Girlfriend jailed for money laundering

May 3 2008 by Sam Wonfor, The Journal

THE long-term girlfriend of wanted fugitive Allan Foster was jailed for money laundering yesterday after a court heard how she enjoyed a lavish lifestyle on the proceeds of his drugs empire.

Shareena McAuley had been claiming jobseekers allowance while living on Tyneside with Foster, the prime suspect in the gangland murder of David ‘Noddy’ Rice and one of the UK’s most wanted men.

Behind the scenes, she helped launder Foster’s illegal drug money, depositing more than £140,000 into bank accounts, buying designer clothes and arranging financial deals to buy top-of-the range cars including an £80,000 Porsche Carrera.

Her arrest followed the investigation into the death of Mr Rice in May 2006 which led police to recover nearly £66,000 cash in binliners – one bearing Foster’s fingerprint – from the home she shares with her mother in Mozart Street, South Shields.

Yesterday at Newcastle Crown Court, McAuley, 27, was jailed for 18 months after admitting conspiring with Foster to conceal the proceeds of criminal activity between June 2000 and September 2006.

Her mother, Marilyn McAuley, 56, was given a 36-week jail term suspended for two years after admitting possessing criminal property on May 26, 2006, by allowing her home to be used as a safehouse for Foster’s drug money.

Judge Esmond Faulks said it was clear Foster had been acting as a “major drug dealer” in the North of England over the period of the conspiracy.

The judge told Shareena McAuley: “Clearly you were assisting Allan Foster to spend the proceeds of crime and you were enjoying a high lifestyle.

“I accept that has now turned to ashes and you have become bankrupt and there is no suggestion you have secret bank accounts in this country or abroad.

“You have no previous convictions, you plead guilty and you are the sole carer of a young child and you have written to the court an eloquent letter of apology.

“It is said on your behalf you were under the spell of Allan Foster from a young age and he had you in his thrall, further beat and abused you and made you do precisely what he said.

“Nevertheless, the public has a right to know those who benefit from crime will receive an appropriate punishment. In your case, a prison sentence is inevitable.”

Jamie Adams, defending, said Shareena McAuley, had been Foster’s partner since she was 13 and although she had been “besotted” by him, he had been abusive and controlling and she had come to “live in dread” of him.

“She didn’t dare contradict him in any way at all,” Mr Adams said. “She had really little or no control as to what went into their bank accounts because they were not really her bank accounts at all, they were his.

“What it comes down to is she was a prisoner of her situation as much as anyone could be, given the long years she has been with this man.”

Tom Moran, defending, said Marilyn McAuley, of previous good character, was a quiet and diffident woman who had “taken the line of least resistance” by doing nothing to stop Foster’s drug money being stored at her home.

“I don’t think it is suggested she was the beneficiary of Allan Foster’s drug dealing,” he told the court.

At an earlier hearing, Judge Faulks made an order that £70,440 seized by police be confiscated as the proceeds of crime.

The victim

FATHER-of-seven David “Noddy” Rice was gunned down at point-blank range when he was lured to a remote South Shields car park close to Marsden Grotto pub on May 24, 2006.

The 42-year-old from St Vincent Street, South Shields, was ambushed by two masked men and shot nine times.

It is thought Allan Foster, 31, originally from South Tyneside, flew from his Spanish hideaway to carry out the assassination with a silenced semi-automatic gun.

He jetted out of the country the day after the killing, and earlier this year he was named by police among 10 suspected criminals hiding in the “Costa del Crime”.

But detectives last night reiterated their desire to trace him.

Det Supt Barbara Franklin, who is leading the murder investigation, said: “This inquiry will not stop until all of those involved in Mr Rice’s death are arrested and stand trial for what was a callous and cold-blooded assassination. A large team of officers continue to work on this case.” But while Foster remains at large, his two accomplices are currently serving prison sentences for their role in Mr Rice’s murder.

Steven John Bevens, 38, formerly of Sandray Close, Birtley, Gateshead, changed his plea in the middle of his trial at Newcastle Crown Court to admit murder, and was handed life sentence for his part in the shooting.

In March 2007, getaway driver Derek Blackburn, 51, of Humberside, who turned informer on the duo, was given four years for assisting an offender, later cut to two and a half years.