Engineering student caught carrying suitcase with £250k in cash at Piccadilly station was part of 'Chinese underground banking scheme'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

An engineering student was caught carrying a suitcase with more than £250,000 in cash on a train at Manchester Piccadilly station. Yuming Dong was part of a 'Chinese underground banking scheme' among students at the University of Manchester.

The sophisticated operation, which detectives say involved 'large scale money laundering and deception', saw Dong use trains to transport more than half a million pounds of illegal cash from London to Manchester. Police officers found Dong with a suitcase full of cash after he turned himself in.

At Manchester Crown Court last Thursday (July 28), a judge sentenced the 21-year-old to 18 months imprisonment, suspended for two years. He had previously been found guilty of money laundering.

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Dong, who worked as a courier within the operation, travelled between London and Manchester on at least two occasions to transport more than £400,000 of illicit cash. The money was to be used as a cash pool.

On one occasion, on the evening of February 4, 2019, Dong texted British Transport Police to report a suspicious person carrying a large yellow suitcase on board a train.

When officers boarded the train, they found Dong 'behaving in an agitated way'. Almost £255,000 of cash was found in his suitcase.

The money was seized and Dong, of Woolton Hall, Fallowfield Campus, was arrested on suspicion of money laundering. A search of his home revealed a diary with mention of money laundering and used train tickets from previous visits to London to collect cash.

Analysis of the phone number Dong used to text police shed further light on the extent of his involvement in the criminal conspiracy.

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