Britain’s most wanted woman in a billion-pound fraud has been arrested in Spain after nine years on the run, police said on Tuesday. The fugitive, identified by British police as Sarah Panitzke, 47, was arrested on Sunday while walking her dogs in the village of Santa Bárbara in northeastern Spain, the Civil Guard detailed in a statement.
Sarah Panitzke had been wanted since 2013 for money laundering as a member of a group that bought mobile phones overseas and then resold them in the UK, without paying value added tax. Thanks to this VAT fraud, this criminal organization has made profits of more than one billion pounds sterling (1.2 billion euros), according to the Spanish and British police.
Sentenced in absentia
“According to British investigators, Sarah Panitzke was the person in charge of laundering the organization’s profits through multiple companies she owned in Spain, Andorra and Dubai,” the Spanish Civil Guard said. “At one point this organization managed to sell more mobile phones in the UK than all the legal shops put together,” she added. Sarah Panitzke disappeared in May 2013 and was later sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison.
Source: 20minutes
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