A passenger found with £1 million ($1.3 million) in cash in his suitcases at Heathrow Airport has admitted money laundering.
Mazen Al Shaar, 48, was on his way to Beirut when he was stopped by Border Force officers at the UK's biggest airport on March 15, and the money was seized.
Mr Al Shaar appeared at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to concealing, disguising, converting, transferring or removing criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Mr Al Shaar's barrister Andrew Bird told the court that his client is a person “of good character” who was “acting under direction” rather than being the owner of the cash.
The amount he was caught with is about £1 million, Mr Bird said, but the final figure will be revealed once the UK's National Crime Agency finishes counting the cash, which is being held in a warehouse.
Prosecutor Atticus Blick told the court he accepted the case put forward by Mr Al Shaar's legal team that he was acting as a courier. As such, the offence is being treated as if he was acting under coercion and not for personal gain, he said.
Judge Karen Holt said Mr Al Shaar will be sentenced on April 29 and the offence carries a maximum prison sentence of three years but his guilty plea entitles him to a reduction to about two years.
Al Shaar, a supermarket worker from Middlesex, had claimed he only had £500 in cash on him and was leaving the UK to visit family. But officers searched his three suitcases and two of them contained the huge cash haul. He was convicted following an investigation by the National Crime Agency.
NCA operations manager Peter Jones said: “Cash like this is the lifeblood of organised crime groups. So many of the serious and organised crime threats facing the UK are driven by offenders’ greed, their thirst for money.”
Mr Jones said Al Shaar's conviction has “punched a hole” in a “crime group’s finances and very importantly, taken a trusted money launderer out of use”.
The Home Office said the seizure “highlights Border Force's dedicated efforts to protect our borders and keep the public safe”.
“Our officers are trained to spot suspicious behaviour and identify attempts to move illicit cash and other prohibited items across our borders,” said a representative. “We continue to work closely with law enforcement partners including the NCA to disrupt criminal networks.”
Al Shaar's arrest came soon after customs officials at Beirut Airport arrested a man arriving from Turkey with a bag containing $1.4 million in cash.
A group of couriers who smuggled cash into Dubai as part of a £100 million money-laundering operation were jailed in the UK in 2023.
Gang members were paid about £3,000 each to take business-class flights with money from drug deals vacuum-sealed and packed into suitcases, typically containing up to £500,000 and weighing 40kg each.
The network collected cash – believed to be the profits of drug deals – from criminal groups in the UK and took it to counting houses, usually in rented apartments in central London.
In less than a year, couriers communicating through a WhatsApp group called Sunshine and Lollipops took more than 80 flights carrying the money.
Their network smuggled more than £104 million from the UK to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020.
They were overseen by Abdullah Alfalasi, 47, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year after an operation led by the National Crime Agency.
Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater
Rating: 4/5
GIANT REVIEW
Starring: Amir El-Masry, Pierce Brosnan
Director: Athale
Rating: 4/5
Company%C2%A0profile
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2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
States of Passion by Nihad Sirees,
Pushkin Press
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
More coverage from the Future Forum
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Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
