Although the following story is old, it’s just does show how easy it is to become a money launderer if you don’t ask questions!!!!

Jonathan Krestin (60), the managing partner at Butcher Burns, a commercial and property firm of solicitors, was yesterday fined £5,000 on one count of money-laundering at Isleworth Crown Court.

He was convicted on 19 November, after a two and a half week re-trial, of using the firm’s client account to launder money belonging to Michel Namer, a French national and convicted fraudster.

An investigation by HM Revenue and Customs showed that Krestin transferred 14,000 Euro from Namer to an Italian account of Namer’s mistress and former lap dancer, Dzindzer Jeles, knowing or suspecting the monies to be criminal property.

He was found not guilty in relation to three other counts.

This sum was part of the proceeds of a 35,000,000 Euro Missing Trader Intra Community Fraud orchestrated by Michel Namer.

The 14,000 Euro transfer was made just days after Krestin had been served with a court order cataloguing the criminal offences of which Michel Namer was suspected of and in relation to which he was about to plead guilty.

Namer was introduced to Krestin by a qualified tax advisor, Neil Macpherson. Macpherson was convicted at the first trial and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment in June 2008. That jury could not agree on verdicts in relation to Krestin and so a re-trial followed.

Notes to editors

1. Neil Hamilton MACPHERSON, ( d.o.b. 26/05/1965) a London tax advisor was jailed in June for three years after being convicted of four counts of money laundering at the end of a six-week long trial at Isleworth Crown Court.
2. PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE – Jonathan Michael KRESTIN between 19th September 2005 and 8th October 2005, in relation to the receipt and disbursement by the firm of Butcher Burns of 14,000 Euros from Kilmeston Limited to Dzindzer Jeles’ Italian bank account, entered into or became concerned in an arrangement which he knew or suspected facilitated the acquisition, retention, use or control of criminal property by or on behalf of Michel Namer.
3. STATEMENT OF OFFENCE – Facilitating the acquisition, retention, use or control of criminal property by or on behalf of another person, contrary to section 328(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
4. Jonathan Michael KRESTIN (d.o.b. 01/05/1948) has been qualified as a solicitor since 1977, and was appointed as managing partner of Butcher Burns in 1999. He had been the firm’s money laundering reporting officer since 2004.
   1. He set up bank accounts and fronted companies involved in Missing Trader Intra-Community frauds orchestrated by a French national Michel NAMER.
   2. These frauds were an attack on the VAT systems of France, Italy and Spain Between 2004 and 2006, fraudulent payments totalling over 35 million Euro passed through bank accounts in the UK and Monaco which Macpherson controlled on behalf of Namer.
5. Michel NAMER is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for MTIC frauds carried out in the UK following the conclusion of a HMRC investigation in 2005. He has also been convicted of similar offences in Belgium and is the subject of an ongoing investigation in France.
6. The Revenue & Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) was created by Royal Assent on 18 April 2005. An independent prosecuting authority, RCPO reports directly to the Attorney General, and is responsible for prosecuting some of the largest drug and fraud cases in the UK. For further information, please contact Fiona Dick, RCPO Press Office on 0207 147 7746.

REVENUE & CUSTOMS PROSECUTION OFFICE News Release (PN08/009) issued by COI News Distribution Service. 5 December 2008 http://bit.ly/1VaPseb