Chun-Yu Zhao, who runs a company called JDC Networking Inc in Virginia in the US, has been found guilty of counterfeiting, customs abuses and money laundering.  Zhao bought generic computer networking equipment through a Hong Kong-based company, Hon Tong Technology, which she operated with her family, and then used pirated software and counterfeit labels and packaging to mislead consumers into thinking that they were Cisco products.  Cisco has waged a long campaign against counterfeiters, and earlier in May 2011 the leader of a warranty scam targeting Cisco was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay US$9 million in restitution.  Zhao will be sentenced on 26 August 2011; she faces 20 years in prison for each count of money laundering and importing improperly declared goods, and a further 10 years on each count of trafficking in counterfeit goods.  The jury has also been asked to decide whether she should forfeit two Porsches and a Mercedes, bank accounts containing over US$1.6 million and seven properties worth US$2.6 million. 

In a follow-up to a story dated 19 April 2011, a married couple who lived a lavish lifestyle while claiming numerous UK government benefits have been jailed for money laundering.  Over six years, Burnett and Paulette Morris used relatives and friends to send the proceeds of Burnett's drug dealing in south London to Jamaica, transferring in total more than £500,000.  Burnett was sentenced to 7½ years in prison, while Paulette was given four years and nine months.  Other involved in the laundering were also given jail sentences: Roisin Kelville (two years and three months), Kevin Robinson (two years), Fiona Holness (two years), Gerard Wright (21 months) and Dwayne Samuel (eighteen months).

In a follow-up to a story dated 12 February 2010 (see Old news page), a woman whose money laundering funded human trafficking and brothels in Devon has been ordered to pay back £154,346.  Oranong Biscoe was jailed for four years in 2010 for money laundering and running an unlicensed bank.  A confiscation order will now force her to pay back money she made within six months or face an extended jail term.  The order has been secured by Zephyr, a police group designed to target organised crime across the south west of England and involves Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire police forces. 

Eight members of an organised crime gang have been jailed for their part in a £10 million identity fraud scheme, after pleading guilty to charges including conspiracy to defraud, using fraudulently obtained documents and money laundering.  Property consultant David St John Tunnicliffe was sentenced to five years in prison, while salesman Anthony Bridger received four years and eight months.  Builder Richard Andrews was sentenced to four years and kitchen fitter Jonathan Ainsworth was jailed for three years and one month.  Builder Adrian Dubrey received three years and one month’s imprisonment, David Barclay was sentenced to two years and six months, and Megan Smith received 13 months.  Paul Bridger was sentenced to ten months, suspended for a year, and 60 hours’ community service.  Detectives working with the Identity and Passport Service and the DVLA found that the gang used fraudulently obtained genuine passports and driving licences to open bank accounts in false identities.  Some evidence was found at domestic addresses in Sussex, Surrey and London but the bulk of records were discovered at three rented offices in Putney, which contained essential account opening documents such as false licenses, passports, bank statements, chequebooks and cards, with notes about the profiles of all the account customers.  About £200,000 in cash was also seized.  In all, the scheme involved a hundred false identities, a thousand bogus accounts and £10 million.

Applications have been made to have Kenyan MP Chris Okemo and former Kenya Power and Lighting boss Samuel Gichuru extradited to Jersey to face money laundering charges.  Seemingly in return, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Henry Bellingham assured the Kenyan government that the UK has issued an arrest warrant against Yagnesh Devani – the man behind the Triton oil scandal in Kenya – and would seek to extradite him to face charges in Kenya.  Arrest warrants against Okemo and Gichuru have been submitted to the Kenyan Chief Public Prosecutor, who will need to confirm that the crimes the two are alleged to have committed in Jersey are also crimes in Kenya.  If so, formal extradition proceedings can begin.  The arrest warrant issued by Jersey shows that Interpol has also asked authorities in Tanzania, South Africa and the UAE to arrest the two men and extradite them, and moreover the men will not be able to travel to (the many) countries that have extradition treaties with the UK. 

Yeh Sheng-mao, former director of Taiwan’s Bureau of Investigation, has been sentenced to six years in prison for his role in a corruption scandal involving ex-president Chen Shui-bian.  Yeh was convicted of concealing documents and leaking secrets to then president Chen to cover up for him.  The sentence was reduced from the ten years handed down by a district court as the high court ruled that Yeh did not make any profit from the crime.  Yeh was found to have warned Chen while he was in power that an international financial watchdog was investigating his family for suspected money laundering.  Chen, who left office in 2008, is serving a term of 17 years and six months on two convictions of bribery, with more trials pending on other charges including money laundering.

Seven people from Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire have been charged after an investigation into alleged money laundering.  The five men and two women, from Rochdale and Bradford, have been charged with conspiracy to launder the proceeds of crime.  HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers also raided KS Money Transfer in Rochdale and seized £300,000.  The family-owned business was established in 2000 and specialises in sending cash to Pakistan.  The charges and seizure follow a ten-month investigation by HMRC – codenamed Operation Enigma – into the suspected laundering of more than £200 million.  Alan Lee, HMRC’s deputy director for criminal investigation, said: “Operation Enigma is an HMRC-led investigation targeting money laundering offences.  Attempts to launder the proceeds of crime are treated extremely seriously by HMRC, and we will relentlessly pursue any individuals or crime gangs believed to be actively involved in money laundering.”  All seven people charged have been released on bail to appear before Manchester magistrates on 6 June 2011. 

India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) has charged sacked Commonwealth Games organising committee (OC) chief Suresh Kalmadi with money laundering, and has begun identifying his properties and those belonging to his relatives and aides to seize them in order to recover losses from Games contracts.  According to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, Kalmadi was part of a conspiracy favouring the appointment of certain vendors for the Games by introducing unnecessary restrictive clauses to the bidding process.  Investigations by the Comptroller and Auditor General found that, had the OC chosen the cheapest vendors still meeting the required specifications, they could have saved at least Rs 220 crore [about £30 million].  In April 2011, the ED asked Kalmadi to provide his travel details and bank transactions for the entire period of his contract with the OC, and also made enquiries at banks and other financial institutions to trail Games-related transactions.

In a follow-up to a story dated 13 May 2011, Suzanne Mubarak (wife of ousted president Hosni) has been released on bail after handing over assets.  She was being held on charges of corruption, and had suffered what was originally feared to be a heart attack but is now being called a panic attack.  She gave three powers of attorney to the heads of the Egyptian Illicit Gains Authority, authorising him to withdraw up to 20 million Egyptian pounds [about £2 million] from accounts at two banks and to sell a villa in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis.

