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...
Britain said on Tuesday it would refer the UAE-led takeover of the Telegraph for a lengthy review, a move that will effectively kill the deal because a law banning foreign governments owning newspapers is due to come into force in coming months. Abu Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI took control of the Telegraph titles and the Spectator...
Foreign state control of British newspapers is to be outlawed, effectively blocking the UAE’s attempted takeover of The Telegraph. Ministers revealed plans on Wednesday “explicitly to rule out newspaper and periodical news magazine mergers involving ownership, influence or control by foreign states”. The move, announced by Lord Parkinson, the culture minister, was made to see off a...
Abu Dhabi-backed Redbird IMI has submitted a new proposal relating to its planned takeover of the Telegraph newspaper, likely prompting a fresh government probe on public interest grounds, British media minister Lucy Frazer said on Wednesday. The regulators had been due to report back to Frazer by the end of Friday on the first probe....
Two men from London have become the fifteenth and sixteenth members of a £100m+ money laundering network to be convicted, following a major National Crime Agency investigation into cash smuggling from the UK to the UAE. Guilty verdicts were returned yesterday (11 January) on Ali Al-Nawab, 40, from Golders Green, London, and Mehdi Amrollahbibiyouki, 41,...
Britain has signaled plans to water down its position on a core part of COP28 negotiations just weeks before the global climate talks begin. Energy and Climate Minister Graham Stuart, who will head the U.K. delegation to the COP summit, told MPs Wednesday that he was not fixated on whether countries agree to “phasing down”...
The way many organised crime gangs launder their cash has become so hard to trace that following the money “gets you absolutely nowhere”, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency. When they are not using major high street banks as giant drug cash laundromats, organised crime groups such as drug traffickers are increasingly using international networks of...
Statement at UN human rights council voices ‘disappointment’ after host country refuses to change restrictive laws. The UK has asked the United Arab Emirates, one of its closest Gulf allies, to explain how it will guarantee free speech around the UN Cop28 climate summit in Dubai after the country refused to change its restrictive laws. The...
UK asked to obtain assurances from UAE overright to protest at COP28. Human-rights activists have reacted with skepticism to the pledge by the oil-rich Gulf state that it will allow climate demonstrations. Pressure is mounting on the UK government to obtain assurances from the United Arab Emirates that Britons who stage protests in Dubai around...
When Matthew Hedges was imprisoned and tortured in the UAE, Britain was shamefully slow to act. The reason for this cowardice now seems clear: a web of sinister relationships between ministers, Conservative donors and Gulf allies had left human rights an afterthought. Hedges’ ordeal showed the human cost of Britain’s craven policy with the UAE....