Gang used WhatApp group called ‘Sunshine and lollipops’ to co-ordinate money laundering between the UK and Dubai. Six members of a money laundering network which smuggled more than £100million from the UK to the UAE using suitcases have been jailed. The network transported the cash to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by ringleader...
Each year, money launders funnel $2 trillion in ill-gotten gains into the financial system. And a lot of that money travels by air, in cash, often in people’s suitcases, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Sunday (April 21). The report cited figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) showing that international...
MEPs in the European Parliament have drafted a motion for a resolution rejecting the European Commission’s proposal to remove the United Arab Emirates, Gibraltar and Panama from the list of high-risk third countries with strategic deficiencies in their Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes. As previously reported, the European Commission published a proposed...
The United States restricted trade with five companies on Wednesday that it said help produce and procure drones for use by Russia in Ukraine and by Iran-backed Houthis in Red Sea shipping attacks. The companies from Russia and China were among 11 additions to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, which means suppliers need licenses before...
Eswatini’s king professed to have a bold plan for a thriving economic zone. ICIJ uncovered two phantom gold refineries channeling millions of dollars to Dubai through it. Against a backdrop of rolling hills and sugar cane fields, a generous stretch of cleared land borders the small industrial town of Matsapha in central Eswatini, a tiny...
Gangsters’ Paradise: Why do so many British mobsters and Irish king pins like the Kinahans flee to Dubai… and how long will their safe haven last? A generation of British gangsters have made Dubai the new Marbella thanks to the protection provided to them by local elites, it has been claimed by a legal expert. Criminals from...
he U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on three maritime companies based in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and three vessels owned by the companies for shipping Russian oil sold above a price cap imposed by the world’s major economies to reduce the amount of oil revenue Moscow has to fund its war in Ukraine....
The ringleader of a money laundering group that smuggled tens of millions of pounds of criminal cash out of the UK has been hit with a confiscation order. Abdullah Alfalasi was given the order totalling £3,496,778.68 following a National Crime Agency investigation into his finances. The 48-year-old Emirati national was previously convicted of co-ordinating a...
At least 65 migrant bodies found in Libya mass grave, says UN. A mass grave containing the bodies of at least 65 migrants has been found in Libya, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said. The IOM said the circumstances of their deaths and their nationalities are still unknown but they believe they died...
There are more than 16,000 sanctions imposed against Russia. Yet the Russian economy and war machine grew by 3.6 per cent in 2023 and is projected to grow another 2.6 per cent in 2024. Nearly six per cent of Russia’s gross domestic product goes towards military spending. At a time when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is...