£30m Money Launderer Gets 10 Years In Prison

The ringleader of a gang who laundered £30m of criminal cash through a network of money transfer offices was jailed at Southwark Crown Court for 10 years, following a complex investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Asif Ali, 40, of Luton, controlled a network of crooked money transfer offices which he and others used to clean up £30m of illicit money.

HMRC investigators found that Ali was at the centre of a money laundering scheme that is believed to have netted him a personal profit of up to £759,000 in just six months. Ali owned KB Money Transfer in Watford, but also controlled money service businesses registered in the names of his brother, sister-in-law and various employees. These were used to mask the huge sums of criminal cash passing through his bank accounts to foreign destinations. He produced fake business records on a daily basis to make the cash appear legitimate.

Undercover surveillance carried out by HMRC showed criminals, who have since been convicted of money laundering, were delivering cash to be laundered by Ali.
He was arrested outside his house receiving more than £96,000 in cash in a black bin bag from Ibrahim Patel. Searches of money service businesses in Watford, Southall and Manchester led to the arrest of Mohmed Patel, who was also jailed today for four years. More than £400,000 in cash was seized in total.

IAMTN: It is good to see that the authorities are taking some offenders to court and getting convictions. In the long term this will help the industry – of course in the short term it does present something of an image problem.