Money laundering news 28/08/09 Sentence passed after criminal property found in washing machine

An international money laundering chief has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison, following the discovery of £85,000 in the front of a van, and over half a million pounds of criminal property in a washing machine in the rear.

The money, since shown to have been the proceeds of crime, was detected as the van attempted to depart from the UK for Morocco in March of this year, when investigations in Dover proved the machine to have been hollowed out and its workings replaced with black bags of cash.

Tests showed that the money was carrying significant traces of cannabis. Through the arrest of the driver, El-Hassan Bouhafna, police were able to trace what was described as a substantial money laundering enterprise back to Karim Bernia, 39, of Plaistow.

Both Bouhafna and Bernia pleaded guilty to charges of transferring £85,000 of criminal property, and Bernia also admitted a second count relating to the £600,000 discovered in the washing machine. The driver received a 21-month prison sentence.

Sentencing Bernia, Recorder Douglas Day QC told him I have no doubt that you are higher up the organisation - if not at the very top.

This was a very serious case of money laundering relating to the poisonous trade of drug trafficking.

News « Proceeds of Crime news - Washing machine implicates money laundering boss

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