Indian-origin accountant jailed five-and-a-half years in UK for fraud, cash laundering

An Indian-origin chartered accountant (CA) has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years of imprisonment by a UK court docket after being convicted for exploiting a weak sufferer out of cash and property price 331,858 kilos.

Sukhvinder Singh, 73, was sentenced on 4 counts of fraud and one depend of cash laundering at York Crown Court in north-east England on Thursday. The court docket heard that the sufferer, recognized solely as ‘A’, has studying, social, and bodily disabilities and was focused and duped by Singh.

“Singh put himself forward as a trusted friend and professional financial adviser for an individual with considerable vulnerabilities. His actions, in diverting money and property for his own personal gain, was a huge breach of trust, and failed to support and protect the victim,” mentioned Andrea Thomas, a Senior Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Serious Economic Organised and International Directorate (SEOCID).

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“He may have obtained further assets from the victim but for the work of North Yorkshire police who helped to build a strong and compelling case. The conviction and sentence follow close team working between the CPS and police and results in justice for the victim. The CPS will be seeking to start proceedings on getting back Singh’s ill-gotten gains,” he mentioned.

An investigation by the North Yorkshire Police power found that when A’s dad and mom had died, Singh had provided to type out the monetary affairs. However, the CA as a substitute took 34,000 kilos from the sufferer’s checking account and paid into his personal in September 2016. In the identical month, Singh transferred the possession of A’s dwelling within the city of Harrogate, valued at round 275,000 kilos to certainly one of his personal firms. No cash was paid again to A, in return.

Singh created quite a lot of paperwork on his pc, together with agreements and letters, to facilitate the fraud. Some of the paperwork claimed to be from A and people with duty for A’s affairs, agreeing to switch them to Singh, the CPS revealed.

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At the time of Singh’s arrest, the CPS mentioned that proof was seized that exposed he was making an attempt to acquire additional property belonging to A, together with an house in Spain (price over 62,000 kilos) and round 5,000 kilos held in a checking account in Jersey.

The CPS mentioned it’s dedicated to persevering with to work intently with regulation enforcement and investigatory authorities to convey such people participating in fraudulent practices to justice.

Its SEOCID unit is comparatively new, having been launched in April 2022 as a response to the altering nature of crime by bringing collectively specialists in organised and financial crime.

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