Drug dealer Curtis Warren intends to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against his conviction for importing cannabis into Jersey.  Warren was jailed for thirteen years in 2009, and in March 2011 he lost an appeal against his conviction after arguing that he should be freed because police in Jersey obtained key evidence by illegally bugging a car driven by his right-hand man.  The basis of the fresh appeal is that he believes he is being treated differently because of his reputation.  Advocate Advocate Stephen Baker said:  “Mr Warren thinks that there’s a very important point that Strasbourg needs to consider; whether he’s being picked upon because of his reputation rather than any other citizen, so that he’s been victimised because of his previous alleged history.” 

Suzanne, the half-Welsh wife of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, has been taken to hospital after suffering a suspected heart attack hours after being arrested on suspicion of corruption.  Egypt’s Illicit Gains Authority had ordered the detention of Mrs Mubarak for fifteen days on charges of illegal acquisition of wealth, and preparations were underway to move her from a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh – where she has been staying with her husband – to Qanater women’s prison outside Cairo, when she collapsed.  Mubarak himself is in hospital because he reportedly suffered a heart attack when he was arrested on 13 April 2011, and the authorities have now ordered that he be detained for a further fifteen days.

During various bouts of questioning, Mubarak and his wife have agreed to reveal details of their bank accounts both in Egypt and overseas.  Mubarak was also questioned about a villa he owns in Sharm el-Sheikh worth 36 million Egyptian pounds [about £3.75 million], and about having personal control of the bank account of the Alexandria Library.  His wife was asked about a luxury villa she owns in Cairo, as well as 20 million Egyptian pounds held in a bank account.  The couple and their two sons Alaa and Gamal and their wives were banned from travel and their assets ordered frozen by the Egyptian general prosecutor in February 2011.  Alaa and Gamal, along with dozens of officials and businessmen associated with the former regime, are being detained in Tora prison in Cairo, while their wives have also been questioned about the Mubarak wealth.  Earlier this month, Switzerland froze CHF410 million [about £285 million] in funds linked to Mubarak and his associates. 

In a follow-up to a story dated 2 December 2009 (see Old news page), another retired US Army major has pleaded guilty to money laundering for his role in a corrupt defence contracting ring.  Charles Bowie admitted accepting US$400,000 [about £245,000] from a contractor in exchange for the award of a bottled water contract at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan, and admitted that he had entered into a sham consulting agreement with the contractor to conceal the payments.  Bowie faces a maximum of ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

This is the latest development in the Cockerham case, which has now caught at least seven other soldiers.  Major John Cockerham pleaded guilty in February 2008 to accepting more than $9 million in bribes, and is currently is serving a 17-year prison sentence.  According to court papers, in spring 2005 Cockerham instructed Bowie to set up a sham consulting firm called Triad United Technologies LLC.  Triad served as a conduit for the bribes, and an email from Cockerham to Bowie said that he had four “eggs” for him “sitting in the fridge” – each egg represented $100,000.  Cockerham’s wife, sister and niece were all involved and each pleaded guilty as the investigation unfolded, and they are all now in prison.  The case against Cockerham’s gang is ongoing – six Army majors have been implicated.  Their work mostly involved contracts for relatively mundane military items such as awarding deals to provide drinking water, laundry and latrine services to military bases.

Italian police have announced that they have seized assets worth more than 600 million euros [about £525 million] and arrested seven suspects in a major sweep against a leading mafia clan in Rome and Naples.  According to a police statement, the seized assets include “around 900 properties, 23 companies and 200 bank accounts” allegedly belonging to the Mallardos, a clan of the Neapolitan crime syndicate the Camorra.  Among those arrested was Feliciano Mallardo, the suspected clan boss.  “The clan’s companies had seized control of entire economic sectors: from the production and distribution of coffee to betting shops to the wholesale trade in drinks and pharmaceutical products,” said the police.  They also said that the Mallardos has set up “numerous real estate companies” around Rome.

Switzerland’s federal prosecutor has opened an investigation into alleged money laundering by the regime of Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast.  Switzerland froze Gbagbo’s assets in January 2011, and announced last week that the total amount frozen was CHF 80 million [about £56 million].  The money laundering investigation was triggered by a complaint filed on behalf of the Ivorian government by Bruno de Preux, a prominent Geneva lawyer, and signed by Ivory Coast Justice Minister Jeannot Ahoussou-Kouadio and Finance Minister Charles Koffi Diby.  The complaint alleges that the wealth controlled by Gbagbo and his associates is inconsistent with their salaries, and says that Gbagbo diverted the proceeds of the sale of an Ivorian-owned luxury villa in Switzerland to a personal account of a notary in Paris rather than to the official Ivory Coast account there.  Gbagbo has been under house arrest since 11 April 2011, as prosecutors investigate post-electoral violence that left at least 3,000 dead; Gbagbo had refused to cede power after losing an election in November 2010.

FIFA and Interpol have launched a US$20 million anti-corruption drive to stop match fixing and illegal betting on football.  FIFA will provide the money to Interpol under the initiative, and it will set up an anti-corruption training wing within the Interpol Global Complex in Singapore, where it will train and educate players and officials on how to protect themselves from corruption.  FIFA President Joseph Blatter said: “In the fight against illegal betting and match-fixing, the preventive measures that can be taken and the protection of the players and the integrity of the game are of the utmost importance.  It is not enough to go against corruption or bad behaviour on the field of play: we have to look for those who try to destroy our game.”  FIFA also announced the creation of an internal Betting Integrity Investigation Task Force.  Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said that an operation against illegal match betting in Malaysia, China, Singapore during the 2010 World Cup resulted in 5,000 arrests and the seizure of US$26 million.

Swiss prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into suspected money laundering after a US investor claimed that Russian tax officials used Swiss bank accounts to engage in fraud.  The investigation was launched on 7 March 2011 after Switzerland’s Money Laundering Reporting Office received a complaint from a law firm on behalf of the London-based investment firm Hermitage Capital Management.  The complaint alleges that the husband of Olga Stepanova, who headed Moscow’s district tax office No. 28 until January 2011, used bank accounts at Credit Suisse to make million-dollar property purchases after Stepanova approved a fraudulent US$230 million [about £140 million] tax return for three of Hermitage’s subsidiaries.  The subsidiaries’ ownership documents had earlier been seized by officials at Russia’s Interior Ministry, who used them to register their own people as owners and directors before filing the fraudulent tax claim, according to William Browder, the CEO of Hermitage.  Copies of bank account statements and property registration papers show that Stepanova’s husband, an employee of a small construction firm, wired money through Credit Suisse accounts to build an $8 million luxury house west of Moscow, and buy a vacation home in Montenegro and multi-million dollar properties on the Palm Jumeriah in Dubai in the name of his 85-year-old mother.

