Flower companies, food companies, real estate.
Wow, a marble and ceramic trading company.
Oh gosh, the list goes on and on and on, doesn't. I mean, there's well over a dozen, nearly a couple of dozen companies here, is there.
I mean, this is one thing that I don't even think the NCAA are aware of the extent of, you know, how many companies and how diverse.
It was, it really is.
So I'm a little bit nervous. I've never done this before.
David Collins is speaking to a gold trader they met a few days.
Before, one of them. Can you just remind me so how much goals am I able to buy? I think you said I could spend one hundred thousand dirhm?
Is that right?
The reason David says he's nervous is that he's undercover. He's continuing his investigation into how criminals like the Sunshine and Lollipops gang were able to carry millions of pounds worth of dirty money from the UK to Dubai and where the money went next.
If you're taking to UK, then.
David's had a tip that the money can end up being turned into gold.
But in your hometown and your kid I don't know what's the rule there.
The trader asked David if he's planning on taking the gold home to the UK.
One or pol brothers customers.
Yeah, they say that if you take gold Bartle it's a problem in the airport.
He explains that simply taking a solid bar of gold might cause problems with UK customs, so they usually the.
Chain, so there's no problem one. So the way you get around it is you put it as a chain round your neck.
How much?
The trader explains, It's easy to change the gold into jewelry that way, No one in customs is going to look at it, meaning you can carry that gold home unchecked, then sell the gold and spend the money.
Did it so? I want to wait? So it's a bit lower.
They discussed gold prices, when to invest, until David thinks it's time to ask the question because just.
Between you and me, just between you and me, literally, some of the money might be for drugs in the UK.
David says, the money might be from drugs in the UK. The gold trader pauses for a second, then says there is no issue on that one. I'm Fiona Hamilton and from the Times. The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. This is Cocainey Episode seven, the Dubai Gold Rush.
So final destination is to dub It is yes, very.
Thanks Leman, Welcome to Dubai and Tasha Airport local time.
Arrived in Dubai late one Monday night. Just like Francesca, the Cashmere I spoke to in the last episode, I picked up my bags and stroll past customs. Unlike Francesca, I didn't have millions of pounds stuffed into my suitcase to declare I'll take this one. Once outside, I get a taxi to my hotel. Very futuristic car, a brand new Tesla. We drive down the Shiksaied Road, the main motorway that runs the length of the city. Skyscraper after
skyscraper filled with offices, condos and hotels whiz by. The city is the beating heart of the United Arab Emirates, one of the more business friendly economies in the Middle East. You're on, Oh, that's the Burge. I'm app yes, Wow, it looks like a windsail, doesn't it. Seeing the Burge Arab Hotel piqued my interest. It's a seven star hotel. Yeah, if that's even a thing. My taxi driver says, it's about ten pounds a night to stay. How much will it costs to have a wedding? Uh?
Where you going?
A lot?
And it's here where Daniel Kinahan, an Irish boxing promoter accused of running a global drug cartel dubbed the Cocaine Cowboys, got married in twenty seventeen. The wedding was said to be a who's who of those in the global drug trade. The US Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly calculated that those on the guest list had shipped twenty three billion pounds worth of cocaine into Europe between them. Do you take the customers there? You have so many dimes? Have you? What jobs did he do?
Though?
Did he never tell you? Do you like business people? They never see ow they have got so much, They never tell the secret of how they earned money macabby jokes. This year, it was revealed that Daniel Kinahan's wife owns a multimillion dollar villa in Dubai with gleaming white walls, elegant arched doorways and bright red roof tiles. I remember Pete Costa, the Dutch pineapple trader linked to the torture
chambers Fiona went to check out. Earlier in this series, he said to have had a Dubai real estate portfolio worth millions. It feels as if this modern city of luxurious skyscrapers and anti shopping malls has become the place of choice for cartel bosses to kick back and malax away from their home countries in a different jurisdiction, Which is what's led me to the next stage in our investigation into the global cocaine business, looking at what happens
to the profits. Once you've got your criminal cash to Dubai, how do you then launder that money on a large scale. Well, you want to get it into the legitimate economy and that makes it harder for law enforcement to trace it. And I've been tipped that a good way to do this is to invest it in gold. Brilliant, Thanks for so this is the center.
