A crooked accountant and a solicitor who laundered over £1.8m of criminal cash from carousel VAT frauds have been jailed for a total of six and a half years, following an HMRC probe.
Solicitor Richard Sutton Housley from Edinburgh and accountant Caroline Jane Laing, 55, of Denny, were found guilty last month of jointly laundering more than £1.8m between February 2003 and December 2004.
Laing was jailed for two-and-a-half years for money laundering. She acted for several companies involved in the money laundering and also set up and operated several bank accounts used to launder the criminal profits.
Housley, 57, worked for the Gebals firm of solicitors where he was responsible, under the Proceeds of Crime Act, for reporting suspected criminal activity but was found guilty of failing to do so. He was also found guilty of falsifying employment records to avoid paying over £39,000 in income tax.
David Odd, HMRC's assistant director, criminal investigation in Scotland, said: 'Both Housley and Laing gave the appearance of being upstanding members of the business community but they were involved in a complex and organised money laundering fraud over a long period.
'Given their professions - as a solicitor and an accountant - Housley and Laing knew full well that they were breaking the law. However, they chose to abuse their positions of trust for the opportunity of making what they wrongly assumed would be easy money, at the expense of the UK taxpayer. They will now pay for their criminal activities.
'The Proceeds of Crime Act was specifically designed to make it harder for money to be laundered and to deprive criminals of their illicit wealth. It is a vital element of HMRC's criminal investigation strategy.'
The £1,8m - laundered through bank accounts, first in Greece, Cyprus and Switzerland and then by Housley and Laing through banks in the UK - was the proceeds of VAT frauds linked to European sales of computer parts.
Housley was jailed for six months on the income tax fraud, six months on failure to report criminal activity, and four years for money laundering at Edinburgh High Court. All sentences to run concurrently.
A third person, 45-year-old Michael George Voudouri, formerly of Kenilworth Road in Bridge of Allan, pleaded guilty in October 2012 to laundering over £11.6m. He was due in court for sentencing in November 2012 but absconded. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.
In 2004, Voudouri was sentenced to four years in jail after pleading guilty to failing to pay £3m in VAT on computer chips he imported from Denmark, Luxembourg and Ireland which were supplied VAT-free under EU regulations. He then sold on the chips to UK customers charging VAT which he then failed to declare and pay.
A confiscation hearing to recover the criminal proceeds of the frauds is scheduled for 25 March 2013 at the Edinburgh High Court.