Browder, who was barred from Russia in 2005 for unspecified reasons, has been waging a campaign against corruption in Russia for years.  He accuses Russian authorities of being responsible for the death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2009 of untreated pancreatitis after being charged with tax evasion linked to the Hermitage fraud. 

Former Egyptian interior minister Habib al-Adly has been sentenced to twelve years in prison for corruption, and fined US$2.5 million [about £1.5 million].  The once-feared al-Adly, who ran the security forces for the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak, is the first official in Mubarak’s government to face trial since its thirty-year reign ended in February 2011.  Al-Adly was found guilty of money laundering and illicitly enriching himself while in office.  He had pleaded not guilty to both charges, which stemmed from a land deal in which he tasked officers to find a buyer willing to pay the highest possible price.  He still faces two other trials: one for ordering officers to fire on protesters, and the other alongside Mubarak and the former finance minister over a deal with a German company to supply Egypt with license plates at allegedly inflated prices.  Al-Adly is scheduled to appear in court on 21 May 2011 for his second trial.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a bill outlawing foreign bribery and allowing prosecutors to seek large fines instead of prison sentences for corruption.  The new law creates a four-tier system of fines for public corruption based on the size of the bribe: small (up to 25,000 roubles – about £556); significant (up to 150,000 roubles – about £3,335); large (up to 1 million roubles – about £22,233); and very large.  The law also makes bribing a foreign official (“any person, whether elected or appointed, that holds any position at the legislative, executive, administrative or judiciary body of a foreign state, and any person performing a public function for a foreign state, including any public agency or public enterprise”), personally or through an intermediary, a crime punishable with a fine of up ninety times the amount of the bribe, or with a prison term of up to twelve years and a fine of seventy times the amount of the bribe.  Foreign officials who accept bribes face a prison term of up to three years and a fine of up to a hundred times the amount of the bribe, or up to fifteen years in prison and a fine of up to seventy times the amount of the bribe.  The same penalties apply to those found guilty of conveying bribes.  The law allows for extortion as a defence, and removes liability from bribe-givers and go-betweens if they voluntarily report their crime to the authorities or facilitate the investigation.  Companies that pay bribes to foreign officials to secure business advantage can be fined up to a hundred times the amount of the bribe – the law does not provide for criminal sanctions against companies.

In a follow-up to a story dated 16 December 2010 (see Old news page), Jonathan Bristol, one-time lawyer for jailed former financial adviser Kenneth Starr, has pleaded guilty to money laundering after being indicted in December 2011.  He admitted allowing nearly US$19 million [about £11.5 million] of proceeds from Starr’s fraud to be shuttled through his escrow account: “During 2010, I agreed to allow another person to wire funds in and out of my attorney escrow account, therefore facilitating his fraudulent scheme.”  As part of his plea (which leaves him facing up to five years in prison), Bristol acknowledged that he committed acts that furthered Starr’s fraud.

Costa Rican former President Miguel Angel Rodriguez has been sentenced to five years in prison for accepting bribes from French telecom giant Alcatel.  Rodriguez, who served as president from 1998-2002 and was once the head of the Organization of American States, also cannot serve in public office for twelve years.  Prosecutors alleged that he received more than US$800,000 [about £480,000] in bribes from Alcatel during his presidency in exchange for helping the company get a $149 million contract to provide 400,000 cell phone lines.  Rodriguez has vowed to appeal.  Alcatel-Lucent agreed to pay a $137 million fine to US regulators in December 2010 to resolve charges of violating foreign bribery law for alleged payments to officials in countries including Costa Rica, Honduras, Malaysia and Taiwan between December 2001 and June 2006. 

PostFinance has become the first Swiss financial company to be convicted of money laundering, after a court found that its AML controls were inadequate when it let a client withdraw a large sum of money just a day after depositing it.  The court said that compliance procedures at the group (an arm of the Swiss postal service) were inadequate when it allowed the client, due to be tried for embezzlement later in the year, to withdraw 4.6 million Swiss francs [about £3.2 million] in November 2005.  The court fined PostFinance 250,000 francs.  PostFinance spokesman Marc Andrey said: “We refute the judgement, and think the organisational basis for combating money laundering at PostFinance were adequate at the time of this payment.  We will analyse [the ruling] and will appeal it at a higher court.”  PostFinance said in court that their client was acting for a Swiss financial intermediary, B.E.Creative, and said he was withdrawing the money to buy precious stones.  B.E.Creative was later charged with embezzling the assets of its clients.  Andrey said the client had a permit from the Swiss authority responsible for preventing money laundering, and so there was no indication the money he deposited came from illegal activities. 

Roger Cox has been sentenced to five years in prison at the conclusion of Bermuda’s largest-ever money laundering investigation.  Cox used a network of 33 people to help him launder 2.2 million Bermudian dollars [about £1.3 million] which he earned from running illegal gambling dens from 2004 to 2009.  Chief Justice Richard Ground also jailed bookkeeper Michelle Lindsay for four months for assisting Cox to launder $24,950 by processing the cash through her own bank accounts while suspecting it might be the proceeds of crime.  Searches of Cox’s home revealed $338,920 in cash – some was hidden in bags and envelopes in a bedroom closet, some was tucked between clothing and some was stashed in the pump cupboard of Cox’s Jacuzzi – and high value jewellery.  A further $369,640 was found in a bank safe deposit box.  Cox admitted that the cash came from illegal gambling dens he ran in addition to his legitimate air conditioning business.  He roped in others to help launder the cash through bank drafts, Western Union transfers, foreign currency purchases and smuggling it out of Bermuda.  Many were arrested and questioned and found to be unwitting participants who had no idea they were assisting in a criminal enterprise.  The court will also confiscate $1.47 million from Cox. 

Ansama Kamara has been jailed for three and a half years for laundering the proceeds of a fraud perpetrated against the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA).  Kamara, from Sierra Leone, was part of a gang who called the ODA and said they worked for Skanska, a contractor on the site.  He asked for payments to be made to a different bank account and gave the details.  The gang received £2.3 million but Kamara was reported by staff at a money services bureau when he tried to wire £2 million to Nigeria.  A spokesman for the ODA said it has managed to get back nearly all the money: “Early identification by the ODA greatly reduced the potential impact of this fraud with almost all of the monies recouped shortly after it occurred last summer.  Throughout the project we have worked with the Metropolitan Police Service to develop and refine our systems to meet the changing fraud risks and will continue to do so.” 

