A former male model and airport police officer who is believed to have laundered millions in organised crime cash has been surrendered to the North, where he was sentenced to 20 months for having €180,000 in his luggage at Belfast International Airport.
Serial launderer Mark Adams (44), who booked close to 500 flights in and out of the UK in a four-year period, was previously jailed here after he was caught laundering over €1 million for criminals.
At Laganside Crown Court in Belfast in January 2022, Mark Adams pleaded guilty to attempting to remove criminal property and to arranging to remove criminal property by carrying €180,550 through Belfast International airport to board a flight to Alicante in May 2018.
He admitted that he attempted to remove the money from the North on May 9th, 2018, knowing or suspecting the money to be proceeds of crime.
He also pleaded guilty to entering into an arrangement, namely the attempted removal of criminal property from Northern Ireland, knowing or suspecting that this arrangement would facilitate the retention, use or control of such criminal property, by persons unknown, between May 13th, 2013 and May 10th, 2018.
The offences each carry a maximum penalty of up to 14 years’ imprisonment.
In May 2022, Adams, with a last address at Castleheath, Malahide, Co Dublin, was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment, with a further 10 months to be served on licence. This sentence was to run consecutively to a prison term he was already serving in the Republic that expired in December last year.
Adams was given a five-year jail term at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October 2020 for his role in laundering approximately €1.2 million in cash that was the proceeds of crime.
Adams had pleaded guilty to engaging in handling €582,045, the proceeds of criminal conduct, at Dublin Airport on September 11, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to money laundering in relation to €227,130 at Bank of Ireland, Dublin Airport; €298,280 at PTSB, Main Street, Malahide and €78,990 at Bank of Ireland Credit Card Centre on dates between January 2012 and March 2017.
In passing sentence, Judge Martin Nolan said, as an airport policeman for 13 years, Adams “knew the ways of the world” and would have been under no illusions that he was aiding and assisting criminal enterprises.
In August 2021, Adams was temporarily surrendered by the High Court here so that he could attend his court proceedings in the North. He was returned to the Republic in June 2022 after being in custody there for 10 months.
The warrant for his surrender stated that Adams was stopped by UK Border Force officers in May 2018 and asked about two brown envelopes he concealed in his hand luggage.
Adams confirmed to Border Force officers that he had packed the bag himself, and when asked whether anyone had given him anything to take out of the country, he replied: “Yes, €180,000.”
The respondent had booked 497 international flights into or out of the UK between May 14th, 2014, and May 9th, 2018. On 64 occasions, the outward and return flights were within a matter of hours, the warrant states.
Lawyers for Adams had objected to his re-surrender to the North on humanitarian grounds, arguing that he may be subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment while in prison based on his past experience there.
At the High Court on Friday, Mr Justice David Keane said it had been submitted that Adams had been subjected to threats of violence and when this was coupled with his medical needs it amounted to inhumane or degrading conditions, should he be surrendered to serve time in Maghaberry Prison.
Adams had submitted that he had previously been wrongly identified as a member of An Garda Síochána in a media article, leading to a letter being passed under his prison door by those he claimed were paramilitaries, telling him to leave the landing or he would be harmed.
In his order surrendering Adams, Mr Justice Keane noted that while Adams had submitted that he struggled with his mental health no documents regarding his mental health difficulties had been put before the court.
Mr Justice Keane said that prison reports on Maghaberry Prison noted that inter-prisoner violence had been decreasing since 2008 and that Adams had not himself been the subject of physical attack in the 10 months he was in custody there.
Mr Justice Keane said a “systemic failing” in the prison system in the North had not been established.
The judge said a “real risk” of inhumane conditions or degradation had to be established in order for the High Court to refuse surrender. He said that the "mere possibility" of such treatment did not establish a real risk of ill-treatment that would be sufficient to breach his fundamental rights.
“His own evidence says he was not subject to physical or ill-treatment, other than threats. The possibility of such is not enough,” said Mr Justice Keane, who ordered Adams’ surrender.
In the warrant for Adams’ surrender, money-laundering expert Detective Sergeant Adrian Ward of South Yorkshire Police opined that Adams’ travel arrangements were “consistent with the act of someone transporting or delivering something between one place and another…” and that there were “elements of a money laundering system identified within the evidence consistent with Adams acting as part of that system, attempting to smuggle cash as a cash courier”.
In the UK’s National Crime Agency's statement welcoming Adams' sentence in the North in May 2022, the agency said: "Working with our Irish colleagues we were able to spot a pattern of him regularly travelling out of airports in both the Republic and the UK, and returning home shortly afterwards.
"Each time he is likely to have taken tens or even hundreds of thousands of euros and may have been responsible for laundering many millions of criminal money in total," the agency said.
The jail term was also welcomed by the Northern Ireland Border Force Command, who said the sentence was a result of the "hard work and dedication from Border Force, the NCA and our partners in the Republic of Ireland to tackle dirty money".