Of the main center, is this big shot.
The next day, I leave the main tourist spot of Dubai and go to an area known as the gold souk Asuki is Arabic for market, and this one is full of gold traders at their stalls, So you can buy gold here Gije's. You can weigh it in the gigs? What like the bars of it? Wow? Do people do that? My taxi driver drops me off, Thank you so much. By the streets are full of small stalls, perfume shops, coffee stands as well as this, there's plenty of gold shops.
Dubai was established in the nineteenth century as a small fishing village, but since then it's booms. Oil money, tourism and construction have seen the money flooding in. But gold is also a big part of Dubai's economy. This souk I've just arrived at has existed since the nineteen forties, when traders and merchants from Iran and India first set up their shops. By in nineteen sixties, this area had
become an important hob in a global gold trade. And today people say there's over ten tons of gold in this souk at any one time. But there's a dark side to this story. I've been told that cash is invested into gold by criminals. So how simple would it be for a British criminal to come here and do this.
Of the sea.
That's just what I wanted. I enter part the souk and now I'm officially undercover. I'm in an area which feels a bit like a department store, lined with display counters, and then gold trader shops off to the side. I feel on edge. There's plenty of security guards everywhere. A look a glass shop, windows dripping with gold jewelry hanging from pack displays. They are perfect and exactly what wanted. I'd buy a cheap pair of knockoff sunglasses and a nice belt, and I ask for a recommendation of a
decent gold trader wherever they're going to buy investing. I'm directed to his shop. There's a group of men sitting about making deals underneath a TV screen showing the day's gold market prices, today's market. That's today's market. On the wall, there's a portrait of the ruler of Dubai. Strike up a conversation with one of them. So I'm just trying to work out how basically he's in his early thirties with thick black hair and an easy smile. We're going
to call him Rashid. I won't use his real name.
We'll say surly.
Rashid reaches into a safe and shows me a gold bar. So that's a small, heavier than It's exactly how you'd imagine it would look, a rectangular block, like the kind you see being piled into a robbers van in a Hollywood heist film. It's quite smart, Rashid's polite, but it's noisy here and not private enough for the kind of deal I want to make great thanks for. Outside Rashid's store, I pass a couple more display counters. I enter another
gold traders, just shopping after that price. Much the same happens. The trader pulls a bar of gold from a safe and puts it on the counter. How much I leave? But I'm a bit spooked. I wasn't sure he trusted me. I might have just been imagining things, but I've done a lot of undercover work, and sometimes you get a feeling that the person doesn't quite buy your story. I felt more secure chatting with Rashid, so I head out of the gold Zuk and a few days later give
Rashid a call. I'm okay, how are you?
So I came in.
We get pleasantries out of the way and quickly move on to business. Staying under cover. My plan is to pretend I'm actually a cocaine gangster. With a fortune in drug profits I need to launder. Rashid suggests how I could carry gold out of Dubai back into the UK no questions asked. He says, I can turn my potential gold purchase into a chain to wear through customs without paying any taxes, and that he has British customers who
have done it in the past. So the way you get around it is you put it as a chain round your neck, absolutly, absactly. I want to find out how easy it would be for cocaine gangster to buy thousands of pounds worth of gold here, and what if any checks there would be on the source of the money. So what is Rashid willing to accept?
Just name, your passport number, passport on your phone.
He says. All he really needs is my name for the invoice and my passport number to put on the bill. A photo of my passport on my phone is fine.
And you were found on some time and there's a problem.
