British law enforcement said Friday it had dismantled a major money-laundering gang after the final three members were convicted after a five-year investigation.
Aurimas Bielskis, 41, Vitalijs Slapkins-Slapkovs, 34, and Nedas Kiviliauskas, 34, were sentenced at Kingston Crown Court in West London.
Bielskis and Slapkins-Slapkovs were each sentenced to 22 months in prison and two years suspended. Bielski also received his 250-hour community service. Kivilauskas sentenced him to 23 months in prison and he was suspended for two years and had to do 350 hours of community service.
The three played key roles in a money laundering operation whose ringleaders, Artem Terzyan and Deivis Grochiatskij, have together been sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Read more about the investigation here: Money launderer gets 33 years in £70m crime scheme
The UK’s National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police have joined forces to create an organized crime partnership to monitor 10 gangs since October 2017.
After a careful digital forensic investigation of hundreds of bank accounts controlled by Terzyan and Grochiatskij, police calculate that the group laundered and transferred at least £70m ($85m) of criminal funds out of the UK. Did.
Slapkins-Slapkovs and Kiviliauskas were listed as directors of shell companies set up by the group to help launder money. Tens of thousands of pounds were deposited into these bank accounts at a time, then flowed out of the country via a “complex remittance network” to accounts in Germany, the Czech Republic, the UAE, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The group also traded luxury watches as another way of laundering money, generating an additional £10m ($12m) in profits from fraudulent COVID bounceback loans (BBLs) for shell companies.
All three were charged with one count of money laundering, and Bielskis was charged extra for bounce-back loan fraud. Kiviriauskas was also charged with possessing a Class B drug for the purpose of supplying it after officers discovered a cannabis farm at his home.
Organized Crime Partnership’s Andy Tickner explained, “This was a painstaking and complex investigation in which the team analyzed a series of financial data and transactions and conducted hundreds of hours of oversight.”
“It also allowed me to understand the structure of the network and the individual roles of its members in setting up fake companies to move money. It has played a key role in making it accessible, and the removal of this service will be a major blow to organized criminals in the UK and around the world.”
