According to the City of London Police, which has been active in helping to investigate and combat financial crime in the UK, it has arrested a 58-year-old man from South Wales who was in possession of £30 million worth of bankers’ drafts.
The seizure was described as the biggest ever made by UK law enforcement, and the funds that the man possessed were allegedly generated from international organized crime including Forex Ponzi schemes and laundering through the man’s company bank account.
The investigation had only been launched last month after the agency received intelligence that a UK bank account was flagged for suspected Money Laundering .
The suspicions, that the police developed from the intel, led to the man being arrested at his home near Bridgend and taken in for questioning at the local station, according to the official press release today.
It appears that the man used a shell company that purported to be involved with test drilling and with an annual turnover of £250,000 per annum, yet in November 2015 there was $19 million that was received and then converted into euros by an intermediary forex company, and the bulk of the money was sent on to Georgia, according to the update.
In addition, £37 million was transferred into the same account just a month before the investigation started, in February 2016, and the man claimed that the funds were for the purchase of a tea company in Sri Lanka.
Detective Inspector Craig Mullish, from the City of London Police’s Money Laundering Unit, said in the official press release: “We believe this man’s business account was being used by a global network of organised crime operators to launder tens of millions of pounds of stolen funds through the UK and then out into bank accounts around the world.”
“His arrest and the massive money seizure is further evidence of how banks and law enforcement are working very closely together to take criminal proceeds out of the UK economy.”