But what about the source of my funds? If I was looking to launder my cocaine profits, I certainly wouldn't want anyone doing checks on where that money was from. So I want to see how much gold Rashid might be willing to sell me without any paperwork or check X.
The one one thing is, so do you need any checks to.
Know where I've got the money?
If it's more than like ve so two three kg, it's okay with no checks?
Yeah, okay, because it's just the one thing is I'm not sure where the money has come from.
Yeah, just between you and me, Just between you and me.
Literally, I think some of the money might be from like crime, maybe drugs, like okay, that's just some of the money might be from like drugs in the u K. But I'm not sure. But if there's no checks, is that okay?
You're going to me about exactly?
Yeah?
Yeah, issue on that point.
So what just happened? I just confessed some of the money may come from drugs and crime. At first, Rashid says he can't hear me, but after repeating it, I'm confident he's understood my proposition. He says, if I bring him dear ams, the local currency and not British pounds, then there is no issue on that one. So what does this actually mean? Rashid has admitted that he will sell me three kilograms of gold in cash, knowing the source of that money could well be from drugs such
as cocaine. That's one hundred and eighty thousand pounds of criminal money or three hundred and forty grand in Aussie dollars, nearly a quarter of a million of US. It's that simple. If you, as a cocaine boss running a cartel, could get your money here to Dubai. You can launder nearly two hundred thousand pounds with barely a proper passport check.
Oh yeah, great stuff. I've be in touched. Take care all right, thye.
So that was fascinating. He was not kind of phased at all. Yeah, I mean I am amazed actually by how easy it would be. You know, if I was a criminal, we could be moving kilos of gold very quickly in the next few weeks. Would be able to quite easily launder significant amounts of money through that gold trader. Following that call to Vashid, I revealed that I was, in fact a journalist. I asked him if he had
anything to say about our phone conversation. He told me that his business would require evidence of the source of funds for gold purchases of around ten thousand pounds, and he had no knowledge of criminals buying gold in Dubai. If you look at it.
As a business model, you'll always try and stave on step ahead of your competitor. And there are some really clever people who've offered in crime and they will always find another way to stay half a step ahead, and unfortunately it's just a reality we often have to play catch up.
This is Ian Truby. Ian's the National Crime Agency detective I spoke to in the last episode who helped put abdullahl Fallasse, the ring leader of the Sunshiner Lollipops gang, behind bars. That's the group that smuggled over one hundred million pounds out of the UK, using al Fallas's business Omnivest Gold Trading as a cover. Once some money got to Dubai, Ian and his team believer was laundered. But how exactly the gang did it was harder to work out.
Sterling's gone in been changed into local currency and that currency is in turn being handed off to somebody else. We've got some evidence that there were some investment in gold, there was some investment in mining interests, but how much of that investment was from this particular cash I can't comment I just don't have that data why gold. Gold is a really attractive commodity for criminals. It holds its value. You can source it from countries where there is no control,
places like Africa, South America. There's an awful lot of illegal mining going on. Unfortunately, I don't think it's too difficult to get that gold into the legitimate supply chains, get it stuck in a vault and that's it. That value is set there. It's an attractive commodity. It's an appreciating commodity.
So following the thread, I mean quite literally, coca plants turned into cocaine transported by the cartels. You know, the commodity has been sold in the UK that is then being turned into gold bars at the end of that process.
From my interpretation of what I've seen on this, an element of that was happening Dubai being a gold market. Now as much as anything else, that gold market would also potentially be used by the criminals for laundering purposes or the value transferred to by more cocaine or other illicit commodity.
So as Ian says, the National Crime Agency believes some of what Alphallaci did with the money from the Sunshine and Lollipops gang could have ended up in a Dubai gold souk. Now it was time to fully turn my attention to al Phallasse and his front company, Omnives Gold Trading. This was the company whose name was on letters that the cash mules showed customs officials when arriving at Dubai Airport.
The next station is Business Bay.