Burnett Morris, his wife Paulette Morris and Kevin Robinson have been found guilty at a London court of laundering money between the UK and Jamaica.  Gerard Wright, Fiona Holness, Roisin Kelville and Dwayne Samuel had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing, and all seven will be sentenced on 27 May 2011.  Investigators initially identified a criminal network based in south London that was sending regular sums of cash to associates in Jamaica through various money bureaux, and the suspicion was that the cash was the proceeds of Morris’s drug dealing.  Arrests were made in May 2009 in south-east London and Cambridge during raids by more than 100 officers, who seized lock-knives, knuckle-dusters, machetes and other weapons, as well as more than £4,000 in cash.

The laundering network used friends and family to send small amounts of money – often £900 – as frequently as five times a day.  Over a six-year period, the network transferred more than £500,000 from the UK to Jamaica.  In addition Paulette spent more than £250,000 on travel to and from Jamaica and Florida and on luxury items including designer clothes, a diamond valued at £8,000 and other jewellery for which she rented a safety deposit box at Harrods.  While living a lavish lifestyle, Paulette and Burnett Morris claimed benefits, including housing allowance, Council Tax benefit and free school meals for two of their children.  In addition, the Morris family owns two luxurious houses on the outskirts of Kingston in Jamaica, and fourteen racehorses.

The Guernsey Border Agency (GBA) has announced that recent checks at the island’s airport has shown that many islanders and visitors are unaware of the 10,000 euro (£8,800) upper limit that applies to money that can be carried into or out of Guernsey without a declaration being made.  Under the Cash Controls Law of 2007, the threshold applies not only to banknotes but also to coins in any currency, postal orders, cheques of any kind, banker’s drafts, bearer bonds and bearer shares, postage stamps, and bullion ingots and coins.  GBA staff have been using Bella, a UK Border Agency sniffer dog, to conduct checks. 

In a follow-up to a story dated 31 March 2011, James Ibori, former governor of the oil-rich Delta state in Nigeria, has finally been extradited from Dubai to the UK to face 25 charges of fraud and money laundering.  Under Nigeria’s federal system, state governors enjoy wide powers, and those running oil-rich states have budgets larger than those of some African countries.  They enjoy immunity from prosecution while in power, but several have faced corruption charges since leaving office after the last election in 2007.  Ibori was arrested in Dubai in May 2010 and lost an appeal against his extradition.  He arrived at Heathrow on 15 April, accompanied by officers from the Metropolitan Police’s extradition unit.  He appeared at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court and was remanded in custody until his appearance at Southwark Crown Court on 28 April.  Ibori's sister, wife and lawyer have all been found guilty of money laundering and are serving prison sentences in the UK.

The US Justice Department has frozen gambling accounts linked to three of the biggest online poker sites after accusing those running them of money laundering and fraud.  Prosecutors claimed that the operators of Pokerstars (based in the Isle of Man), Full Tilt Poker (based in Dublin and licensed in Alderney) and Absolute Poker (based in a Commonwealth Caribbean country) tricked US banks into processing billions of dollars from customers (when US banks are prohibited from accepting payments from illegal gambling websites).  The US authorities also seized the company’s internet addresses, and the move is seen as a serious escalation in an struggle between the US authorities and the online gambling industry.  A grand jury has charged eleven defendants, including the founders of the poker sites, with bank fraud, money laundering and violating gambling laws.  In a statement, prosecutors claimed that the defendants, “among other things, arranged for the money received from gamblers to be disguised as payments for hundreds of non-existent online merchants and other non-gambling businesses”.  The US Attorney’s Office is working with “foreign law enforcement” in the hope of extraditing defendants located abroad and seizing their assets.  Legal experts said the case would test US gambling laws, which plainly prohibit sports betting but divide opinion as to whether they cover online games such as poker and blackjack.

In a follow-up to a story dated 29 March 2011, the evidence of convicted fraudster turned informant Solomon Dwek has led to the capture of another criminal.  Mariano Vega, former president of the Jersey City Council in New Jersey has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for agreeing to take US$30,000 [about £18,500] in cash bribes from an FBI informant posing as a corrupt developer.  Vega was among more than forty people charged in the sweeping money laundering and political corruption sting code-named “Bid Rig III”, which led to the arrests of three mayors, two legislators, five Orthodox rabbis and dozens of others in July 2009.  Dwek, using the name of David Esenbach, set up Vega and others by claiming to be seeking zoning board approvals for a phantom luxury condominium project in Jersey City.  The bribes to Vega were all paid through Maher Khalil, who at the time was the assistant director of the Jersey City Department of Health and Human Services and was working for Dwek to set up meetings with various political officials.  Khalil also pleaded guilty last September and awaits sentencing.

Vega’s lawyer Peter Willis said that his client had succumbed to pressures connected with his aspirations to ultimately become the first Hispanic mayor of Jersey City, and had seen Esenbach/Dwek as a potential investor in his election campaign.  However, Assistant US Attorney Sandra Moser, pointing out that Vega’s net worth was at least $3.3 million, said his political ambitions were no excuse for him to trade his office for cash: “He was educated, he was experienced, and after twenty years, he knew better.” 

Douglas Vannoy, a former financial adviser in Texas, has been sent to prison for opening a bank account in the name of a deceased client.  Jim King died in July 2008, and, after serving as a pallbearer at King’s funeral, Vannoy used money from his estate to open a bank account in the dead man’s name.  He later withdrew money for his personal use.  “Daddy trusted him from the beginning,” said King’s daughter Nancy Hancock.  “Doug was the first person I called after Daddy died.  Initially we couldn’t believe it – we were convinced he couldn’t be a thief.  It was shattering staring at forged cheque after forged cheque after forged cheque.  It was a nightmare.”  Vannoy pleaded guilty in January 2011 to money laundering, and has been sentenced to five years in prison.  He must also pay $94,000 [about £57,500] in restitution. 

Kuldip Singh Sander has been jailed for seven years laundering the proceeds of a £60 million mobile phone VAT fraud.  Sander was the last of seventeen defendants to be sentenced, following an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) that started in 2002, spanned five countries and led to five trials with offenders being jailed for a total of 59 years.  The group imported mobile phones and computer chips from Europe, VAT-free, which is legal.  They then sold them on to each other, adding on VAT and claiming it back from HMRC before exporting them from the UK and claiming the rebate, again from the taxpayer.  Adrian Farley of the HMRC called it “ram-raiding the Treasury… organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer.  This was theft of revenue needed to fund our country’s public services but instead it fuelled their elaborate lifestyles.”  Sander, a prolific horse racing gambler, played a pivotal role and had responsibility for overseeing the money laundering.  The gang also corrupted a serving customs officer and a bank official – both of whom have been jailed.  So far £13 million has been confiscated.

