Tara Hanlon: British woman jailed for smuggling millions in cash to Dubai

Mule was caught on her fourth trip with the equivalent of $2.6m in her luggage

Tara Hanlon, 30, admitted four counts of money laundering after being caught at Heathrow Airport, London, trying to smuggle £1.9 million into Dubai. NCA

A British woman has been jailed after she was caught smuggling millions in cash to Dubai.

Recruitment consultant Tara Hanlon, from Leeds, in the north of England, was caught with £1.9m ($2.6m) in sterling hidden in five suitcases at London’s Heathrow Airport.

She was detained on her fourth smuggling trip.

Judge Karen Holt, sitting at Isleworth Crown Court in London, sentenced her to 34 months’ imprisonment.

A confiscation hearing to recover proceeds of crime from her has been set for September.

Hanlon, 30, pleaded guilty to carrying a total of £3.6m in criminal cash on three trips to the UAE in the summer of 2020.

She was stopped with her largest haul of banknotes on her fourth and final trip, in October last year.

The court heard she was stopped at the airport by a customs official when travelling with a friend.

When asked about the purpose of the visit and her luggage, the defendant said she was going on a “girls’ trip” and that she had checked in the five suitcases because she “wasn’t sure what to wear” whilst there.

Security officials said the find, vacuum packed in five suitcases and covered in ground coffee to hide the smell from sniffer dogs, was the largest individual cash seizure at the UK border in 2020.

In a prepared statement to investigators, Hanlon said that it was the first trip she had taken, that she was not being paid and believed it to be legal as the money would be declared in Dubai.

Brazen smuggling attempts around the world - in pictures

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  US Customs arrested this Fly Jamaica Airways cabin crew attendant, who was found to have 4kg of cocaine strapped to his legs and concealed under tights and trousers. The haul at New York's JFK Airport would have been worth about $160,000 on the street. Photo: US Customs and Border Protection

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  Police in Bogata, Colombia arrested this Canadian woman for trying to smuggle 2kg of cocaine on to a Canada-bound flight in September, 2013. The woman pretended to be pregnant and hid the drugs in a latex belly. AFP

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  This spectacularly conspicuous attempt to smuggle €30,000 of cocaine ended in arrest for a Colombian passenger in July, 2019. The man, 65, concealed one kilo of the illicit powder by gluing it to his head. He was caught when police noticed the height of his black toupee, when his flight from Bogota landed in Barcelona. Photo: Policia Nacional

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  Australian customs officers foiled this attempt to smuggle the party drug ecstasy into the country, concealed in a Mr Potato Head toy. Officers at Sydney International Mail Centre cracked open the Toy Story figurine and found 293g of the drug in October, 2007. AFP

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  Portuguese police released this image of multicoloured swim trunks with two brown rubber bags — supposed to look like buttocks — attached. The passenger who was wearing them was caught at the airport in Lisbon, off a flight from Belem in northern Brazil in February 2018. The fake buttocks contained enough cocaine for 5,000 doses. Photo: Portuguese National Police

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  Guatemalan smugglers were found to have scooped out the cream filling of dozens of vanilla wafers and replaced it with wraps of cocaine. US Customs and Border Protection arrested the Guatemalan passenger carrying them at George Bush Airport in Houston in April 2015. The nearly 2 kilos of cocaine would have a street value of more than $60,000. AP

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  Few airports in the world will let you through security without removing your shoes, due to the threat from terrorism and to tackle drug smuggling. Australian Customs discovered nearly half a kilo of heroin in the hollowed out soles of these shoes. AFP

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  Customs officers at Dubai's main airport foiled 155 attempts to smuggle 'talismans and black magic items', related to witchcraft and sorcery, in 2015. Officers said criminals take advantage of often vulnerable people with superstitions. Photo: Dubai Customs

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  In August 2019, 755kg of methamphetamine was found hidden under frozen cow hide from Mexico. The crystal meth was wrapped in aluminium foil and sandwiched among 18 pallets of hide that arrived in Sydney aboard a shipping container marked 'Salty Bovine Skin'. AFP

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  Crystal meth wraps are removed from inside hollowed out hardwood flooring at a warehouse in near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in April, 2017. The haul had been shipped from China and had a street value of $681m. AFP

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  London-based seafood salesman Gilbert Khoo was sentenced to jail at a British court in March, 2020 for smuggling live 'glass eels' to Hong Kong. He was caught with 200kg and the total haul between 2015 and 2017 was worth about $69m. Photo: National Crime Agency

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  Khoo, pictured holding two pieces of gold, was arrested after Border Force officers seized a consignment at Heathrow Airport. Photo: National Crime Agency

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  Dubai Police released this image of drugs in a hollowed out book. It was part of a consignment of two tonnes of drugs of various types. A multinational police operation tackled criminal activities related to drug smuggling and trafficking in Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Austria in November 2017. Photo: Dubai Police

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  A passenger tried to smuggle a whole roasted hog from Peru to Atlanta in November, 2016, for Thanksgiving. US Customs staff seized the hidden pig, which is banned by laws designed to prevent foot and mouth disease and swine fever. Photo: US Customs and Border Protection

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  Drugs are hidden inside a microwave as seizures are displayed at Dubai Airport in July 2019. Chris Whiteoak / The National

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  One of the largest drug busts in Dubai's history was made at Jebel Ali Port in May 2019. Sniffer dogs alerted officers to a shipment that was found to contain 5.7 million Captagon pills. Photo: Dubai Police

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  Captagon is a type of amphetamine originally used for attention deficit disorders, but was banned in the 1980s due to its highly addictive nature. Smugglers in Syria have thrived during the chaos of the war there, and many shipments have been traced to the Arab state. Photo: Dubai Police

However, inquiries with the airline and a search of the defendant’s phone by authorities revealed that she had made three previous visits in July and August as a courier, and had been paid around £3,000 for each trip.

After liaising with authorities in Dubai, the National Crime Agency (NCA) discovered Hanlon had declared she was carrying more than a million pounds in cash upon arrival on each occasion, totalling £3.5 million.

It sparked a broader investigation that led to eight others being arrested over a suspected £50m international money-laundering racket.

Investigators believe Hanlon was part of a wider network of couriers who travel regularly between Britain and Dubai with cash stashed in their luggage.

“Cash is the lifeblood of organised crime and Tara Hanlon was heavily involved in moving several million pounds out of the country,” said Ian Truby, a senior officer at the UK’s National Crime Agency.

Tara Hanlon, 30, has been jailed after smuggling $2.6m in cash into Dubai. Twitter

“We are determined to do all we can to stop that flow of illicit finance and disrupt the criminal networks involved in money laundering.”

Stephen Grattage, defending, claimed that Hanlon was vulnerable at the time of the offences following the sudden death of her mother in March and having been furloughed from her job shortly afterwards.

However, during sentencing, Judge Karen Holt told her: “Although you were vulnerable at the time, I don’t find that you have been exploited and find that you knew what you were doing.”