A Scots yoga teacher who smuggled millions of pounds of a criminal gang’s ‘dirty money’ out of the UK to Dubai has dodged jail.
Details of the Smuggling
Bridget Taylor, 43, earned £3,000 a trip to take suitcases full of loot through Heathrow Airport to be laundered in banks in the United Arab Emirates.
The money mule sprinkled coffee granules in the cases and used air fresheners to avoid sniffer dogs detecting up to £500,000 of dodgy cash inside.
Court Ruling
Taylor, from Edinburgh, was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court in London yesterday to 21 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
Fellow mules Samantha Horst, 51, of Staines, Surrey, and Craig Bramall, 42, of Wigan, Lancashire, received similar jail terms, suspended for two years.
Court Heard
Horst, a former Sky TV employee, smuggled a total of £6.8million, Taylor transported £3.3million, while budding restaurateur Bramall took £1.2million.
Judge Simon Davis said: ‘Each of the flyers was carefully recruited, with the air of being a regular traveller.
‘Bridget Taylor, you are capable of manipulating and thinking very quickly under pressure. You saw a chance to make a quick buck, you took it and you threw away the good character you built up for so many years.
‘Bridget Taylor you threw it away, Samantha Horst you threw it away, Craig Bramall you threw it away.’
Another of the money mules was Beatrice Auty of London. The National Crime Agency (NCA) released videos taken by Auty showing her laying out huge wads of notes. The 26-year-old often accompanied fellow couriers to Heathrow.
Last July, Auty was sentenced to 42 months in prison suspended for two years. The total number so far convicted of involvement in the conspiracy is 14.
NCA investigators found money mules carried £104million on 83 Emirates flights from Heathrow to Dubai.
John Werhun of the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘Criminals want to find ways to hold on to their illegal cash and one way is to move it out the country.
‘As cash couriers, Horst, Taylor and Bramall were a vital part of the overall criminal enterprise. Proceedings to recover the defendants’ criminal proceeds have commenced.’
