Cannock members of international money laundering gang sentenced after five years of court delays
Fraudsters involved in a international money laundering scheme which recruited people from Cannock have finally been sentenced after repeated delays.
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Fraudsters hacked into the email accounts of international companies and directed customers to send money to bank accounts of people in the UK.
The sophisticated scam which netted over £241,000 between November 2015 and June 2016 relied on people opening bank accounts in their own names and transferring money or withdrawing cash immediately.
Organised crime gangs made tens of millions of pounds using the same scam between 2012 and 2018 which led to hundreds of vulnerable people losing their bank accounts and being unable to open new ones.
The gang recruited several people from Cannock wanting to earn a quick buck illegally. However, as they used their own names to set up the bank accounts to receive the criminal funds they were quickly identified as being part of the fraud.
An international fraud investigation involving foreign police forces as well as Staffordshire Police Force began investigating the fraud in 2017. Despite several of the defendants pleading guilty to money laundering in January 2020 due to others pleading not guilty the pandemic and the barrister's strike their trials were delayed three times.
Yesterday, at Stafford Crown Court nine defendants were sentenced for their part in the fraud. However, the organised crime kingpins who were behind the fraud still remain at large.
