A worldwide hunt for Britain’s most wanted woman, thought to have evaded justice roaming Spain and the Middle East with a series of wigs, ended while she was walking her dog near her hideout in a nondescript Spanish town. Sarah Panitzke was on the run for nine years after laundering around £1bn through offshore bank accounts. It’s a banal end for Panitzke’s career near the top of a crime group that conducted a large-scale carousel fraud operation. She had been named the most wanted woman in Britain for the past seven years, staring out of the National Crime Agency Most Wanted posters with a slight smile.
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PHOTO: Guardia Civil
British police officers and Spanish Civil Guard finally arrested Panitzke, 47, on Sunday in Santa Bárbera, a town of only 4,000 people, 114 miles south of Barcelona. Police caught her after mounting a round-the-clock surveillance operation following a tip that she was living in the small town. Seven years ago, cops believed they had traced her to Olivella, a town on the outskirts of Barcelona popular with wealthy British expatriates. Panitzke never left her home but depended on visits from her husband who came to see her at weekends using elaborate methods to hide his tracks. She changed her appearance to avoid detection, police said, and Spanish media reported that she would wear wigs and coloured contact lenses. Investigators believe she hid out around Spain and in Dubai.
“From then on, she became a priority target for investigators who accumulated and analysed a huge quantity of information and who watched her closest circle permanently,” the Civil Guard said in a statement. “In spite of this, it seems she cut all ties with her family in Spain to avoid being caught.”Panitzke, who came from a wealthy family in Yorkshire, in the north of England, skipped bail during a fraud trial in 2013 but was convicted in her absence and jailed for eight years. After her arrest, she appeared in a Spanish court and is in custody while extradition proceedings begin, the National Crime Agency said.
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Alongside 18 other fraudsters from up and down the UK, Panitzke established a network of companies that bought and sold mobile phones with an illegal moneymaking twist. The group purchased phones VAT-free from EU countries, then sold them in the UK for more money, including tax.
The head of the crime ring, Geoffrey Johnson, 78, recruited fellow fraudsters, including Panitzke, from across Britain and Spain. They were so unconnected that even the authorities couldn’t establish exactly how the mastermind had found his co-conspirators, although there was a suggestion at the trial that an unidentified party overseas had linked them together.Phones were picked because they were small, valuable and easy to take in and out of the country in what looked like a legitimate business. After the goods were sold, the company would disappear without paying any tax. The scam would then be repeated over and over again with the same products.
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The head of the crime ring, Geoffrey Johnson, 78, recruited fellow fraudsters, including Panitzke, from across Britain and Spain. They were so unconnected that even the authorities couldn’t establish exactly how the mastermind had found his co-conspirators, although there was a suggestion at the trial that an unidentified party overseas had linked them together.Phones were picked because they were small, valuable and easy to take in and out of the country in what looked like a legitimate business. After the goods were sold, the company would disappear without paying any tax. The scam would then be repeated over and over again with the same products.