I got hold of some documents that showed Omnives Gold Trading was located in an area of Dubai called Business Bay, an area packed with corporate high rises and there's ever swanky hotels. It's hot. You sometimes forget when you're in Dubai with all the air corn in the hotels, taxi and metro that this is a city in a desert. I make my way to one specific office building. It's
a thirty six story glass skyscraper called Prime Tower. It's in this building that Abdullah Alflass's company, Omnives Gold Trading was registered. The documents also reveal that Omnives Gold was liquidated in November twenty twenty one, just days before Alflassi was arrested. In layman's terms, that means that officially stop trading and closed down, but I want to know if there's any trace of it left in this building, and if anyone remembers anything about it. And to be on
the safe side, I stay undercover. Dubai and the UAE is not a country with great media freedom. I don't want my cover to be blown. So I head inside, pretending to be a British businessman. If anyone asks, I walk quickly past security, looking straight ahead and find the lifts. I go up a few floors from the documents. I'm pretty sure I've got the right one. I exit the lift and I'm in a corridor filled with pre walls,
dark floor tiles, and windowless wooden doors. Each one has a small sign to the side of the frame with the name of the business and an office number.
Remember Omnivest Gold. I have seen this name. I think I have seen. You are not going to get side, but I talked I have seen somewhere. Maybe he can garden.
One of the office workers walking through the holes remembers omnives Gold trading. He confers with a colleague or friend, who then takes me to where he thinks it once was.
Thank you, Thank you.
So I'm knocking on a door it's got no sign on the door whatsoever. A man answers, I'm looking for Omnivest Gold Trading.
My English, another dated thank you.
I'm trying to look in to see a bit more, but I'm asked to wait a moment. Hi, I think the thanks showing you. We're looking for Omnives Gold Trading gold gold. This time, a woman with dark brown eyes answers the door, wearing a hitje ab. It's called Omnivest. She doesn't really give me the chance to see in keeping the door slightly. Ajar, I'm so close to getting a good look inside the office where Alphallas's money laundering operation was registered. You're not Omnis because I thought you were.
It's completely different.
Another activity, another company.
The woman politely tells me that Omnives Gold Trading isn't here, As she says, the current business is completely different. Another activity, another company. Thank you so much, thank you, very grateful. I feel deflated and desperate to know more about Abdullah al Falassi and what he was doing with the money
that has been laundered out here in Dubai. Was Omnivest Gold physically once here behind that door were the people in the office or did al Faalaci simply rent it so he had an address for his documents and that one hundred million pounds plus of criminal money, much of it from the cocaine trade. Where did it go? It feels like it's dissolved into thin air. But it's time to leave Dubai and head back to the UK. I've got a flight to catch and have exhausted all my leads for now. I'm here. I'm here.
Hi.
Oh yeah, oh Hi David, Yeah, not bad.
Back home in Manchester. A coal fi owner, my colleague on this investigation. Obviously, you know we've been looking at this Sunshine and Lollipop's Cash Mules gang the National Crime Agency. I want to show us something because I have a fresh lead on Abdullah Flassi. A former colleague of ours, John Simpson, who used to be a crime correspondent at times, I had gotten hold of some documents which he was happy to share. I've sent you an email. Can you
see the one? It's a pdf Omnives Gold Trading LLC.
Yeah, I'm just opening that up.
The documents were looking at give me much more information about Abdullahu Flasse if you just go into the second pdf on that email. If you can see what one of them shows is all the companies that he was involved in, not just omni vest gold trading, He had stakes and a whole load of organizations, most of them listed as a director or general manager.
Gosh, there's a really long list, isn't that.
It's huge.
Flower companies, food companies, Yeah, yeah, real estate, Wow, a.
Marble and ceramic trading company.
Oh gosh, the list goes on and on and on, doesn't. I mean there's well over a dozen, nearly a couple of dozen companies here, is there?
