On 9 September 2021 Richard Faithfull was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months’ imprisonment for money laundering offences. Mr Faithfull was also disqualified from acting as a company director for a period of 10 years.
The case in point
Mr Faithfull was charged under section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) which makes it an offence to conceal, disguise, convert or transfer criminal property.
Mr Faithfull laundered £2.5 million as part of a trans-national organised crime group for more than 12 months. During this period, Mr Faithfull laundered the proceeds of at least 7 professionally run overseas investment funds.
Using a sophisticated operation, Mr Faithfull allegedly used multiple accounts and front companies in numerous jurisdictions to help criminals defraud victims by paying fictional ‘dividends’ from bank accounts controlled by him. Mr Faithfull made it seem that underlying investments were generating returns and involved innocent parties to help assist with his fraudulent scheme.
Mr Faithfull relocated to Ukraine to avoid detention and continued his criminal activities. Here, he enlisted the assistance of local criminal groups abroad.
Mr Faithfull previously plead guilty to the offence of money laundering on 16 April 2021 and put forward a plea argument that sought to minimise his role in the offending. The argument was not accepted by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and a trial of fact on a plea was listed at a Newton hearing to determine the basis upon which he should be sentenced.
Following a 4-day hearing, His Honour Judge Tomlinson rejected the submissions made by Mr Faithfull’s legal team and accepted the FCA’s statement of the case. Mr Faithfull finally accepted that he was a “thoroughly dishonest person.”
His Honour Judge Tomlinson remarked that it was “serious offending” which was linked to the “human misery caused by boiler room fraud’ and that ‘money coming in [to accounts controlled by Faithfull] was not being invested, it was simply being slaughtered.”
The FCA is now pursuing confiscation proceedings against Mr Faithfull in order to seize his illegal gains.
We have discussed confiscation proceedings in an earlier article. The SFO secured further confiscation orders over additional assets worth £140,000. This is in addition to the £34,000 previously confiscated by the SFO.
Rosenblatt can help
Rosenblatt has a wealth of experience in financial crime and is uniquely placed to support clients’ that are the subject of an FCA investigation and prosecution having defended one of the largest prosecutions brought by the Financial Conduct Authority.
https://www.rosenblatt-law.co.uk/services/financial-crime/#financial-crime
Contact us
Should you wish to discuss the services we offer further please contact Anil Rajani at anil.rajani@rosenblatt.co.uk.
(Source: Richard Faithfull sentenced to over 5 years imprisonment for money laundering | FCA)
We at RBG Holdings/Rosenblatt support and encourage free/independent thinking in relation to issues which are sometimes considered to be controversial subject matters. However, the views and opinions of the authors of articles published on our website/s do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, practices, and policies of RBG Holdings/Rosenblatt.
