Launderer used money service bureau to move £10m criminal cash

11 Dec 2015 01:19 PM

A man who laundered more than £10 million in criminal cash from a money service bureau in East London has been jailed.

Umer Rasheed, 34, of Skeffington Road, East Ham, used his position as manager of Usman International Ltd in Green Street, Upton Park, to send hundreds of payments to Pakistan over a period of almost four years.

He was arrested in December 2011 following a handover with cash courier Shokeer Hussain, 46, of Lansdowne Road, Walthamstow. Investigators moved in after witnessing Hussain hand Rasheed a Tesco carrier bag which was found to contain £50,000.

Checks on computers and records from the money service bureau showed Rasheed had been in regular receipt of large amounts of cash. Logs showed he had created fictitious names and addresses to make them look like legitimate customers.

This money was then mixed in with cash from genuine customers of the bureau and sent overseas.

National Crime Agency financial investigators worked out that between 2008 and his arrest he had been involved in laundering more than £10.3 million in criminal money. Cash deposits at the MSB ranged between £10,000 and £180,000, in the ten days prior to his arrest he had laundered £350,000.

Phone records showed Rasheed had been in regular contact with criminal contacts in the Netherlands, UAE and Pakistan.

Rasheed denied two counts of money laundering charges, but on 26 November 2015 he was found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey.

On Thursday 10 December he was sentenced to five years and nine months years in prison.

Hussain, who admitted money laundering, was given an 18 month suspended sentence and 200 hours unpaid work.

Brendan Foreman, regional head of investigations for the National Crime Agency, said:

“Rasheed was a serial money launderer, using his cover as a manager at a money services bureau as a means of sending millions of pounds of criminal cash across the globe.

“Although money launderers may not be out there themselves selling drugs or guns on our streets, the role they play in organised crime is just as vital as those who do.

“Criminal networks of all types need the services of money launderers like Rasheed to hide and move their profits, which is why the NCA is doing all it can to disrupt and bring them to justice.”