A US appeals court has denied ex-Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling a new trial, upholding his conviction on 19 counts of conspiracy and other crimes.  The court rejected arguments that faulty jury instructions at his 2006 trial meant he should get a new trial: it was found that found the faulty instructions had been “harmless” because the evidence against him was overwhelming.  The court in Houston also vacated Skilling’s 24-year prison sentence and sent it back to a lower court for re-sentencing.

The energy trading giant imploded in December 2001 amid revelations that executives had covered up the parlous state of the company’s finances with accounting trickery and shady business deals.  In 2006, Skilling was convicted for his part in the accounting fraud, after prosecutors said that he and other executives had concocted a scheme to keep Enron’s failing financial health a secret from shareholders.  Skilling was the highest-ranking Enron officer to be punished after the energy firm’s collapse; Enron founder Kenneth Lay was also convicted but died six weeks later as he awaited sentence.

Mexico has introduced a scheme to reward whistleblowers up to a quarter of any illicit funds or property seized by the Mexican government.  The amount of the reward will be determined by an evaluation committee on a case-by-case basis, and civil servants, those working for law enforcement agencies, and bank employees are ineligible for the program.  Although President Felipe Calderon has introduced tough anti-money laundering measures, Mexico is struggling to stem an estimated US$10 billion [about £6 billion] a year in illegal proceeds from drug trafficking.  Legislation proposed in August 2010 would make it illegal to buy real estate in cash, and would limit the purchase of vehicles, boats, aeroplanes and luxury goods to 100,000 pesos in cash [about £5,200].  And in June 2010, the Mexican government imposed restrictions on cash deposits and withdrawals in US dollars: Mexicans with bank accounts can deposit as much as $4,000 in cash per month; Mexicans without accounts can exchange $300 a day up to $1,500 a month.  As the Mexicans intensify their efforts, the US Department of Justice is assembling a unit of money laundering prosecutors and forfeiture experts to concentrate on Mexican drug cartels. 

An elderly Finnish couple has been sentenced in the Spanish city of Malaga to three years and three months in prison for money laundering.  The pair were also ordered to pay a fine of 1.3 million euro [about £1.15 million].  Aimo and Maria Voutilainen had laundered nearly 800,000 euro (the proceeds of tax evasion in Sweden) through real estate deals in Marbella and Fuengirola since the mid-1990s.  Aimo Voutilainen was convicted of tax crime in Sweden in 1998.  The money laundering scheme was hatched in a legal office in Marbella, where the Voutilainens were customers, and was discovered in 2005.  Dozens of people were arrested in Operation White Whale, and luxury cars, properties and works of art were confiscated.

Atanas Valkov, head of the Bourgas administrative court in Bulgaria, has been arrested and charged with document fraud and money laundering.  Valkov, who has been in charge of the administrative court in Bourgas since its creation in 2007, was arrested while negotiating a property sale worth more than two million euro.  The property, on a 12-acre plot of land near the Bulgarian port town of Nessebar, was allegedly obtained by Valkov’s mother with falsified documents and Valkov had been managing the sale to a third party – who was an undercover police officer.  A raid of Valkov’s office revealed paperwork to do with the property.

In a follow-up to a story dated 9 March 2011, former Nigerian state governor James Ibori has been released from prison in Dubai on humanitarian grounds because of his deteriorating health.  Ibori, who has been in custody since May 2010, was ordered on 13 December 2010 to be extradited to the UK to face money laundering charges.  Ibori is now in his Dubai home recovering from a chest infection and liver complications, but even if he were well he could not be extradited yet, according to his lawyer Ali Musabah: there is an ongoing contractual property dispute, and until Ibori pays a property investor, as ordered, the ban will remain in place.  According to the extradition request filed by the British government, large amounts of money were embezzled in Nigeria during Mr Ibori’s term as governor, and the belief is that the funds were laundered through UK banks.  British authorities also say Mr Ibori sold the Delta state’s shares in telecom operator V mobile to a fraudulent firm, which funnelled the money back to him and his associates.  In October 2010, Ibori confirmed that he plans to stand in the 2011 Nigerian presidential elections.

The UK’s Secretary of State for Justice, Kenneth Clarke, has published guidance on the Bribery Act 2010 and also announced that the Act will come into force on 1 July 2011.  According to his press release: “combating bribery is about common sense, not bureaucracy… No-one is going to try to stop businesses getting to know their clients by taking them to events like Wimbledon, Twickenham or the Grand Prix.  Reasonable hospitality to meet, network and improve relationships with customers is a normal part of business… The procedures that need to be put in place to rely on the statutory defence only have to be proportionate to the size and nature of the business.  Modest risks require modest procedures to mitigate them.”  A “quick start” version of the guidance for small businesses will also be available.  As to the applicability of the legislation, a rather unsatisfying comment is made: “It will be up to the court to decide whether or not any individual organisation can be said to be ‘carrying on a business’ in the UK.  They obviously take a range of factors into account – mere listing on the London Stock Exchange or just the fact of having a UK incorporated subsidiary would not necessarily mean the Act applies”. 

Rabbi Saul Kassin, a leader of New York’s Syrian Jewish community, has pleaded guilty to laundering money through a religious charity.  As the result of a plea bargain, he faces up to US$250,000 [about £155,000] in fines and five years in prison.  Kassin and forty-three other rabbis were arrested by the FBI in Syrian Jewish neighbourhoods of New Jersey and New York in July 2009.  The mayors of three New Jersey towns, a deputy mayor and a state assemblyman were also arrested.  Kassin confessed to using his Magen Israel Society to launder money given to him by Solomon Dwek, a real estate tycoon and the son of a prominent Syrian rabbi, who was arrested in 2006 for a $50 million bank fraud.  For the laundering service, Kassin and the charity kept 10% of the money.  Dwek later became a federal informant. 

Brian McAtevey of Bedfordshire has been sentenced to four years in prison for his part in a £10 million fuel duty fraud, and for money laundering.  The fraud involved processing low duty fuels to remove the chemical marker (known coincidentally as laundering) and then selling them on as legitimate duty paid road diesel.  He then laundered the profits through several business bank accounts and cheque cashing companies.  Mike O’Grady, assistant director of criminal investigation at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), said: “Fuel laundering is unregulated and dangerous but this gang was motivated solely by greed and personal gain, costing us all, as taxpayers, millions of pounds in stolen revenue.  Cheap, laundered fuel is no bargain: it undercuts honest businesses and has devastating effects on the environment when the toxic by-products of the laundering process are dumped in the countryside.”  Three other men and a woman were sentenced in February 2011 for their part in the crime, and a further individual is due to appear in court on the same offences. 

