lots of organised crime.

Now if she has a perfectly acceptable audit trail and declared it at the airport and is just being ‘a bit daft’ carrying so much cash then she will be let go….but for 99% of people in this position that isn’t the case.

I know and I agree with that approach.

@Riedquatsuggested it should be Up to the authorities to prove that the money is not legitimate rather than up to the individual to prove that it is legitimate but I’m happy with the anti-money laundering rules as they stand which as you quite rightly articulated out the onus on the individual.

[Riedquat]

23 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I know and I agree with that approach.

@Riedquatsuggested it should be Up to the authorities to prove that the money is not legitimate rather than up to the individual to prove that it is legitimate but I’m happy with the anti-money laundering rules as they stand which as you quite rightly articulated out the onus on the individual.

So you're happy with guilty until proven innocent.

[Confusion of VIs]

14 hours ago, Riedquat said:

Almost certainly criminal, sure. But there used to be a little principle in law of "innocent until proven guilty." Suitcases stuffed with cash are very much a reason to investigate, but it should be up to the investigators to prove that, not the person to demonstrate there's nothing questionable going on. Hopefully being jailed means that's been done, rather than following on from the "looks suspicious as hell, that'll do, bang her up" attitude prevalent in this thread earlier

If she didn't declare the money she has already committed a crime.

IIRC taking out or bringing in over 10,000 Euro is a crime for which the penalty is a fine plus confiscation (if the funds cannot be shown to have been acquired legitimately and any taxes owing paid).