A BRITISH court has jailed three money launderers, including an Indian origin person, for selling a bogus metal scheme and pocketing £1 million from customers.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Monday (30), Tarun Jain, 50, Ike Obiamiwe, 56, and Daniel Jordan, 36, have been jailed by the Kingston Crown Court for a total of 14 years for three counts of money-laundering.
The trio gave customers the opportunity to invest in baskets of valuable elements known as ‘rare earths’ when in reality the metal they were selling was almost worthless.
The group of tricksters charged between seven and two hundred times the actual value of the metal, and asked their victims to pay some of their investments into accounts owned by them.
Jain tried to deny his involvement, but the CPS were able to prove his role in the money-laundering operation.
Obiamiwe insisted that he was a consultant who gave advice to businesses and told investigators the money in his bank account had come from a trading company in Dubai.
However, the CPS was able to prove the £87,000 in his account was part of the proceeds of the fraud.
Alongside some purchases on iTunes, further investigation found that Jordan had syphoned £80,000 through his accounts.
Libby Clark of the CPS, said: “These men tried to hide what they were doing through lies or multiple bank accounts, covering the fact they were actually laundering money that had been gained through an elaborate fraud.”
The group was punished for the crime at Kingston Crown Court on Friday (27).