The scope is huge. I don't quite know what to make of it all. I mean, this is one thing that I don't even think the NCAA are aware of the extent of you know, how many companies and how diverse it was, it really is. There's something else was going to show you as well, which I think you'll be interested in. Yeah, just on that original email where the PDFs were. If you click on do you see the first link? We're looking at a website that showed Alpha Lasse's reach went far beyond the UK and the UAE,
because it doesn't stop in Dubai. They actually stretched the West Africa as.
Well, oh yeah, I wasn't expert. That's really interesting.
The website is for a company called Atlantic Holdings. The site is no longer available online, but this is an archive version of it. Atlantic Holdings is based in Ghana.
Oh I see you're in Ghana now, So.
Now we're in Ghana and it was the parent company of Omnives Gold Trading, the company Alpha Lasse used to give cover to his cash mules. So what we can see here is that in July sixteenth, twenty nineteen, Omnives Gold Trading Llc was part of Atlantic Holdings and on its website it says Omnives Gold Trading LLC is our trading arm in Dubai specializing in gold and rough diamond trading. We import raw gold, refine and sell to financial institutions within the UAE. Oh wow, So what does this all mean?
Basically from what this website is saying, Al Fallaci's company, Omnives Gold Trading was the Dubai arm of a business based in Ghana, West Africa. Right and get this Furda. Omnivest is also a member of the UAE Kimberly Process Certification scheme that is a global initiative for stemming the trade in conflict diamonds and promoting peace and security. And yet we know this same company that claims to have this certificate for this scheme is basically being used as a cover for organized crime.
It's just extraordinary, isn't it incredible?
I think it's worth repeating this. According to this website, the company omnives Gold Trading was allegedly part of a global initiative to promote peace and security around conflict diamonds. If true, the audacity of this does amaze me. Alphaalasei was using omnivs Gold as a front for organized crime. I've contacted the Kimberly Process certification scheme asking if he had any comment on this, but they didn't respond. We now know that al Fallaci owned a whole host of businesses.
We also know that omnives Gold was part of that parent company, Atlantic Holdings. But who was Alphallase We know he's an emorati whose wife's family owned property in London, and previous to this had no criminal record, But the website revealed new information about his past and also something
more about his business. If you click about us and scroll down, it says our board members and there's three of them on there, and one of them he looks a lot younger than his police mugshot, and he's kind of wearing his emirs white robes and headdress.
Yeah, and it's yeah, but.
That is Abdullah al Fhaalasei. What we're looking at is the three board members on the Atlantic Holdings website back in twenty twenty, and there he is. Abdullah Alphaalassi is on the board. He's not just a director of Omnivest Gold Trading, but sits on the board of the wider umbrella organization. Interestingly, he goes by the name Abdullah bin Beyat. His full name is Abdullah Mohammad Ali bin Beyat Alphaalassi.
He just hasn't actually said al Fallaci on there, but it's clearly him.
It's clearly him.
Like some of these details that he holds an MSc from the Dubai Please College. Yeah, and there it mentions omni Vest directly.
Today, I'm going to take you on a trip around by.
Picture this get at the highest three sixty infinity pool in the world exclusively. In recent years, Dubai's become a holiday destination and the UA is targeted tourists with adverts like the ones I'm watching.
Now as City the redefines the Lasuer experience. They're talking about fine dining, they're taking you from the sky, the arcis is in the raven sea, and of course vintage rides for how you're looking like a movie star.
But as I'm finding out, behind this veneer a place of fun, some and affordable decadence if you look for it, there's an uneasy tension. In February this year, the global watchdog that looks at how countries deal with money laundering took the UAE off its Gray list. That's the list of countries under increased monitoring for how they're dealing with things like money laundering and terrorist financing. While working on this series, I contacted the UA authorities and asked them
about Omnives Gold and Abdullah al Fallase. Here's part of their response, read by one of the producers on this show.
In February this year, the Financial Action Task Force, the global standard setter for measures to fight money laundering, praised the UAE's significant progress. The UAE is committed to continuing these efforts and actions more than ever today and over the longer term.
