The criminal gang used offshore companies controlled by trusted associates and offshore banks in jurisdictions including the Channel Islands and Cyprus to try to hide the trail, eventually transferring the money to the UK.
But an extensive financial investigation by the UK-based Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) unpicked the complex trail and found that the money was originally stolen by Matthew Holmes and Donald Somers, who worked for Commerzbank in Germany.
Both men were convicted in Germany but the money could not initially be traced.
SOCA investigators discovered that another employee of the bank, Leigh Greest, had enlisted a specialist criminal money laundering group headed by Herbert Austin to try to obscure the money trail.
Austin and co-conspirators Raymond Jewitt and Anthony Heald had created an international system to receive and wash the stolen money, which was eventually transferred to accounts of Equity Holdings and Investments Limited and Westfield Corporation Limited in the UK.
Now Austin has been jailed for eight years, Greest has been sentenced to two years, and Heald and Jewitt sentenced to three and five years respectively.
SOCA deputy director Andy Sellers said that tangled money trails are not a deterrent. “[SOCA’s investigators] are tenacious and the sentences handed out today reflect their determination to pursue criminal profits right to the end of the line,” he added.
To date, the equivalent of approximately $4.5m of assets have been restrained in the UK, with additional sums being restrained in Spain, Portugal and Australia. Work to identify further assets held by the group is ongoing.
