Final Three Sentenced in £70m Money Laundering Case

UK legislation enforcers claimed on Friday to have dismantled a key revenue laundering gang soon after its closing 3 members had been sentenced pursuing a 5-year investigation.

Aurimas Bielskis, 41, Vitalijs Slapkins-Slapkovs, 34, and Nedas Kiviliauskas, 34, were being sentenced at Kingston Crown Court docket in west London.

Bielskis and Slapkins-Slapkovs were every handed 22 months in jail, suspended for two many years. Bielskis also obtained 250 hrs of group assistance. Kivilauskas was sentenced to 23 months, suspended for two several years, and will have to do 350 hours of local community support.

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The 3 performed a key position in a revenue laundering procedure whose masterminds, Artem Terzyan and Deivis Grochiatskij, have presently obtained a blended 33 a long time driving bars.

Examine far more about the investigation here: Money Launderers Get 33 Years for £70m Criminal Plan

The UK’s National Crime Company and Metropolitan Law enforcement Services joined forces to make an Organised Crime Partnership which monitored the 10-man gang from October 2017 onwards.

After a painstaking electronic forensics investigation of hundreds of bank accounts controlled by Terzyan and Grochiatskij, law enforcement calculated that the team experienced laundered and sent at minimum £70m ($85m) in felony income out of the UK.

Slapkins-Slapkovs and Kiviliauskas have been shown as directors of shell corporations established up by the team to enable launder some of the funds. Cash was deposited in these bank accounts tens of countless numbers of lbs at a time, and then funneled out of the country by using “a sophisticated web of transfers” to accounts in Germany, the Czech Republic, UAE, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The team also traded in luxury watches as a different way to launder income, and even generated an supplemental £10m ($12m) in earnings from fraudulent COVID Bounce Back Financial loans (BBLs) for the shell providers.

All three had been charged with just one count of revenue laundering, with an added charge for Bielskis for the Bounce Again Personal loan fraud. Kiviliauskas was also charged with possession with intent to provide class B drugs after officers uncovered a cannabis farm at his dwelling.

“This was a painstaking and sophisticated investigation in which the group analyzed reams of financial data and transactions, as effectively as conducting hundreds of hrs of surveillance,” stated Andy Tickner, from the Organised Criminal offense Partnership.

“We ended up also able to establish a picture all over the structure of the network, as perfectly as members’ particular person roles in placing up bogus organizations and transferring dollars. This network performed a crucial job in enabling other criminals to conceal and entry their illicit earnings. The elimination of this company will have been a significant blow to structured criminals in the UK and globally.”