Gang of crooked businessmen used a banking flaw to steal more than £15m from NatWest

Robert Edwards, 36, of Hazel Grove, Trethomas, Caerphilly, denies conspiring to launder the proceeds of criminal conduct and use false instruments between January 1 and July 31, 2004.Also before the court are Manjit Singh, 51, and his 28-year-old son Kuldipe, both of Foinaven Gardens, Glasgow, who also plead not guilty to the conspiracies.Southwark Crown Court heard that a gang of crooked businessmen used a banking flaw to steal more than £15m from NatWest.Following the bank’s takeover by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the men realised they could pay in worthless cheques and pocket a “vast” fortune before they bounced.By the time the simple fraud was discovered, most of the missing money was in Latvia. En route it was laundered with the help of a string of companies and thousands of non-existent mobile phones.Scores of equally fictitious documents were created to give the transactions a false gloss of legitimacy.Fortunately, a bank worker in the Latvian capital Riga realised something was amiss, contacted NatWest, and was told about the theft.That resulted in the account the money went to being frozen before it could be wired to its final “safe haven” destination of Dubai.The court heard yesterday that since then two trials had taken place and 11 people dealt with.David Aaronberg, prosecuting, claimed Edwards helped run Skye High Freight Forwarders Ltd in Hanworth, west London.
Opening the five-week case Mr Aaronberg said none of the three defendants were involved in the plot to steal NatWest’s money.He went on to explain: “This is not the gunpowder plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, where the conspirators were found, all together in a cellar, discussing their wicked plan. No-one overheard them. No-one will tell you exactly how their plans were hatched.“This case is more like a jigsaw puzzle. You won’t have all the pieces but what you will hear amounts, say the Crown, to powerful circumstantial evidence.”He said that after NatWest’s merger with the Royal Bank of Scotland a new system suggested deposited cheques which had not been cleared were “credited funds” available to spend.A number of apparently “inadequately trained” staff at a NatWest branch in St Helens did not realise a “more thorough interrogation” of the system was needed.That meant that having used six bogus cheques to pay in a total of £15,255,025, some of the men were able to withdraw more than £13.5m and transfer it to Latvia in May 2004.
“It was passed from one company to another in an attempt to disguise its origin and make it appear as though it was the proceeds of legitimate trading. What the criminals were doing was laundering the money, washing dirty funds to make them appear clean.“To give an apparent explanation for vast sums of money being moved around, false documents were created to lend credence to a cover story for the criminals involved to stand any chance whatever of satisfying bank staff or, indeed, the police, that they had not been acting dishonestly.”The barrister said it was simple luck that prevented the plot succeeding.He said Latvia’s decision to join the EU on May 1, 2004, resulted in bank staff being sent on courses to alert them to money laundering problems.Not long afterwards, one rather “bright-eyed” worker became suspicious when just over £13.5m of the gang’s “ill-gotten gains” arrived in Riga and contacted NatWest.The bank immediately revealed the money had been stolen and the account was promptly frozen.
The trial was adjourned until today.