indians-abroad

Updated: Oct 19, 2019 19:44 IST

An Indian-origin man based in Leicester is facing jail after a jury found him guilty of being involved in a multi-million pound money laundering operation that involved sending money through ‘hawala’ and other means to India and Hong Kong.

Chauhan Vijay Yogendrasinh, 55, was the director of a company that appeared to be a legitimate money transfer service, but was actually found to be a money laundering operation transferring criminal money overseas, Leicestershire police said.

Investigations revealed that more than £11,000,000 had been transeferred through the company. While some trasanctions were found to be legal, millions of pounds were transferred illegally through different bank accounts and companies to be sent abroad.

“It is not known what criminal enterprise this money came from but police work, which included uncovering huge amounts of cash and numerous false documents, proved that money laundering had been committed”, the police said in a statement.

Yogendrasinh denied his involvement but a jury after a seven-week trial in the Leicester Crown Court on Wednesday found him guilty by a 11 to one majority of conspiracy to transfer criminal property between January 2011 and March 2016.

Prosecuting lawyer Michelle Heeley told the court that around £11 million of unexplained cash was processed using a number of genuine money transfer bureaux, based on bogus receipts from many non-existent customers and using false invoices.

She added that the majority was “dirty money” put through the books with bogus paperwork to make it appear legitimate before it was transferred to Hong Kong and India.

Heeley told the jury, “it’s the prosecution case that what appeared to be a legitimate money transfer service was in fact a professional money laundering operation run by Mr Yogendrasinh”.

“The aim was not to transfer money for legitimate customers who can be found and spoken to, the aim was to transfer money for criminals who would never want to leave the shadows…It funded a nice lifestyle for Yogendrasinh”.

Judge Robert Brown told him: “There can only be one sentence and that is custody. You’ve been convicted of what, on any view, is a very serious crime”.

Detective constable Grant Bailey said: “This was an operation which involved millions of pounds of criminal cash being transferred illegally. A complex police investigation which involved tireless hours of examining documents, checking financial records and carrying out CCTV enquiries - amongst other work - meant that we were able to prove what ‘business’ was actually being run”.

“We will now carry out confiscation proceedings with a view to taking back the ill-gotten gains obtained through this criminal conduct”.