Money laundering news 06/12/2009 Jail for woman in £1.2m money laundering gang

A woman who could not prove she had legitimately obtained £1.2m was jailed for three years at Birmingham Crown Court after the trial of a gang lasting in total nearly a year and which involved money laundering investigations in Hong Kong and Norway.

The 39-year-old woman, who used addresses in Dudley and Birmingham as well as a home in Norway, pleaded guilty to 24 charges of concealing criminal property, four of transferring criminal property and three of entering into or becoming concerned in a money laundering operation.

In February, her co-accused, a man and a woman, were sentenced to five years and six and a half years respectively for their parts in the operation.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the investigation centred on sending money linked to the exploitation of illegal immigrants out of the UK and using the proceeds of crime to buy properties.

The arrests of the co-defendants came about in October 2006 after a bank alerted police to a suspicious cash deposit of £43,800.

The woman was then alleged to have flown to Hong Kong and closed her account which had received deposits of just under £600,000. She also cleared accounts in the UK and transferred £37,000 to the Bank of China.

The West Midlands gangs activities were said to be the final part of a chain back to the people-trafficking operation and exploitation which caused the deaths of 21 illegal immigrant cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in 2004.

The woman in the last part of the court proceedings had turned a blind eye to the criminal origins of money from gangmasters, transferring it in and out of bank accounts attached to her Oriental medical centres in a complex money laundering operation.

News « Proceeds of crime news - Woman linked to people trafficking cash

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