REVENUE & CUSTOMS
PROSECUTION OFFICE News Release (PN08/009) issued by COI News
Distribution Service. 5 December 2008
Jonathan Krestin
(60), the managing partner at Butcher Burns, a commercial and
property firm of solicitors, was yesterday fined £5,000 on one
count of money-laundering at Isleworth Crown Court.
He was convicted on 19 November, after a two and a half week
re-trial, of using the firm's client account to launder money
belonging to Michel Namer, a French national and convicted
fraudster. An investigation by HM Revenue and Customs showed that
Krestin transferred 14,000 Euro from Namer to an Italian account
of Namer's mistress and former lap dancer, Dzindzer Jeles,
knowing or suspecting the monies to be criminal property. He was
found not guilty in relation to three other counts.
This sum was part of the proceeds of a 35,000,000 Euro Missing
Trader Intra Community Fraud orchestrated by Michel Namer. The
14,000 Euro transfer was made just days after Krestin had been
served with a court order cataloguing the criminal offences of
which Michel Namer was suspected of and in relation to which he
was about to plead guilty.
Namer was introduced to Krestin by a qualified tax advisor, Neil
Macpherson. Macpherson was convicted at the first trial and
sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment in June 2008. That jury
could not agree on verdicts in relation to Krestin and so a
re-trial followed.
Notes to editors
1. Jonathan Michael KRESTIN (d.o.b. 01/05/1948) has been
qualified as a solicitor since 1977, and was appointed as managing
partner of Butcher Burns in 1999. He had been the firm's
money laundering reporting officer since 2004.
2. STATEMENT OF OFFENCE - Facilitating the acquisition,
retention, use or control of criminal property by or on behalf of
another person, contrary to section 328(1) of the Proceeds of
Crime Act 2002
3. PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE - Jonathan Michael KRESTIN between
19th September 2005 and 8th October 2005, in relation to the
receipt and disbursement by the firm of Butcher Burns of 14,000
Euros from Kilmeston Limited to Dzindzer Jeles' Italian bank
account, entered into or became concerned in an arrangement which
he knew or suspected facilitated the acquisition, retention, use
or control of criminal property by or on behalf of Michel Namer.
4. Neil Hamilton MACPHERSON, ( d.o.b. 26/05/1965) a London tax
advisor was jailed in June for three years after being convicted
of four counts of money laundering at the end of a six-week long
trial at Isleworth Crown Court. He set up bank accounts and
fronted companies involved in Missing Trader Intra-Community
frauds orchestrated by a French national Michel NAMER. These
frauds were an attack on the VAT systems of France, Italy and
Spain Between 2004 and 2006, fraudulent payments totaling over 35
million Euro passed through bank accounts in the UK and Monaco
which Macpherson controlled on behalf of Namer.
5. Michel NAMER is currently serving a six-year prison sentence
for MTIC frauds carried out in the UK following the conclusion of
a HMRC investigation in 2005. He has also been convicted of
similar offences in Belgium and is the subject of an ongoing
investigation in France.
6. The Revenue & Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) was
created by Royal Assent on 18 April 2005. An independent
prosecuting authority, RCPO reports directly to the Attorney
General, and is responsible for prosecuting some of the largest
drug and fraud cases in the UK. For further information, please
contact Fiona Dick, RCPO Press Office on 0207 147 7746.