#9 - Faye Dunn British businesswoman Faye Dunn was held in
custody on drug charges after being detained at Manchester Airport on June the 13th of
2022.
The 38-year-old mother-of-two, who formerly served as the director for both a restaurant
and a popular children's play center in Merseyside, was arrested as part of local police’s so-called
Operation Venetic.
Subsequent reports described the initiative as an “investigation into the EncroChat
network, which was hacked by European law enforcement”.
The day after her arrest, Dunn was charged with conspiracy to supply a Class B drug and
money laundering.
Prior to undertaking her business ventures, Dunn had played football for Leeds, Tranmere
and England, but subsequently became an “accountant for an organized criminal enterprise”.
The illegal operation of which she was accused of taking part reportedly involved the smuggling
of over $1 million worth of illicit substances, as well as ill-obtained cash.
#8 - Umair Farooq A woman sleeping in a hotel room in Llangollen,
Denbighshire, Wales was abruptly woken up by a strange man assaulting her on May the
27th of 2022.
Court records revealed that the unnamed victim had mistakenly left the key in the door, allowing
42-year-old Umair Farooq to enter while she was asleep.
The man, a respected Pakistani businessman, later claimed that he “didn’t know what
was allowed” in Britain, despite being a frequent visitor to the country.
When the woman realized what was happening, she shoved Farooq away from her and ran out
of the room.
Upon being arrested, Farooq initially denied the abuse accusations outright, stating, “I’m
Muslim, I wouldn’t do that”.
He was nevertheless prosecuted on charges of assault and trespassing with the intent
to commit an offense, to which he ultimately pleaded guilty.
During a hearing in Mold Crown Court on October the 13th of 2022, Farooq was jailed for 4
and a half years as punishment.
#7 - Brett Henson At about 9 pm on November the 4th of 2022,
an intoxicated Australian businessman threatened a 54-year-old cabbie in the central business
district of Sydney, before taking off with the taxi himself.
The suspect, 42-year-old real estate executive Brett Henson, was captured on the cab’s
dashcam, allowing investigators to identify and arrest him 6 days later.
Henson, who was described as a Senior Capital Transactions Manager for the property developing
company Mirvac, reportedly drove the stolen vehicle about 3 miles eastward before abandoning
it.
It was later found in Woollahra, having sustained “significant damage”.
One of the requirements of Henson’s bail conditions was weekly visits to the Waverley
Police Station to submit a report.
He appeared in Sydney Downing Center Local Court in early December of 2022, facing charges
of take and drive conveyance without the owner’s consent, driving recklessly or furiously or
in a dangerous speed or manner, and driving under the influence of alcohol.
It was reported that the prominent developer would be due back in court sometime in 2023.
#6 - Ezeoma Chigozie Obioha On the night of July the 5th of 2015, 30-year-old
Carrie Melvin was gunned down by a shotgun-wielding assailant as she walked down Hollywood’s
Sunset Boulevard with her boyfriend.
The incident was initially believed to be a random act of violence.
However, following further investigation, suspicions fell upon local businessman Ezeoma
Chigozie Obioha, the owner of a clothing company called Hoodfellas.
The man was taken into police custody on July the 24th on suspicion of murdering Melvin,
with whom he’d allegedly been embroiled in a financial dispute.
According to subsequent reports on the matter, Obioha owed the woman more than $1,600 for
social media marketing work she’d done for his company.
Only days before she was killed, Melvin had reportedly threatened to take the man to small
claims court in connection to a check that was either bounced or canceled.
Rather than satisfy his delinquent debts, Obioha was accused of committing the fatal
shooting, after which he fled the scene and disposed of the 12-gauge shotgun used as the
murder weapon.
The morning after the deadly incident, a boy came upon the gun underneath a rock near a
beach in Malibu.
In the summer of 2017, Obioha was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life without
parole, plus an additional 25 years for the special circumstance that the crime was committed
for financial gain.
In 2019, the man appealed the verdict, arguing that the trial had been “fundamentally unfair”.
However, the California appeals court ultimately upheld his conviction.
#5 - Michael Bryan Smith A British businessman was held in a Dubai
prison for several years past his scheduled release date, despite having been pardoned
for his alleged crimes by United Arab Emirates authorities.
Michael Bryan Smith, a former manager at a private international company in the UAE,
was accused of forging an official document, as well as breach of trust, for which the
maximum penalty is 3 years in prison.
He was arrested in Thailand in May of 2009.
Smith reportedly spent over 2 years in a Thai jail awaiting extradition to the UAE, during
which time he claimed to have contracted HIV from a prison hospital.
The businessman was finally brought to trial in Dubai criminal court in the summer of 2012.
He was given a 12-year prison sentence and a $653,000 fine, far exceeding the purported
maximum punishment under UAE law.
Smith’s prison term was reduced to 6 years a few months later.
Then, in 2014, he was officially pardoned as part of an annual general amnesty for Ramadan,
but was never released.
Shortly before his prison term was supposed to expire, he suddenly had an additional 10
years tacked on to his sentence for undisclosed reasons.
