Six organised criminal gangsters convicted for large scale money laundering inside DVD cases

ix members of an organised criminal gang (OCG) have been convicted for playing key roles in smuggling as much as £430, 925 in cash hidden inside DVDs cases on their way to Dubai.

Atif Hussain, 33, Usman Mahmood, 38, and Shafiq Zahid, 47, were convicted today of being part of the money laundering arrangement.

On a previous occasion, Asad Saddique, 34, Haroon Iqbal, 38, and Tallat Hussain, 34, pleaded guilty to the same offence.

This criminal activity was investigated by the National Crime Agency. The Crown Prosecution Service made the decision to prosecute.

The cash was exported to Dubai in airfreight consignments through Birmingham, Heathrow and Manchester Airports by a company called Express Logistics Fulfillment Ltd, a fake company that did no legitimate business and operated from three different premises in Birmingham and Huddersfield.

It came to light in January 2019 when the Border Force officers at Manchester Airport searched and seized two export consignments delivered to the airport to be sent to Dubai.  The officers found that the consignments held smaller boxes packed with DVD and computer games.  

Inside the cases there were heat sealed copies of a Radar flyer and the cash was found inside some of those heat sealed copies. The boxes which held the cash were marked with a sticky dot.  

The two consignments contained a total of £430,295 in English and Scottish banknotes concealed within DVD cases.

Further investigation identified that in the five months between August 2018 and January 2019, Express Logistics had exported a total of 142 consignments of various weights to Dubai. The court was asked to draw an inference that between £10 and £15 million had been exported in this way, based on this and all the other relevant evidence.

Asad Saddique acted as the head of the group in the UK who set up and controlled the Express Logistics company. He coordinated the arrangements for the cash to be packed into DVD boxes at premises operated by the gang before being distributed by air freight to Dubai.

Haroon Iqbal was deputy leader of the UK side operations and oversaw crucial aspects of the operations.

Atif Hussain, Tallat Hussain, and Usman Mahmood packed the cash and drove the DVDs to airports including Manchester, Heathrow and Birmingham.

Shafiq Zahid utilised his contacts in Dubai where he made regular trips. He was also a participant in a fake recruitment scheme in which an advert was placed seeking to recruit Logistics Coordinators and Courier Drivers, purportedly with a legitimate company, Reed Online.  

Many of the other convicted men were "recruited" in this way, giving the impression that they were working for a legitimate company.

Riaz Jakhura, Specialist Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Each of these men played a crucial and active part in the money laundering enterprise, processing criminal proceeds to disguise their illegal origin. This process underpins and enables organised crime, allowing organised crime groups to further their operations and conceal their assets.

“The Crown Prosecution Service has begun proceedings to recover illegally obtained monies and assets from these crimes.”