Two company directors who used their own company accounts to launder money from fraud victims have been jailed following an operation by the NCA working with the Metropolitan Police and Gloucestershire Constabulary.
Yakub Patel (57) who was director of Refill Ink Centre Ltd and Conrad Lea Distribution Ltd, and Gavin Hale (37), who had been a director of Printme Ltd, created false purchase orders and invoices to reflect fictitious sales in an attempt to account for the stolen money. In total around £2m was laundered, in a combination of Sterling and US dollars.
The money they were laundering had been stolen from elderly or vulnerable account holders, using ID fraud to transfer money from their accounts, in some instances their entire life savings.
On the 5th July Yakub Patel, of Alfred Street, Gloucester, and Gavin Hale, from Royston, Herts, were found guilty of 14 individual counts of money laundering. On 25 July at Southwark Crown Court, Patel was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, and Hale to a prison term of four and a half years.
Patel was disqualified from company directorship for 12 years, and Hale for six years.
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