Narita Bahra KC Acts for Lawyer charged with £113 Million Money Laundering Cyber Scam

Narita Bahra KC appeared at the sentencing hearing of an international money laundering ring who made in excess of £113 million dubbed Britain’s largest cyber scam: cold-calling bank customers.  

Narita Bahra KC acted for a professional, namely a lawyer, charged with conspiracy to launder money. A Basis of Plea was accepted by the Crown. The client was the only defendant to receive a suspended sentence. Representation involved advising on the Regulatory and Proceeds of Crime issues emanating from the plea.  

Between January 2013 and October 2015 the gang took £113 million from victims, of which £47 million has been recovered. The outstanding £66 million is believed to have been laundered internationally to Dubai and Pakistan.

At its height, the criminal operation made between £1m and £2m per week and led to police mounting the biggest cyber-surveillance operation to date, in order to arrest the group. 

Some 750 accountants and solicitors were targeted by the ring. Information leaked from corrupt insiders at RBS banking group and Lloyds was deployed to deceive business banking customers into thinking the call they were receiving was from their lender.

Using sophisticated software, the bank accounts were drained while his cohorts jammed the firm’s phone lines to stop them alerting their bank to the massive losses.

The operation was run like a 9 to 5 business. Techniques were extremely sophisticated, displaying false telephone numbers on the phones of victims and disposing of pre-paid phones and dongles once they had completed a hit.

The case received substantial international media coverage.