In March of 2021, it was reported that 15 members of the British parliament had signed
a letter penned by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which urged ministers
to discuss Smith’s illegal detention with Dubai authorities.
#4 - Steve Shickles During his tenure as the Chief Operating Officer
of Simple Helix, LLC in Huntsville, Alabama, Steve Shickles executed a pernicious embezzling
plot, bilking his employers out of over $2.1 million in the process.
The man, a resident of Round Rock, Texas, was accused of perpetrating the scheme between
January of 2012 and January of 2019.
In a subsequent Justice Department press release, it was detailed how Shickles had made several
unauthorized transactions with the company’s PayPal accounts to cover personal expenses.
He also allegedly created a fake Simple Helix email account, which he used to redirect funds
intended for the company into his own personal bank accounts.
To cover up the fraud, Shickles fabricated documents and removed his unauthorized activities
from Simple Helix’s computer-generated financial report.
The accused father-of-two was said to have used the ill-gotten funds to bankroll his
lavish lifestyle, including dinners at high-end restaurants, designer clothing, private schooling
for his children, hotel stays, and more than 20 luxury cars.
In the summer of 2022, federal prosecutors filed wire fraud charges against Shickles,
which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
#3 - Yorgen Fenech Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne
Caruana Galizia died in a car bomb explosion on October the 16th of 2017.
A trio of men accused of planting and detonating the explosive device were arrested two months
later, and subsequently prosecuted.
During the course of the investigation, however, the police also zeroed in on Melvin Theuma,
the self-described middleman of the murder plot, who turned state’s evidence in exchange
for a pardon.
Theuma told investigators that the mastermind of Galizia’s killing was one of Malta’s
wealthiest businessmen, Yorgen Fenech, who evidently held reservations regarding the
slain journalist’s desire to expose corruption.
On November the 20th of 2019, Fenech was apprehended by the authorities as he set sail on his yacht,
in what was believed to have been an attempt to flee the country.
The man, who led a “business empire with a range of interests including property, imports
and a car dealership”, pleaded not guilty to his alleged crimes.
As of the latest developments on the matter, Fenech had been denied bail after being considered
a serious flight risk.
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comments section below #2 - Arthur Raffy Aslanian
In April of 2022, a businessman from La Cañada Flintridge, California was accused of devising
a murder-for-hire plot aimed at eliminating two men involved in litigation against him.
The Department of Justice identified the suspect as 53-year-old Arthur Raffy Aslanian, a real
estate developer in the LA area.
An employee of Aslanian’s named Sesar Rivera allegedly met with an individual about killing
the two targets, identified only as SE and MY.
SE reportedly defeated Aslanian in court after the latter attempted to take possession of
the Brentwood home in which his parents resided.
In early 2022, the real estate businessman was represented in court by MY, a lawyer,
but then refused to pay the man’s law firm roughly $220,000 in legal fees.
To get rid of the respective problems posed by these two men, Aslanian told Rivera to
offer the prospective hitman $20,000 for the murders.
Law enforcement eventually caught wind of the plot, at which point they took Rivera
into custody.
He agreed to cooperate with the authorities in a bid to incriminate Aslanian.
On September the 15th of 2022, Rivera showed his employer a staged photograph of SE’s
supposed murder.
Shortly thereafter, Aslanian was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
As of the most recent available updates, the legal proceedings were still ongoing.
#1 - Edward Shin Throughout his adult life, California man
Edward Shin repeatedly betrayed the trust of those closest to him, leading up to his
eventual incarceration for murder in 2010.
The man’s public misadventures began when he was in his 20s and residing in Irvine with
a roommate named James Moon.
One day, the latter received a call from Shin’s father, who said he’d received word that
his son had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom.
The purported kidnapper demanded $1 million from Shin’s parents in exchange for his
return.
Days into the investigation, it emerged that the ransom email had actually been sent from
within the Shin family’s mansion.
It was determined that the supposed victim himself had fabricated the kidnapping story
in an attempt to extort his own parents.
He was never criminally charged in connection to the incident, but the ordeal left him with
a reputation as a shady businessman, which was further cemented several years later,
in 2006.
Shin reportedly offered to buy Legends Sports Magazine for $1 million.
After failing to deliver on the first payment, however, he threatened the couple who owned
the publication that he could “make them disappear”.
When they attempted to sue the man, he threatened them with further violence, and they subsequently
left him alone without receiving compensation for their company.
Shin’s nefarious business practices came to a head in 2010, when his business partner
Chris Smith suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Shin attempted to maintain the fiction that his partner was still alive by posing as him
in emails to his family and friends.
The messages indicated that Smith had cashed out his shares of the company that he and
Shin started in order to travel the world.
It would ultimately come to light that Shin had actually sent those communications, and
he was subsequently arrested on suspicion of murdering Smith to take complete control
over the business.
Shin was eventually convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison, but as of
the latest developments, he still hadn’t revealed the resting place of Smith’s remains.
Thanks for watching!
Would you have all your money managed by a corrupt businessman with ties to the mob or
find out your teenage nephew had joined a gang?
Let us know in the comments section below!