Javad Ahmad, 50, from Burnley, was first arrested in 2015 when HMRC officers raided his office and found £103,250 in cash hidden in a filing cabinet.

As well as cash HMRC officers found bank deposit slips totalling £3,545,675 from banks in Leyland, Bolton, Burnley, Accrington, Nelson, Preston, and Blackburn.

Some 36 of these deposits were made between June 2014 and April 2015, with the remaining 821 made between May and November 2015.

Although Ahmad fled to the Netherlands instead of facing trial in 2018, he was convicted and sentenced for money laundering while he was out of the country, and was given a five and a half year sentence which he will now begin to serve.