Prosecution
Information and case studies on prosecution.
In 2020, the 7 individuals were charged with money laundering offences and a trial scheduled for June 2022, 4 defendants entered guilty pleas whilst the remaining 3 defendants were postponed to November 2023.
Ahead of the trial, through close collaboration with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and prosecution counsel, the case team developed a chronological timeline to present to the jury. The timeline included dates where cash was deposited which appeared to correspond with the date a VAT visit was scheduled. Closely after receiving notification of the scheduled visit, the chronological timeline showed an invoice and purchase order was created on the suspect’s computer to justify the cash deposits which had gone into the accounts.
The timeline also included text messages which had been retrieved from various devices, along with voice messages which had been left by the principal suspect which said, for example ‘I’m not doing drugs, I’m laundering money’.
The timeline included a schedule of cash deposits and subsequent transfers out to the UAE, whilst analysts devised additional visual aids including a map of the UK to provide a pictural vision of where the cash deposits were made and times when the cash was deposited. This helped the court to understand that cash which had been deposited in the north of the England went into the account only a few minutes after cash had been deposited in the south of the England. This would not be physically possible unless the deposits were being made by third parties and therefore ‘smurfed’ into the account, which is a known money laundering typology.
During the trial, counsel requested the bank statements were printed in hard copy. The purpose of this was to show the court what 30 pages of bank transactions, each of which were cash deposits, looked like. This evidence was impactful and helped to demonstrate to the judge and jury the extent of the account activity which vastly exceeded an average person’s transactions.
To organise themselves ahead of the trial the case team created an electronic folder named ‘Jury Aid’. This made retrieving hard file documents during the trial a lot easier and made the trial move seamlessly.
In February 2024 the Crown Court Judge sentenced 6 of the 7 individuals, passing a total of 26 years custodial sentences. The principal suspect received 12 years custodial sentence.
The UK has a cadre of experts who can provide independent expert evidence to assist the courts and provide investigative support to law enforcement, both in the UK and overseas, to enhance their investigations.
The expert (money) laundering evidence (ELE) cadre have expertise in:
- TBML and other money laundering phenomena
- the criminal abuse of businesses in the regulated sector including financial institutions (such as money service businesses and nonbank payment service providers such as authorised and small payment institutions and electronic money institutions), high value dealers and trust and company service providers
- the criminal abuse of money value transfer systems (MVTS), the use of cash in the criminal economy, such as cash smuggling and criminal cash handovers — the cadre is now expanding into the field of money laundering through the use of crypto assets
Expert witnesses are provided for under criminal procedure rule 19, which states:
- the expert has a duty to the court, not to those who instruct them (prosecution or defence)
- the expert’s opinion must be objective, unbiased and within the expert’s area or areas of expertise
An expert will not:
- present the prosecution or defence case
- determine the facts and attribute guilt (that is the role of the jury)
- define the law (that is the role of the judge and jury)
For those wanting to obtain expert evidence or advice, a request can be sent into the ELE expert.laundering@nca.gov.uk.
The case team recognised several trade-based money laundering risk indicators which led to charges for stand-alone money laundering:
- the alleged business was in the UAE, a jurisdiction with weaker AML compliance controls, according to the financial action taskforce
- the bank accounts displayed an unexpectedly high number of transactions of values which were inconsistent with their stated business
- the business accounts appeared to be ‘pay through’ or ‘transit’ accounts with rapid movements of high volume transactions, this included frequent deposits in cash which were subsequently transferred to persons or entities in an offshore jurisdiction
- the UK companies did not ship declared goods as detailed on the paperwork
- the paperwork had identifiable errors, for example stating goods were going to Prague in Slovakia
- the UK companies were operating from serviced addresses as opposed to a business address consistent with the alleged trade
- there was a notable lack of typical business activities, for example there was no evidence of payroll transactions, warehousing, shipping and transport costs
- the business entities appeared in negative news in that they have a history for non-compliance of the money laundering regulations and deregistration for VAT evasion, both in the UK and in Europe
- some of the company directors were considered as ‘foot soldiers’, their details were provided to Companies House without their knowledge — digital device evidence supports allegations that the directors acting under the instructions of the main suspect
- a review of the digital devices uplifted from premises searches evidenced the creation of templates for use in the fictitious trading, this included cash receipts for deposits made under the guise of the alleged trade
These points are all aligned to the risk indicators as per the FATF paper trade-based money laundering risk indicators.