Tangled money trails no deterrent for investigators
14 December 2011
Four men who conspired to launder $15.5m which was stolen eleven years ago from a German bank have been sentenced to 18 years in prison following an extensive financial investigation by SOCA.
The organised crime group believed it would be able to avoid law enforcement attention by spreading a tangled web of financial transactions across the globe, meaning that no one authority would have overall responsibility for investigating the crime, nor the resources to unpick the worldwide mechanics of the group. SOCA investigators proved to the men that their assumptions were wrong.
The original electronic bank theft, which took place in August 2000, was carried out by Matthew Holmes and Donald Somers, both inside-men working for the Commerzbank in Germany. They were convicted after an investigation by German police.
Six years later, SOCA investigators identified that funds being transferred to the UK were the same criminal funds stolen by Holmes and Somers and began investigating.
Officers discovered that through another employee of the bank, Leigh Greest, the men had enlisted a specialist criminal money laundering group headed by Herbert Austin to try to obscure the money trail.
Austin and co-conspirator Raymond Jewitt had created an international system to receive and wash the stolen money which exploited offshore companies, controlled via trusted associates and faceless administrative nominees. They then used an additional layer of offshore banks in jurisdictions including the Channel Islands and Cyprus before transferring the funds to the accounts of Equity Holdings and Investments Limited and Westfield Corporation Limited in the UK.
Commenting on the case, SOCA Deputy Director Andy Sellers said:
“The world of money laundering may seem a bit removed from reality, but this group was causing real damage on the ground.
“Without groups like those run by Herbert Austin the criminals who profit from drugs, weapons and people trafficking can’t stay in business. We know too that Austin and his accomplices targeted vulnerable council tenants in order to obtain local authority properties for redevelopment as part of their money laundering scheme. Using criminal cash to exploit low income residents priced some of them out of their own communities.
“Tangled money trails are no deterrent for SOCA’s investigators. They are tenacious, and the sentences handed out today reflect their determination to pursue criminal profits right to the end of the line.”
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 assets held by the group is ongoing.
Herbert Austin was sentenced to 8 years on Monday 12 December. Leigh Greest, who pleaded guilty to money laundering at the beginning of proceedings was sentenced to 2 years. Anthony Heald and Raymond Jewitt were sentenced to 3 and 5 years respectively.