Ripon couple avoid jail as part of £100m smuggling network

Jo Emma Larvin, 44, and Jonathan Johnson, 55, both from Ripon, took a collective £5m across border control in 2020 and 2022.

Johnson and Larvin were part of a money laundering network which smuggled more than £100m out of the UK to the UAE.

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The network transported the cash to Dubai during 83 separate trips between November 2019 and October 2020, overseen by ringleader Abdullah Alfalasi, 48, who was jailed for more than nine years in July last year.

The couriers, who were paid around £3,000 for each trip and would be booked on business class flights due to the extra luggage allowance, communicated on WhatsApp groups, including one titled ’Sunshine and lollipops’.

Jo Emma Larvin (Image: NCA)

Larvin made two trips to Dubai in August and September 2020; one with another courier, Amy Harrison, when they took seven cases between them containing £2.2 million and another with her partner Jonathan Johnson, when they took eight suitcases containing £2.8 million.

Larvin and Johnson were arrested at Manchester Airport in March 2022.

The network collected cash from criminal groups around the UK, which was mainly the profits of drug dealing, and took it to counting houses that were rented apartments in Central London.

The money was then vacuum packed and separated into suitcases, which would typically each contain around £500,000. They were sprayed with coffee or air fresheners in an effort to prevent them being found by sniffer dogs.

NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: “These couriers smuggled cash out of the UK on an industrial scale, at the behest of organised crime groups.

“They were prepared to travel out to the UAE for a holiday in the sun, in return for a cut of the profit.

Jonathan Johnson (Image: NCA)

“This case demonstrates the NCA’s commitment to targeting the criminal networks involved in money laundering.

“Profits are often re-invested into criminal activities such as drug trafficking. This fuels violence and insecurity in the UK and across the world, which is why our investigation continues.”

At Isleworth Crown Court on Wedsnesday (July 12), Johnson was sentenced to 12 months suspended for two years and Larvin to 24 months suspended for two years.

Following the sentecing on Wednesday, 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 work on behalf of international controller networks, who move the finances of the international drug trade, people traffickers, fraudsters and other criminal groups.

“This case demonstrates the continued commitment to crackdown on money laundering and target organised crime groups who cause misery and ruin lives.”