A church leader who lied about charity donations to
fraudulently claim £155,840 in Gift Aid repayments has been jailed for four
years. Teslim Johnson, 39, from Dunstable, Bedfordshire, used his
position as a preacher and trustee at Agape Church in Luton, Bedfordshire, to
steal the funds. As a registered charity, the church could claim Gift Aid on
donations. But in 2016 HM Revenue & Customs officers contacted donors
listed on the charity’s records after they became suspicious of a series of
claims.They found that most of the donations had not
been made and many alleged donors had never heard of the church. Read More ...
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An
organised crime group was dismantled and 9 suspects arrested on 8 March in a major
operation in Europe and South America. Operation NANA was led by the Croatian
Police and the Rijeka State Prosecutor’s Office and jointly conducted by
Colombia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, Slovenia, Spain, the Drug
Enforcement Administration of the United States (US DEA) and Europol. The crime
network was suspected of transporting multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine from
Colombia, Ecuador and Panama to Europe.
A
container ship legally carrying scrap metal from Panama to the port of Rijeka,
Croatia, was found to be transporting more than 100 kilograms of cocaine and
150 kilograms of marijuana destined for the Croatian illicit drugs market.
Investigators also concluded that part of the group was involved in tobacco
trafficking and in March 2017 seized more than 69 000 packets of cigarettes
worth EUR 350 000. Read More ...
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Four men
and a woman appeared in court today accused of laundering cash from the sale of
fake and unlicensed medicines after more than £19m passed through their
accounts.
Prosecutors
say counterfeit medication was bought in European countries such as Germany, Austria and France before being sold.
David
Cohen, 37, Mindy Gross, 42, and Jacob Gross, 44, Edward Cohen, 65, and Maurice
Gross, 37, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court facing a total of 14
charges against them.
David
Cohen, of Golders Green, north London, is charged with making a false
statement to obtain benefits, failing to notify of a change of circumstances
affecting benefits, providing false information to the Charity Commission,
acquiring criminal property and being concerned by the acquisition of criminal
property. Read More ...
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An
international money laundering ring hiding dirty cash for a former Manchester
City player turned suspected drug dealer was smashed by Merseyside Police . Ryan
McDowell and his cronies delivered piles of drugs cash stuffed into suitcases
and bin bags to other criminals – who used a technique known as ‘cuckoo
smurfing’ to make it disappear. Today McDowell, 33, of The Meadows, Rainhill , was jailed for five years
at Liverpool Crown Courtafter being observed
channelling at least £550,000 through the ‘professional’ network of money
launderers, and an additional £142,000 through his own bank accounts.Judge
Alan Conrad, QC, sentencing, told him: “Yours was the leading role of the
defendants before the court, in which you were directing operations and dealing
in considerable sums of cash – carrying on over a period of time undeterred by
stops or seizures. Read More ...
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Over the past decade or so, expats across the world have been warned time and time again
about crooks posing as financial advisors, but boiler room scammers are the
worst of the entire poisonous pack. Often operating from back-street rooms in the capital cities of many favourite
expat locations, unqualified, briefly-trained and often without legal visas,
these crooks are experts in just one thing – separating their victims from their hard-earned wages, capital and pensions.
Financially unsophisticated expatriates fall for their scripts and lose
everything on a regular basis, whilst the scammers shut up shop and move to
another location to avoid detection. Sadly, the majority get away with it, but occasionally the gang makes a mistake
and ends up in court.
Read More ...
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On
18 December 2017, the National Bureau of Investigations of the Slovenian
Police, supported by the Croatian Police and Europol, dismantled an
international crime syndicate involved in sports corruption and illegal
betting. The network had created an illegal web-platform in order to convey
large bets on major Asian bookmakers. In total, 13 house searches and 15
vehicles searches in different locations in Slovenia and Croatia have been
carried out. Read More ...
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A Russian man who ran a sophisticated computer hacking network which stole at least £2 million from the bank accounts of UK businesses has been jailed for nine years. Vugar Mollachiev, 37, of Berkeley Gardens, north London, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court for conspiracy to defraud and money laundering, the Metropolitan Police said.
Evidence from a previous cyber crime investigation identified Mollachiev as being heavily involved in cyber criminality and online fraud. Scotland yard said Mollachiev and his associates used their technical knowledge to infect computers in businesses across the UK and Europe, enabling them to defraud businesses and UK banks out of over £2 million.
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Dramatic CCTV footage has emerged showing the moment two money launderers were cornered
by police in an
Asda car park as they
exchanged a bag containing hundreds of thousands of pounds. Fen Chen,
31, was part of a gang that took £1.8million into dozens of
London High Street banks between July 30
and August 15 last year. In the
video, released by the National Crime Agency (NCA), the money launderer can be
seen accepting a bag containing more than £300,000 from Albanian gangster
Fation Koka in the car park in Park Royal, northwest London.
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HSBC has
revealed that it closed accounts linked to South Africa’s Gupta family
corruption investigation, admitting for the first time concerns about its
potential ties to the snowballing scandal. The bank said it had also flagged up its worries to the financial crime
expert who has overseen its money-laundering controls since it was fined a record $1.9bn in 2012 for processing
cash for Mexican drug lords and terrorists. Regulators in the UK are already looking into whether HSBC and another bank,
Standard Chartered, had ties to the Guptas after former cabinet minister Peter
Hain passed a list of transactions to the chancellor warning of their “possible criminal complicity”. HSBC admitted on Friday that it was forced to close bank accounts held by
“front companies” associated with the Guptas. Read More ....
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A Greek court decided Wednesday to allow a Russian man accused of
masterminding a multi-billion fraud involving bitcoin to be extradited to the
U.S.
Alexander Vinnik, the suspected money launderer, is wanted by the U.S. and
Russia for various cyber crimes involving BTC-e, a digital currency exchange
that used bitcoin. The Justice Department said he is wanted for operating an
unlicensed money service business, money laundering, and other crimes.
The Justice Department in its July indictment
said BTC-e, which Vinnik operated,
was used to facilitate crimes ranging from hacking and
identity theft to public corruption and drug trafficking. The exchange brought
in more than $4 billion in bitcoin.
Read More ...
