Joe Calzaghe's ex facing jail for smuggling £5 million of drug money into Dubai stuffed into luggage
26 April 2023, 12:58 | Updated: 26 April 2023, 13:07
Joe Calzaghe's ex-girlfriend is set to be sent to prison for smuggling millions of pounds in cash into Dubai as part of a £104m operation.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Jo-Emma Larvin, 44, who was in a relationship with the Welsh boxer for six years until 2009, hid the dirty cash in luggage as she tried to bring it into the Gulf state in secret.
Larvin first went with Amy Harrison, 27, as they tried to bring £2.2m in their initial trip to Dubai.
Travelling with her partner Jonathan Johnson, 55, Larvin later took £2.8m in 2020.
Larvin was arrested with Johnson in May 2022 at Manchester airport.
Some eleven couriers in the same network have been convicted, with the group taking £104m to Dubai in total in 83 trips between 2019 and 2020.
Beatrice Auty, 26, from London; Jonathan Johnson, 55, and Jo Emma Larvin, 44, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire, and Amy Harrison, 27, from Worcester Park in Surrey, at Isleworth Crown Court, were all convicted of smuggling offences on Tuesday. Others were convicted at earlier hearings.
National Crime Agency senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: "These couriers were important cogs in a large money laundering wheel.
"The crime group they belonged to was responsible for smuggling eye-watering amounts of criminal cash out of the UK.
"This simply wouldn’t have been possible without couriers doing their bidding, in return for a sunshine holiday and a slice of the profit.
"Cash is the lifeblood of organised crime groups, which they re-invest into activities such as drug trafficking. This fuels violence and insecurity around the world, which is why our investigation into other cash couriers continues."
The group were paid around £3,000 each and communicated with each other via a WhatsApp group called Sunshine and Lollipops.
Officers said they believe the money was related to drug dealing.
After being collected and counted in houses in central London, the money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases which would typically each contain around £500,000, weighing around 40 kilos.
The money was sprayed with coffee or air fresheners to prevent them being found by Border Force detection dogs.
Adrian Searle, Director of the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, 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 typically work on behalf of International Controller Networks, who move the finances of the international drug trade, people traffickers, fraudsters and other criminal groups, making the source of the money difficult to trace.
"The criminality this enables costs the UK billions every year, causes misery and ruins lives across the world.
"This case demonstrates the continued commitment by the NCA to crackdown on money laundering and close the vulnerabilities being exploited."
