Lawyer Monthly Magazine - February 2020 Edition

‘Mr Big’ on the run In 2012 [2] , after serving a three-year prison sentence for money laundering for drug dealers, Maythem Al-Ansari, also known as ‘Mr Big’, was facing another jail term for multi-million-pound mortgage fraud. After handing over his passport when being released on bail, a blunder allowed ‘Mr Big’ to contact the home office to obtain a new passport, which he quickly used to flee to Syria. At the time, this left millions of pounds unaccounted for, but in 2016 Al-Ansari gave himself up at London Heathrow. This mishap was purely down to lack of communication and coordination between various government bodies. To avoid any similar blunders in future, these government bodies must endeavour to work together more closely, to ensure confiscated identity documents cannot be reapplied for when a person is released on bail. UK’s largest ever visa fraud In September 2019 [3] , four people were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court for their involvement in the UK’s largest-ever immigration fraud case. The fraudsters posed as ‘immigration advisers’ who devised a network of fake companies to deceive officials in the Home Office. The culprits charged extortionate fees for pulling together hundreds of false immigration applications that would’ve cost the taxpayer millions of pounds, had the scheme run successfully. Raids on the defendants’ homes and businesses provided substantial evidence for the case to be prosecuted. For those looking to migrate to the UK, it’s essential to go through the official channels to avoid any possibility of being defrauded. 27 FEB 2020 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM Special Feature Written by John Dobson, SmartSearch 1 3 2 Standard Chartered Bank fined £102.2 million The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued its second-largest fine to Standard Chartered Bank in April 2019 [4] , a nine-figure sum of £102,163,200 for anti-money laundering (AML) breaches. Serious and prolonged shortcomings in Standard Chartered’s approach towards identifying and rectifying money laundering risks led to this fine. An example of these failings includes opening an account with 3 million UAE Dirham (£500,000) deposited from cash in a suitcase without verifying the funds. Businesses, particularly those in the financial sector, must take an active approach in identifying potential money laundering risks and reporting suspicious transactions, to avoid breaching AML regulations. Investing the time to ensure all money laundering processes are water-tight will save businesses money in the long run as any resulting fines, if caught, would be far greater in size than the fraudulent funds.