Sacked British-Indian cop says didn't know of husband's drug-dealing
Darpan News Desk IANS, 13 Dec, 2022 03:41 PM
An Indian-origin Met police officer, who was sacked from the force last month, claimed that she was unaware that her husband was a drug dealer.
Constable Rasvinder Agalliu, a former model who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle with her drug dealer husband Julian Agalliu, thought the money came from working as a chef to professional footballers, the Evening Standard reported.
The couple lived in a property which cost them 5,000 pounds a month, splashed out on a 70,000-pound Audi, designer clothes, and homes in the upmarket Hadley Wood enclave of Barnet, north London.
During her misconduct hearing, Rasvinder, a constable for 15 years, told the disciplinary tribunal that her husband, who earned between 1,000-4,000 pounds a week, did not pay taxes because he earned in cash.
Unconvinced, the tribunal rejected Rasvinder's claims and said that her "defence lacked credibility".
"Agalliu in our view was not hiding his drug use within the home. There were drugs and the means to supply them clearly evident in her home and we are satisfied she knew they were there," as she was "more likely than not to have had a good idea" about Julian's earnings given the couple's "lavish lifestyle", the tribunal concluded.
Her claims that drugs were planted at her home were also rejected by the tribunal, which concluded she was guilty of gross misconduct.
During raids at the couple's North London home twice in 2020, police found messages referring to 100 kg packages, cocaine parcels, evidence of drug exchanges, and a conversation about a possible gun deal, the Evening Standard reported.
Cops also found drugs in a Louis Vuitton box under the couple's bed, as well as 27,000 pounds in cash at his home, apart from cannabis cultivation at the property.
A mother-of-three, Rasvinder was sacked, but did not face any criminal charges following the raid on her home.
Julian sold drugs packaged with the luxury Hublot brand via EncroChat communication system, according to the paper.
He was convicted at Woolwich crown court last week, and his sentencing will take place on February 9, 2023.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last week warned the Delta variant of the virus is so contagious, vaccinated people who do get infected could be just as big a risk to others as people who aren't vaccinated.
The new requirement, which will be phased in over several weeks in August and September, is the most aggressive step the city has taken yet to curb a surge in cases caused by the delta variant.
The findings have the potential to upend past thinking about how the disease is spread. Previously, vaccinated people who got infected were thought to have low levels of virus and to be unlikely to pass it to others. But the new data shows that is not the case with the delta variant.
President Joe Biden is calling on states and local governments to join those that are already handing out dollars for shots. New York, the nation's biggest city, started doling out $100 awards on Friday.
The internal documents also cite studies from Canada, Singapore and Scotland showing that the delta variant may pose a greater risk for hospitalization, intensive care treatment and death than the alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom.
