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Gibraltar Linked To Money Laundering Operation

Panorama

31 August 2000

This story is reproduced by kind permission of Panorama at http://www.panorama.gi


Customs officers in Britain have smashed one of the country’s biggest money laundering operations which handled up to £1 million of mainly tobacco smuggling cash a week through a tiny London bureau de change. At least £15 million was laundered through the bureau near London’s Victoria Station over a two-year period, reports the Daily Express.


The money - mostly in small denomination notes - was carried into the bureau de change in everything from plastic carrier bags to large holdalls. The biggest single amount was £350,000. The cash, most of which came from cigarette smuggling, was changed into foreign currencies and then smuggled out of Britain. One courier was stopped at Luton airport, with £60,000 worth of Swiss francs hidden in her knickers. Some £2 million was paid to a City firm to buy gold coins. More than £500,000 went in bank drafts to a Maltese stockbroker.


Operation Impulse uncovered a Europe-wide network of organised crime gangs involved in smuggling cigarettes and drugs into the UK utilising the bureau de change - which was not part of the criminal organisation - to launder their dirty money, the Express claims.


This “freelance money laundering service” was established by a Gibraltar bureau de change owner, now facing extradition to Britain. He charged £30,000 for every £1 million laundered.He is named in the report as well as his 38-year old brother, who was jailed for four-and-a-half years at Southwark Crown Court earlier this month after pleading guilty to acting as the money courier. He was photographed delivering bags of cash to be laundered.

The convictions mark a key change of tactics by the Customs which is increasingly attacking money launderers as well as their drug and tobacco baron clients.


Les Beaumont, head of the National Customs Investigation Service’s Financial Investigation Branch said: “This tactic is another weapon to combat drug smugglers and bootleggers by identifying the money men and taking away their assets.”


“Nothing hurts villains mare than confiscating their dirty cash or the houses, cars, yachts, stocks and shares that have been acquired through crime. This case typifies how Customs deals with the money men who provide a service to smugglers,” he told the Express.

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