Ramanathan Thayaparan was jailed for nine years in May 2014 after an HMRC investigation revealed organised crime associates would queue with unsuspecting tourists to convert bags of dirty money into easy concealable €500 (£442) notes at the bureaux de change.

For a fee the gang, led by Thayaparan, who was supposed to be the business’s designated money laundering reporting officer, turned a blind eye to strict regulations governing checks on the source of cash at their two Victoria foreign exchange outlets.

The fraud allowed Thayaparan to build a £1.3m property portfolio comprising homes in London, Paris, Chennai in India, and land in Sri Lanka.

At Southwark Crown Court on 28 September, the judge made an order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 requiring Thayaparan to pay back £1,382,707 within three months, or face a further seven and a half years in prison.

Nicol Sheppard, assistant director, fraud investigation service, HMRC, said: ‘The message from the hearing couldn’t be clearer: abuse your position to launder money and we’ll lock you up.

‘Thayaparan exploited his role to line his pockets, but we left no stone unturned in picking apart his finances and identifying his assets – even those offshore. Money laundering is a serious offence and people like Thayaparan and his associates sustain organised criminals by legitimising their ill-gotten gains.’

His accomplices, Thillainathan Kumarathas, serving a five-year sentence, and Dinesh Kumar Anandan, who has served a two-year sentence, were ordered to repay £23,520 and £37,500 respectively at a hearing in September 2015.

There is no appeal against default jail sentences issued in confiscation orders and the order for repayment remains in place after the entire default sentence is served. If the assets held by the convicted criminal at the time of the order are less than the benefit derived from the fraud, then any future assets can be confiscated up to the value of the benefit of the fraud.

Report by Pat Sweet