"sophisticated fraud" met with eleven years' imprisonment
23 May 2008
A diversion fraud through all the major clearing banks today resulted in sentences for its co-ordinators of six and five years' imprisonment. Although 21 people acted together in this conspiracy, these two men were described by His Honour Judge Bate as having acted as "organisers of intellligence and dishonest strategic vision to co-ordinate the fraud to maximise its yield and minimise risk". Though the victim companies were City of London institutions, the compass of the case also included Nigeria, South Africa and Brazil.
In the eight-week trial, Luke Blackburn led William Chapman for the Crown, in what was described by the learned Judge as a "complicated and unusual banking fraud".