The Spanish Guardia Civil and the Austrian Federal
Police, supported by Europol, have dismantled a criminal network producing and
distributing synthetic drugs worldwide, known as new psychoactive substances
(NPS), on the Darknet. The criminal group was also involved in money laundering
their share of the profits by selling cryptocurrencies, mainly Bitcoins. More
than EUR 4 500 000 in Bitcoins, IOTA and lumen was seized by law enforcement
authorities. Over 100 different types of NPS were seized in two laboratories
in the provinces of Granada and Valencia in Spain, whose market value would
exceed EUR 12 million. Nearly 800 000 doses of LSD were confiscated, marking
the biggest ever haul of this type of substance and derivatives in the European
Union (EU). Read More ...
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Scotland Yard seized a record £94.6million of
criminals' money last year, an increase of 40 per cent in 12 months.
The boost was partly fuelled by a rise in the use
of confiscation orders after convictions. These went up from £20.9million in
2016/17 to £55.5million in 2017/18. One key order involved four of the men convicted
over the Hatton Garden jewellery heist being ordered to pay back more than
£6million or face another seven years in prison.
Money seized by the Metropolitan Police is paid to
the Home Office, which returns a percentage to the force. It amounted to
£9.55million last year. Read More ...
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The Mexico
national team's captain who helped his side to a historic 1-0 victory
over Germany on Sunday has been accused of laundering money on behalf of a drug
lord and banned from playing in the US.
Rafael Marquez, currently on duty with his country
at the World Cup in Russia, was sanctioned by the US
Treasury last year for allegedly aiding a powerful Mexican drug trafficker -
Raul Flores Hernandez.
The sanctions imposed on him included having his
bank accounts in the US and Mexico frozen and being barred from playing
football in the US.
Marquez denies the allegations that he and his
associates held assets for Hernandez on behalf of his drug cartels - but has
remained a part of the Mexico World Cup Read More ..._____________________________________
The
Spanish National Police supported by the Spanish Tax Agency, the Bulgarian Judicial
Police and Europol have dismantled an international poly-criminal group
involved in money laundering, home burglaries and drug trafficking.
The operation
resulted in 14 arrests in Spain and 2 in Bulgaria. Four diamonds worth EUR 2.6
million and 720 gold coins worth EUR 1.1 million were seized by Spanish law
enforcement authorities, alongside EUR 390 000 in cash, 14 luxury watches, 14
orthodox icons, 1 luxury vehicle and 3 weapons. In addition, a virtual wallet
containing EUR 220 000 in cryptocurrencies was blocked and several bank
accounts in Spain and Bulgaria were frozen. Read More ..._____________________________________
A firm of London solicitors that set up an offshore company for the daughters of
Azerbaijan’s president has been referred to a disciplinary tribunal after
being accused of multiple failings. They include not detecting “a significant
risk of money-laundering”. Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva – the daughters of President Ilham Aliyev – set up a secret offshore company to help
manage their multimillion-pound property portfolio in Britain. The firm,
Exaltation Limited, was based in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Details of the offshore company emerged in April 2016 as part of a leak of
records from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, known as the Panama Papers. The London law firm that set up Exaltation, Child
& Child, claimed – wrongly – that the two women had no political
connections. The business interests and property portfolios of the Aliyev
family have been the subject of extensive reporting, amid allegations of
massive corruption. Read More ...
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Cocaine
can be delivered quicker than a pizza across Britain with over a third of users
able to get the drug within half an hour, survey reveals
- 37%
of cocaine users in England and Scotland say they can get the drug
delivered within half an hour
- This
compares with 12% in England and 20% in Scotland who can get a pizza
delivered in the same time
- Worldwide
30.3% of 15,000 cocaine users questioned can get their hands on drug
within half an hour
- This
is compared with 16.5% who can get a pizza delivered in that time,
according to Global Drug Survey. Read More ...
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Rukhsa
r Bashier, 44, was told 'crime doesn't pay' by a judge as he was
given a proceeds of crime order at Teesside Crown Court. A former drugs gang ‘paymaster’ has been ordered to pay almost £2m more to
the state as a judge told him: “Crime doesn’t pay.”
Businessman Rukhsar Bashier, 44, was jailed almost 10 years ago as one of
the top men in a plot to set up cannabis factories in Middlesbrough
.In 2009, a judge ruled he and three others made more than £5.7m from crime,
including £2,799,525 for Bashier alone. He was ordered to pay £300,000 - the amount he then had available, a
fraction of his gains - after receiving an 11-year prison sentence.Now, almost a decade later, Bashier was back at Teesside Crown Court
under the same legislation to seize criminals’ assets. Read More ...
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Calls grow for the UK to shake off its
reputation as a haven for suspect cash as tensions with Russia rise. One
evening in early March, a former Russian double agent and his daughter, visiting
from Moscow, were found unresponsive on a park bench beside a nondescript
shopping arcade in the soporific English town of Salisbury. In an attack that
evoked memories of the murder of the dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London
in 2006, Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with a nerve agent apparently
traced to Russia. Within hours, the frost was forming yet again on relations
between the UK and the Kremlin. Diplomatic expulsions followed, but politicians
and anti-corruption campaigners in the UK lined up to demand more effective
action. The clamour grew to target the ultra-wealthy Russians who had long
flaunted their wealth in Britain and who allegedly relied on President Vladimir
Putin’s.. Read More ...
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A church leader who lied about charity donations to
fraudulently claim £155,840 in Gift Aid repayments has been jailed for four
years. Teslim Johnson, 39, from Dunstable, Bedfordshire, used his
position as a preacher and trustee at Agape Church in Luton, Bedfordshire, to
steal the funds. As a registered charity, the church could claim Gift Aid on
donations. But in 2016 HM Revenue & Customs officers contacted donors
listed on the charity’s records after they became suspicious of a series of
claims.They found that most of the donations had not
been made and many alleged donors had never heard of the church. Read More ...
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An
organised crime group was dismantled and 9 suspects arrested on 8 March in a major
operation in Europe and South America. Operation NANA was led by the Croatian
Police and the Rijeka State Prosecutor’s Office and jointly conducted by
Colombia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, Slovenia, Spain, the Drug
Enforcement Administration of the United States (US DEA) and Europol. The crime
network was suspected of transporting multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine from
Colombia, Ecuador and Panama to Europe.
A
container ship legally carrying scrap metal from Panama to the port of Rijeka,
Croatia, was found to be transporting more than 100 kilograms of cocaine and
150 kilograms of marijuana destined for the Croatian illicit drugs market.
Investigators also concluded that part of the group was involved in tobacco
trafficking and in March 2017 seized more than 69 000 packets of cigarettes
worth EUR 350 000. Read More ...
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Four men
and a woman appeared in court today accused of laundering cash from the sale of
fake and unlicensed medicines after more than £19m passed through their
accounts.
Prosecutors
say counterfeit medication was bought in European countries such as Germany, Austria and France before being sold.
David
Cohen, 37, Mindy Gross, 42, and Jacob Gross, 44, Edward Cohen, 65, and Maurice
Gross, 37, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court facing a total of 14
charges against them.
David
Cohen, of Golders Green, north London, is charged with making a false
statement to obtain benefits, failing to notify of a change of circumstances
affecting benefits, providing false information to the Charity Commission,
acquiring criminal property and being concerned by the acquisition of criminal
property. Read More ...
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