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A money launderer who fled during his 2018 trial has been extradited from the Netherlands and jailed for five-and-a-half years.
Javed Ahmad was caught trying to stuff more than £100,000 in a filing cabinet when HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officers raided his Burnley office in November 2015.
The 50-year-old was convicted and sentenced in his absence for laundering £3.5 million of criminal cash. Two other men were also jailed for a total of 6 years and 3 months for their part in the fraud.
The trio were caught on CCTV at multiple branches of the same bank on the same days making deposits below £5,000. In just one day, in November 2015, they made 33 different deposits totalling more than £95,000.
HMRC officers forced entry into his Elm Street office and recovered £103,250, which has been forfeited. They also discovered deposit slips proving the men had paid in more than £3.5 million to banks across Leyland, Bolton, Burnley, Accrington, Nelson, Preston, and Blackburn.
Ahmad was arrested by Dutch police on 8 January 2025 and was extradited back to the UK on Thursday 3 April. He is now starting a five-and-a-half-year sentence.
Nicol Sheppard, Assistant Director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said:
“Ahmad thought he could run from his crimes, but we never stop looking, working tirelessly with our international law enforcement partners to ensure frauds do not go unpunished.
“Money laundering helps fund other serious organised crime and deprives the taxpayer of money needed for public services.
“We will not hesitate to prosecute those involved and I would urge anyone with information about type of tax fraud to report it to HMRC online.”
Between June 2014 and April 2015, the men made 36 deposits and went on to make a further 821 cash deposits in the seven months between May and November 2015.
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