The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) has been involved in a number of recent successful
money laundering prosecutions.
The DCPCU
The DCPCU is a unique proactive police unit, with a national remit, formed as a partnership between UK Finance, the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police together with the Home Office.
It is sponsored by UK Finance, the new industry body representing around 300 firms in the UK providing credit, banking, markets and payments-related services. The ongoing brief of the DCPCU is to investigate, target and, where appropriate, arrest and seek successful prosecution of offenders responsible for card, cheque and payment fraud crimes. It has reportedly achieved an estimated £486 million in savings from reduced fraud activity since its establishment in April 2002.
Credit Card Fraud
In one recently reported
case, a man who laundered almost a million pounds in a year has been jailed for six years and four months.
His home was searched in October 2016 as part of a week-long police initiative to tackle card fraudsters, after intelligence suggested he had been using compromised cards to buy electronic goods with a value of £15,000 and sell these on.
Officers found a number of credit cards and a number of fraudulent documents, including a driving licence with the man’s picture but using an alias. When police researched this name they found a bank account which had been used in 2014 to receive £50,000 from a romance fraud.
Further enquiries found there had been a £900,000 turnover in a bank account during the previous year.
He was found guilty of disguising criminal property and was sentenced to a total of six years and four months’ imprisonment. He had already pleaded guilty to three other charges.
Money Laundering Offences
In a second
case, a man has pleaded guilty to laundering £213,096 through his bank account over a six-year period. His bank account was examined after he was arrested on a related matter, and financial investigators found that he had no source of legitimate income to fund his lifestyle.
He was given a two-year suspended sentence by a judge at Inner London Crown Court. He also received 250 hours unpaid work, 20 day rehabilitation activity requirement and forfeiture of all phones, laptops, bank cards and driving licence.
“Money laundering is an extremely serious offence,” commented Detective Constable Fiona Roope of the DCPCU. “The police work very closely with the banking industry to prosecute offenders involved in money laundering and a conviction can have very real consequences.”
In a third recently reported
case, two men have been jailed for their roles in the dispersal of almost £120,000 of stolen funds. They were sentenced to a total of more than five years in jail following the laundering of the stolen money through a series of bank accounts.
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contact our specialist criminal defence lawyers today.
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