On the run in Costa del Crime, woman hunted for £1bn fraud
Ex-public schoolgirl heads the list of ten most wanted British fugitives
A FORMER public schoolgirl has been named as one of the country’s most wanted fugitives over her key role in a £1billion fraud.
Sarah Panitzke, 42, who is believed to be living in Spain, has been on the run and wanted by police for three years.
She is the only woman in the National Crime Agency’s list of ten most wanted UK fugitives, sought in connection with crimes including drug smuggling, child-abuse images and murder.
Panitzke was sentenced in her absence to eight years in jail in
She fled during her trial
2013. She was later ordered to repay almost £2.5million or have nine years added to her term, yet so far she has evaded capture.
Born in Yorkshire, she was educated at St Peter’s School in York, Guy Fawkes’s alma mater and the world’s fourth oldest school.
She spent time travelling before settling in Spain and completing a postgraduate degree in business management and obtaining a qualification to teach English. She is believed to have lived in Vilanova, a fishing port near Barcelona.
She appeared to have a respectable career in teaching but police found she had helped mastermind the laundering of approximately £1billion through offshore bank accounts. Panitzke was identified as co-conspirator in a massive fraud that has cost the taxman billions.
The gang she was involved in claimed to be importing and selling mobile phones, but investigators established it was a sham ‘ business’ serving as a vehicle for fraud- ulent VAT repayment claims. Panitzke was among 18 people from the UK to be jailed for a total of 135 years in a series of trials. She fled during her trial at Kingston Crown Court in South West London and has not been seen since. The prime fraudsters, Geoffrey Johnson, 72, and his son Gareth, 48, also fled the country and have been ordered to repay £109million. Pan- itzke’s parents, who live near York, say they have had no contact with her since a family funeral more than three years ago. Her father Leo, 75, said yesterday it was a shock to hear she had been named among the country’s most wanted, adding: ‘It’s terrible.’ The others on the list are: Jamie Acourt, 40, allegedly one of those who murdered Stephen Law- rence in south-east London in 1993, is suspected of being part of a £4million drug-smuggling ring and thought be hiding on the southern Spanish coast.
Shane O’Brien, 28, is wanted for the murder of Josh Hanson at a west London wine bar last year.
Glaswegian Jonathon Kelly, 36, is wanted on recall after disappearing while on licence from a 16-year sentence for assault and robbery.
Stephen Carruthers, 43, from Bury, is wanted by Cumbria Police who found 5,332 indecent images of children on his computer in 2014.
Mark Acklom, 43, is wanted for his role in a ‘romance fraud’ in which he swindled a Bath woman out of £850,000 over several years.
Matthew Sammon, 45, is wanted by Scotland Yard over indecent images of children being downloaded on to a computer registered at his Croydon home in 2014.
Dominic McInally, 25, from Liverpool, is suspected of being the leader of a Europen cocaine-trafficking gang.
Mark Quinn, 52, from Liverpool, is wanted by Police Scotland on suspicion of being part of a gang that distributed £11million worth of amphetamine.
Simon McGuffie, 41, from Liverpool, is suspected of being involved in supplying cocaine, heroin and cannabis in North West England.