The City of London Police recently announced the sentencing of Naeem Khalid to 46 months in jail by a Manchester Crown Court on August 10, 2022. According to Police, Khalid pleaded guilty to five counts of money laundering in December 2021 for laundering funds that were fraudulently obtained from 20 victims, which include a care home, two solicitors’ firms and several manufacturers. The Police report that Khalid and an accomplice, Abiya Hussain, fraudulently obtained millions of pounds from companies that had been defrauded by a scheme in which employees received emails that appeared to be from senior managers requesting that they make payments to an account allegedly owned by a supplier or business.
An investigation conducted by the City of London Police’s Serious Organized Crime Team revealed that bank accounts in Hussain’s name had received thousands of pounds in unexplained cash deposits that were eventually linked to the defrauded companies. The Police also discovered that, in 2015, an account that was opened by Khalid had received four payments totaling £10,000 – payments that were ultimately traced to a manufacturing company that had reportedly lost £500,000 in a telephone scam. The Police eventually uncovered several accounts opened or linked to Khalid that followed similar patterns, including a business account that he opened in which he deposited approximately £150,000 that was later identified as being part of a £742,000 scam suffered by another unnamed company. Altogether Khalid and Hussain admitted to laundering £238,000.
In December 2021, Hussain was given an 18-month community order for her role in the scheme. She was sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid work and a 10-day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR).
Khalid and Hussain are now subject to confiscation proceedings.
City of London Police Press Release