Back to al Pallasse, omnives Gold and Atlantic Holdings. Now we know that Abdullah Felase went to jail in twenty twenty two for being the ringleader of the Sunshine and Lollipops money laundering operation. We also know that the website for Atlantic Holdings is no longer active and there is no sign of Omnivs Gold trading anymore. But I came across from other website with a very similar name. It's called Atlantic trust Holding.
Yeah, I'm just looking through this one now.
So the interesting thing about this company, which is still active is that it shares a lot of the same companies that Atlantic Holdings had.
Wow.
I wanted to know more about this and if this company has any connection to Alpha Lasse, who's currently in prison in the UK. So I contacted Atlantic trust Holding and asked them. The chairman sent me a response, part of which is read here by producer.
Atlantic Trust Holding has been in existence for close to twenty years now and had no dealings with Atlantic Holdings of Dubai. The website for Atlantic Holdings of Dubai was controlled by Alpha Lasse and his business partner. We had nothing to do with any of his activities as a matter of fact, I've had I had no contact with Abdullah for some eight years now. We know nothing about
his activities, if anything at all. I would be someone to be jubilant because Abdullah used his influence to literally bully people.
So that's it. Then that trail ends there. I still don't know exactly what Alpha Lassi did with the one hundred and ten million that was smuggled into Dubai using his signature and Omnivus gold as a cover, but I have managed to find out more about his various business interests in the UAE than has ever been known before. This tangled web has shown me how international drugs gangs can launder their money. Following the web of companies laid out in these documents shows me just how complex and
multinational the modern day cocaine business has become. We followed the raw material from the fields where it's grown, to the ports and tunnels where it's exported out of South America to Europe, at the massive distribution hub in Rotterdam, to the UK and then Dubai. At every stage a different criminal group has been involved in that part of the business. And then from here the money trail has suddenly split and leads into different countries and different businesses,
to gold, to mining. The National Crime Agency has also told me that an alleged Sunshine and Lollipops gang member was found with gold bars in Tanzanaia. I've also heard via a source that Alphallasse was in contact with people in the Netherlands and Hong Kong. While Alphallasse is now behind bars, we know the profits from the cocaine trade are at a record high, with money laundering widespread, and I've got no doubt that there's more people like al
Fallasse willing to do the same. Fiona and I finish off our chat. I don't think I've ever seen an illustration quite so clear.
Step by step, yeah, of kind of from the UK coat trade, through cash money through to Dubai. Let me have this purchase of gold in Tanzania and Africa. It's like a full circle, isn't it Almost?
It just shows, doesn't it, how this is obviously a very fruitful area for the type of people that we're looking into to legitimize money and put it into other ventures far away from where the drug dealing is originally going on that you've been sort of exposing in this podcast.
Yeah, absolutely, so is that the end of our trail? Well no, not quite. So this is it. This is the end of the line. Because my other colleague on this investigation, Stephen Drill, has arrived home after visiting the Coker Fields in Columbia and the Narco Tunnels in Mexico earlier in this series. And while we thought the money trail had disappeared into this web of overseas investments and corporate records, Stephen was just about to pick that trail up,
running right past his front door. Hi, my name's Stephen Drill.
I'm a journalist.
I just want to touch base. Are you the owner of the property?
I just was wondering if the price has been seized by the police or what's happening with it now?
That's next time in the final episode of Cocaine Inc.
Cocaine Nick is a joint investigation from The Times, The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters are David Collins, Steven Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. Additional reporting on this episode from John Simpson at The News Movement. The series is produced by Sam Chanterassak. The executive producers are Will Rowe and Dan Box. Audio production and editing is by
Jasper Leak, with original music by Tom Burchell. Special thanks on this episode to our security team Chris Kemp and Pete Emerson Thomas And if you want to get in touch with any questions or thoughts on the series, email cocaine In at the Times dot co dot uk