Bodylon Fayoyin has been jailed for three years after helping an NHS worker steal hundreds of thousands of pounds from Buckinghamshire NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT).  His partner in crime, Ololade Ibieronke Mabun, is still on the run after being sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in her absence last month.  Mabun invented a care home called Made House and siphoned a total of £117,812.30 from the NHS in payments for five imaginary residents at the home, whose identities she had stolen from an NHS continuing care register.  Fayoyin laundered the money for her by transferring it to other accounts.  Between April and July 2009 the PCT paid out on 31 invoices from the fictitious home but when concerns were raised and a manager tried to visit the care home, it was found that the street address did not exist.  The manager rang the home and left a message, and was called back by a man who said that he was the home’s manager, and that of the home’s five residents, three had died, one was in hospital and one was on holiday in Poland.  It was found that the Made House email account was accessed regularly from a computer in Nigeria and once from a computer in the UK registered to Mabun, and investigators later traced calls made by Mabun to the number on the fake invoices.  So far £46,000 has been recovered and returned to the PCT. 

Solicitor Benjamin Cornelius has been jailed for four years and eight months for money laundering on behalf of a drug dealer, and selling his Lamborghini without a court’s permission.  Cornelius acted as a conveyancing solicitor in the purchase of properties on behalf of his friend, David Richards, and fraudulently secured more than £650,000 of mortgage advances, laundering the proceeds by buying property.  Over an 18-month period, the frauds enabled Richards to develop a large personal property portfolio in the Neath and Swansea Valleys.  Cornelius concealed his involvement from his employer, William Parry, who said that the first he know of it was when the police turned up at his office.  Police raided Cornelius’ home in October 2009 and restrained all his assets, including a black Lamborghini Gallardo worth more than £80,000.  In February 2011 Cornelius applied to the court for permission to sell the car but in fact he has already sold it in defiance of a Court Order.  Richards, who was convicted of trafficking class A drugs in July 2010 and is already serving a twelve-year sentence, pleaded guilty to fraud at the start of the trial and was sentenced to serve 30 months concurrently.  There will now be a future confiscation hearing which will determine the extent to which Cornelius and Richards financially benefited.

Zvi Ammar, a leading French Jewish businessman who serves as president of the Marseille Jewish “Consistory” (the body that governs Jewish congregations in a given province) has been charged with misappropriation of funds and money laundering.  The charges date back to 2007 when police investigated the contract killing of Olivier Plançon, the commercial director for sportswear company Mercure International of Monaco.  Ammar runs another sportswear company called International Sports Fashion (ISF), and the Plançon killing took place in a parking lot owned by ISF.  Witnesses told police that after the shooting they saw two men, one of whom was identified as Ammar, taking Plançon’s bags out of his car and into the ISF office.  A bank slip for 346,360 euros was later found in Plançon’s bag but only 15,000 euros were found on his body.  Police have long suspected that the killing had to do with financial transactions between ISF and Mercure, and both Ammar and Adnan Houdrouge (Mercure’s wealthy Lebanese owner) were arrested and questioned.  They were released for lack of evidence, only to be taken back into custody now, apparently because of new evidence.  Ammar has been released on bail, on condition that he reports to the police station on a weekly basis and has no contact with Houdrouge. 

Devon Samuels, a US Customs and Border Protection officer, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder drug money and attempting to smuggle guns onto an aeroplane.  Samuels was charged in connection with three undercover sting operations targeting smuggling activities at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.  Samuels unlawfully used his badge to bypass security and avoid screening.  In a separate case, Samuels and his wife Keisha Jones pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit marriage fraud: they helped another couple to deceive immigration authorities into believing their sham marriage was genuine.  The two are to be sentenced on 2 June 2011. 

A Mexican judge has ordered a purported leading figure in the Juarez cartel and the son of late drug kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes to stand trial for money laundering.  Vicente Carrillo Leyva – who was one of Mexico’s most-wanted men when he was arrested on 1 April 2009 while exercising at a Mexico City park – is accused of “carrying out transactions with illegally acquired funds to conceal the origin or ownership of those funds”, according to the Mexican Attorney General’s Office.  The accused is also the nephew of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, who has led the Juarez cartel since Amado died in 1997 while undergoing plastic surgery to disguise his identity.  The Juarez cartel has been battling the Sinaloa cartel for control of smuggling routes around Ciudad Juarez, turning the border metropolis into one of the world’s most dangerous places.  More than 3,100 people were murdered last year in the city (which sits across from El Paso in Texas), making 2010 the deadliest year since the turf war between the two mobs sent the homicide rate skyrocketing in 2008.

Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, Deputy General Commander of the Dubai Police, has announced that his force, in co-operation with international security agencies, has arrested sixteen people involved in drug trafficking and money laundering in the UAE, the UK, the Netherlands and South Africa.  “The gangsters possessed big quantities of drugs and money.  They intended to smuggle the drugs from Surinam to South Africa then to Europe, using highly technical equipment.  Dubai Police formed part of an international team assigned to pursue the gang, and Operation Shark continued for more than a year to identify the gang members and foil their criminal activities.

On 10 December 2010, police in South Africa arrested seven suspects and seized 316kg of cocaine and 100,000 drug capsules, Dutch authorities arrested three suspects with 637kg of hashish, 524kg of marijuana, a firearm and [the equivalent of £85,000 in cash], and the British authorities arrested two suspects and confiscated £304,000.  Then on 12 December the Dubai Police arrested three suspects: the big boss (an Asian called SA who has joint European and South African nationality) and two of his assistants.  SA possessed a number of passports, 58 electronic devices for communication with the gang members and some cash.  During questioning SA said that he would get 15% of the proceeds from the smuggled drugs.  SA has previously been  convicted in a drug case in a European country and was sentenced to five years in jail.  The three have been referred to the public prosecutor.  A fourth suspect was held on an arrest warrant from a European country, and was deported after we made sure that he had no criminal record in the UAE.”

Thomas Carroll, head of an organised crime gang that ran an international prostitution ring, has been ordered to hand over his proceeds of crime.  SOCA has been granted a Confiscation Order for £1,902,496 in Cardiff Crown Court, and the assets to be seized include four houses in Wales, three houses in South Africa, four cars and a personal registration number plate.  In passing judgment, Judge Bidder QC said: “This defendant has shown that he is prepared to squirrel away in properties abroad the proceeds of his prostitution business.  He is a convicted money launderer.  He is determined and astute.”

Carroll ran his business from a rented house in Castlemartin in Wales, along with his partner Shamiela Clark and his daughter Toma Carroll.  One room in the house was a dedicated call centre where they coordinated their clients’ calls, receiving up to 300 calls a day for their brothels throughout the UK and Ireland.  European women were recruited through advertisements on the internet and through publications in the UK.  Others from Nigeria were trafficked into the UK believing they were escaping to a better life: they were told they would be educated and become hairdressers or seamstresses, but instead they were subjected to African rituals designed to frighten them into compliance and forced into prostitution. All the money they made was taken back to pay off their ‘debt’ to their traffickers. 

