UP to a couple of days ago, if you had asked me what links I had to the world of organised crime and money laundering, I’d have said watching Goodfellas and McMafia on television.
But that was before headlines splashed across the national news this week about a Leeds businessman accused of being a “serial money launderer” for organised crime gangs who has been forced to surrender £10m of property, land and cash to the National Crime Agency.
The case against Mansoor Hussain – better known as Manni Hussain – was the first in which Unexplained Wealth Orders have led to criminal assets being forfeited.
Dubbed “McMafia orders” after the BBC TV drama, UWOs are used to pursue suspect wealth held by oligarchs, corrupt political figures and organised criminals.
As the self-made head of a property empire, Manni Hussain led a luxurious life driving Rolls-Royces, flying by private jet and holidaying in the Caribbean.
He posted photographs on social media posing with celebrities including Beyonce, Simon Cowell and Megan Markle – at a charity gala in London in 2013 a few years before she met Prince Harry.
But according to investigators from the National Crime Agency, behind the gloss and glitz were 40-year-old Hussain’s links to Mohammed Nisar Khan, a convicted murderer serving a 26-year sentence.
He allowed armed robber Dennis Slade to live rent-free in his seven-bedroom house on Sandmoor Drive in Leeds after his release from prison and had a convicted fraudster as an accountant.
I met Manni Hussain a couple of times at property and business events in Yorkshire and he came across as a rather modest, polite individual.
He was given an ‘Outstanding Contribution to Yorkshire Award’ at the Yorkshire Asian Business Association awards in 2017.
I’m quite glad it wasn’t the awards ceremony I hosted in 2015.
Although on second thoughts, he might have posted a photo of himself with me alongside all the others he had with not just the future Duchess of Sussex, but Philip Green, Cheryl Cole, Michelle Mone and Rio Ferdinand.
Without a criminal record and with a reputation as a successful property entrepreneur and investor, Manni Hussain was able to operate without attracting the attention of police and prosecutors.
The NCA said the decision to pursue him in the civil courts rather than seek a criminal trial was due to the difficulty in gathering evidence.
It said that rather than detectives spending years and huge amounts of public funds tracking a money trail that went back two decades, the decision was made to use the new Unexplained Wealth Order.
That overturned the burden of proof and instead of authorities proving his guilt, Hussain was required to show he had obtained his assets legitimately.
Despite submitting a 76-page witness statement and 127 volumes of evidence to try to refute the order, apparently his documents provided even more investigative leads.
The High Court ruled that the requirement for the UWO, the allegation of involvement in serious crime, was “amply satisfied” and rather than fight the case Manni Hussain negotiated a settlement which included 45 properties and four parcels of land in London, Leeds and Cheshire.
One of the properties seized is on Walton Street in Chelsea, the same street where Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of a jailed Azerbaijani banker who is contesting a UWO, lives.
Mrs Hajiyeva, whose £11m home is now a frozen asset, made headlines for a £16m shopping spree at Harrods.
Among the other properties handed over by Hussain are a flat near Harrods, the house on Sandmoor Drive and the Cubic Apartments block of 6 flats in Leeds as well as almost £750,000 in cash.
Forget McMafia, I’ve always said truth is stranger – and more interesting – than fiction.
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EVEN before President Trump, his wife and a large number of his advisors were diagnosed with Covid-19, the BBC’s North America Editor Jon Sopel predicted that there were plenty of twists and turns to come in the US presidential election.
He wasn’t wrong.
A week on from Trump’s Twitter announcement of his positive coronavirus test and he’s staged the greatest comeback since Lazarus, claimed getting the illness was “a gift from God”, promised to give every American the drug he was treated with – even though it hasn’t even been approved by medical regulators – refused to take part in a virtual debate with rival Joe Biden and is planning two campaign rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania this weekend.
I don’t know whether you saw it, but the Ayr Advertiser newspaper ran a story about Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis with the headline ‘Turnberry hotelier tests positive for coronavirus’.
It reminded me of the Bradford Telegraph & Argus coverage of the sinking of the Titanic which had the headline: ‘Bradford man lost at sea’.
Surely apocryphal, but always worth a mention.
When President Trump was first diagnosed with Covid-19 a senior member of his team was asked to explain his continual playing down of the virus and the suggestion that it would be eradicated in the United States within weeks.
She suggested that this was just “rhetoric” designed to provide some upbeat news to the public.
In other words, the “fake news” Trump loves to claim is delivered only by his rivals and critics.
After four years of rancour, confusion and internecine feuding, none of us should be surprised at what is happening in the final few weeks of the presidential election race.
Yes, before the global pandemic, the US economy was booming and the stock markets hitting highs.
But at what price?
Many American political commentators admit that the US public don’t have much of a choice when they come to cast their ballots next month.
You can argue that the British public didn’t when it came to the General Election last December.
They say you get the politicians you deserve but I think that is unfair.
Not on the politicians, but on the rest of us.
When it comes to who the Americans will pick as their president we at least can be sure that they know exactly what to expect.
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AFTER the original attempt to broadcast The Steph Show from her home in Harrogate during lockdown was canned after a decidedly limp launch, Steph McGovern is back.
With a new title that the creatives must have been gushing over – Steph’s Packed Lunch – the show is now being broadcast from a brightly coloured studio beside Leeds Dock.
In a lunchtime slot which pitches it head to head against the established and very popular Loose Women, the programme apparently registered zero viewers in the ratings for part of one of the shows earlier this month.
I must have doubled the number of people watching when I accidentally switched it on this week – I was trying to find Aerobics Oz Style, I find the background of blue ocean and the Sydney Harbour Bridge quite uplifting on a grey, rainy autumn day.
I was only on Steph’s Packed Lunch long enough to see a caption on the cookery slot which announced: “Mr Motivator’s Salmon Surprise”.
I wouldn’t have thought that there is much of a surprise you can deliver cooking salmon, but it turns out that it was a recipe for unused ingredients.
It’s a good job he kept his conger eel in the freezer.
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BIG news up at Pannal Golf Club near Harrogate this week when a bull which had escaped from a nearby farm ran onto the course and became aggressive before eventually having to be shot.
Apparently police were called because the bull was agitated and distressed and becoming hostile towards members of the public.
From what I know of Pannal Golf Club, that kind of behaviour should have qualified him for membership.
Have a great weekend.