Carroll is already serving a seven year prison sentence.  If he fails to meet the Confiscation Order he will face another ten years in prison.  A Confiscation Order for £360,000 was granted against Shamiela Clark in September 2010, and if she does not pay within six months she will serve a further three years in prison. 

Ajit Arora, of Middlesex, has been jailed for four years for money laundering.  He admitted transferring more than £500,00 overseas through his money service business, MSB Helmkunt Forex.  Arora was part of an organised gang that also contained Nadeem Karimzada, who came to the attention of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) when he reversed into an HMRC car on an undercover operation in Southall.  HMRC investigations revealed that Karimzada provided money laundering services to criminals, transferring £2.5 million to organisations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India and the United Arab Emirates, and he was jailed for three years on 4 March 2011. 

All three executives of a Californian toy company have now pleaded guilty to laundering almost US$9 million [about £5.5 million] for drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia.  Meichun Cheng Huang and Ling Yu were joint owners of Angel Toy Corp, while Xiaoxin “Judy” Ju was their accountant.  Huang and Yu directed their Colombian and Mexican clients to drop cash off at the company’s Los Angeles headquarters or deposit it directly into the company’s bank accounts.  The pair then wired the money to China to purchase teddy bears and other stuffed animals and dolls which were exported to Colombia where an associate arranged for their sale.  The Colombian pesos generated by those sales were used to reimburse Colombian drug traffickers. 

Nineteen-year old Nick Webber, who was brought up in Guernsey and is the son of former Guernsey politician Tony Webber, has been jailed for five years for orchestrating a multi million-pound internet fraud.  Webber ran GhostMarket.net, a site where credit card details were sold and advice on running scams was available.  Judge John Price called the fraud “a criminal enterprise offering sophisticated advice on how to hack into computers, cause them to malfunction and retrieve personal information from computers – and how to do it on massive scale.”  The details of thousands of credit cards were found on Webber’s computer when he was arrested in October 2009 after he used a compromised credit card in a London hotel.  At its peak the site had more than 8,000 users, and it is estimated that the details amassed represented a potential loss for credit card companies of more than £12 million.  The gang running the website spent their illegal earnings on luxury goods such as plasma televisions, jewellery and cameras.  Gary Kelly (aged 21) was also jailed for five years, Ryan Thomas (18) was jailed for four years, and Shakira Ricardo (21) was jailed for eighteen months.  Judge Price told them that their age had saved them: “I’m extremely conscious of the youth of you all.  Were you four or five years older the sentence would be much longer.” 

In a follow-up to a story dated 3 March 2010 (see Old news page), John Maurice has been ordered to pay back the cash he concealed in his underpants or face longer in jail.  Maurice, a semi-retired property salesman employed by a property sales company in Spain, was stopped in Dover in 2008 as he waited to board a ferry to France.  When challenged, he produced 63,000 euros and £2,600 from his underpants.  At his trial in March 2010 he admitted smuggling £3.8 million out of the country, and was jailed for four years for money laundering.  He has now been ordered to pay back £380,000 by 1 September, or serve a further four years in jail and still owe the money.

In its largest-ever money laundering seizure, the Houston Police Department (HPD) in Texas has seized more than US$1.5 million [about £920,000] and arrested five people on charges of operating gambling operations and money laundering.  The five were Terry Donalson, his wife Nancy, his father Alton, James Keith and Mario Correa.  A sixth suspect, Carlos Delgado, remains at large.  HPD vice officers have been watching the gang since April 2010, and raided three gambling locations last week.  They have nearly $200,000 in bank accounts, as well as guns, jewellery, vehicles, boats, jet skis, motorcycles and heavy-duty tools, ten acres of riverfront property, several currency-counting machines and more than 250 video gaming machines.  (In Texas, gambling machines are legal, but they become unlawful when they are used to pay out ten times the amount of a bet or $5, whichever is less.)  Each of the five suspects faces up to 99 years in prison if convicted.  Captain Steve Smith of the HPD said that the vice unit is cracking down on game rooms after years of little enforcement: "We'll be out there daily." 

Egypt's former interior minister Habib el-Adly, who has been accused of money laundering, will be the first minister of the regime of toppled president Hosni Mubarak to face trial before a criminal court.  El-Adly was arrested on 17 February 2011 (along with former tourism minister Zuheir Garana) and will go on trial on 5 March 2011.  The punishment of corrupt officials was one of the main demands of protesters in Egypt’s 18-day nationwide demonstration that brought an end to Mubarak’s 29-year rule, and investigations have begun into bringing corruption charges again several senior officials.  Egypt has imposed a ban on dozens of members of the present and former government from travelling abroad without permission and has frozen their assets. 

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, leader of the right-wing English Defence League (EDL) and also known as Tommy Robinson, is under investigation for money laundering.  The carpenter has had his accounts frozen and has told supporters (via a rant on YouTube) that it is “inevitable” that he will go to prison “despite being innocent”.  He also accuses police of “disruption tactics”, and says that he will set up a branch of the EDL in prison.  Police are investigating the source of several sums deposited in his accounts between 2007 and 2009.  Yaxley-Lennon is currently on bail after a police raid on his home in Luton. 

In a follow-up to a story dated 4 October 2010 (see Old news page), Isle of Man millionaire Trevor Baines has been sentenced to two-and-a-half-years in prison after being found guilty of stealing nearly £900,000.  His wife Wendy was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing £400,000.  Baines is already serving six years in prison following a money laundering conviction in 2009, and this new term will be added to that one.  The Bainses stole money from the Hermitage Securities Limited Trust fund to pay legal fees; they had managed the trust as corporate service providers.  During sentencing, Deemster David Turner said: “You had a reputation for being exceedingly wealthy and being part of the jet set.  You lived a glamorous way of life but it was all based on a lie.  You were not as wealthy as you pretended to be.  You employed fashionable legal counsel from England that didn't come cheap.”  He also commented that Trevor Baines stole the money through “confidence trickster methods”.

A gang of criminals who laundered more than £48 million of criminals proceeds for other organised gangs has been jailed following an international investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).  Tanveer Hussain Jaffery and Naveed Ahmad, both of Stoke-on-Trent, ran an online money transfer business called R2PK.com.  Coded text messages were sent by criminals based all over the UK and couriers were dispatched to collect hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash.  R2PK.com was used to launder the money that was then sent to Dubai and onwards to Pakistan.  Two Londoners, Mohammed Umer Farooq and Syed Yasir Abbas Shah acted as couriers, collecting the dirty money and depositing it in different branches of UK banks in amounts of £25,000 or less – i.e. smurfing.  One of the gang’s customers was Mark Kinnimont, ringleader of the UK’s largest cannabis smuggling gang, who was convicted of smuggling £62 million of skunk cannabis in March 2010.  Jaffery was jailed for ten years while Ahmad was jailed for six years, and Farooq and Shah for four years each.  Confiscation proceedings are now underway.

Several men have been found guilty of laundering up to a million pounds a month of drug money through a laundering method dubbed ‘cuckoo smurfing’.  This requires corrupt money bureau staff in foreign countries.  When the parents of a foreign student make a money transfer to a relative in the UK, the clean money is siphoned off to a bank account the criminals can access.  The bureau staff then send a text to the criminals tipping them off about the size of payment and to whom it has been made.  The criminals then go into a bank and pay the same amount of dirty money into that account.  SOCA officers undertook surveillance of the gang who operated out of a house in Birmingham and received texts from Dubai, Afghanistan and Iran with instructions on which student accounts money should be paid into.  SOCA seized £600,000 and 20kg of heroin at the address, as well as a coded ledger of the gang’s financial transactions.  The three Birmingham men who ran the scam have been jailed for a total of 16 years.  Four other men – who acted mainly as cash deliverer and collectors – are being sentenced over the next few weeks. 

Seventy-four members and associates of the Armenian Power organised crime syndicate have been arrested during early morning raids throughout southern California involving nearly a thousand officials.  Charges laid against those arrested include kidnapping, bank fraud, narcotics trafficking and money laundering, and they stem from a campaign by law enforcement agencies to crack down on white collar crime involving Armenian and Eurasian gangs in California.  According to officials, Armenian power members have been accused of installing skimming devices at cash registers in 99 Cents Only stores, thereby stealing customers’ information to create counterfeit credit and debit card accounts.  Most of the defendants are in California, but authorities have also charged more than a dozen individuals in other states including Miami and Denver.

Neil Ayres has been jailed for 3½ years for money laundering, after the Metropolitan Police found £95,000 hidden in a safe deposit box at the Hampstead Safe Depository in north London.  The cash, and two mobile phones found with it, had been contaminated with extremely high levels of cocaine.  Ayres claimed that he had won the money by playing poker and that his personal cocaine use explained the contamination.  However, he was found guilty in January 2011 of possessing the proceeds of crime.  The cash has now been confiscated and will go back to the public purse.

Juan Rangel, from Southern California, has been sent to prison for fraud and money laundering.  Rangel ran a Ponzi scheme that took in at least US$30 million [about £18.5 million] from more than 500 investors.  He also operated a mortgage scheme that stole money and property from homeowners in trouble with home loans, preying on distressed Spanish-speaking homeowners.  He spent the money on a lavish lifestyle, living in a $3 million house and driving a Lamborghini.  He pleaded guilty in October 2010, in a plea deal that called for a 15-year sentence, but the judge decided that 22 years was needed because of the devastating impact on victims. 

The Swiss foreign ministry has issued a statement saying that its federal council has ordered a freeze of any assets believed to be in the name of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.  The freezing order lasts for three years, and forbids the sale or disposal of any assets during that time.  According to the statement: “Any assets of the former Egyptian President Mubarak and parties close to him that may be located in Switzerland have been frozen with immediate effect.  In this way the Federal Council is taking all the measures required to avoid any misappropriation of government assets.”  It is not known how much money is involved.  This is the second such move by Switzerland in recent weeks: at the end of January, they froze the assets of ousted Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who also fled his country amid popular revolt. 

In a follow-up to a story dated 27 June 2010 (see Old news page), Raj Bhojwani has had his prison sentence reduced.  Bhojwani was found guilty in March 2010 of laundering £28 million in Jersey: the money came from corrupt Nigerian vehicle deals, and was moved through the Jersey branch of the Bank of India.  He appealed against both his conviction and eight-year jail sentence; the court gave him credit for good character and his eight-year sentence was reduced to six years. 

Fiona Blake, the wife of convicted drug trafficker Craig Blake, has been sentenced to three years in prison for laundering the proceeds of her husband’s multi-million-pound criminal enterprise, and will now be subject to a confiscation investigation.  Mrs Blake put drug trade revenue through her personal bank account, thus helping her husband to conceal his leading role in a criminal network that stretched across southern England to South Wales, and as far afield as Australia.  Made up of three regional gangs working together, the drugs network is believed to have trafficked around half-a-tonne of cocaine into the UK.  Mrs Blake’s conviction is the 27^th in relation to the network, and she is the second wife to be sent to prison for laundering: Friday Quick was sentenced to eighteen months in 2010.  SOCA’s Matt Horne said: “This is not simply a case of enjoying a lifestyle funded by serious criminality.  Fiona Blake took an important role in attempting to conceal the profits of a major drug-dealing organisation.  It is a sad fact that the Blakes’ and the Quicks’ young children now have both parents serving prison sentences.  Anyone tempted to involve themselves in organised crime should consider just how devastating the consequences can be.”

Lee Horton, formerly a sports editor at The People newspaper, has been jailed for defrauding more than £370,000 from his employer.  For eight years Horton invented contributors and claimed between £150 and £390 for work attributed to them.  He evaded detection for so long because the sums were below the £500 limit which required sign-off by more senior management.  Horton spent the proceeds on his daughter’s education, donated money to her school and gave funds to a Down’s Syndrome charity.  He also paid for morale-boosting jaunts for his colleagues, such as a golf trip, and admitted being “ridiculously generous” with other people’s money.  He was jailed for fifteen months for false accounting and money laundering; he has paid back nearly £300,000 and the remainder will be repaid when his house is sold. 

Bahasyim Assifie, director of tax examinations and investigations in the Jakarta tax office in Indonesia, has been found guilty of corruption and money laundering relating to bank accounts worth more than IDR 66 billion [about £4.5 million] held in the names of his wife and children.  Bahasyim also bought a house worth about IDR 8 billion [about £500,000] and registered it in his son’s name.  Bahasyim’s claims that he made his money from a jewellery business and overseas investments were not supported by convincing evidence, said the judge: his business partners in the Philippines and China had presented statements that were “one-sided and prepared only after the case was prosecuted”.  The indictment said that Bahasyim had acquired the money between 2002 and 2009 “through illegal means by misusing his position and authority as a civil servant”.  Bahasyim was sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay back the money to the state.  He has said that he will appeal.

Four men – three from London and one from Devon – are to be extradited to Italy to face investigations into a 400 million euro [about £344 million] money laundering operation involving Italian telecoms firm Fastweb, and the Mafia.  City of Westminster Magistrate