Following a Recovery Order first granted by the High Court in May 2013, the National Crime Agency has today recovered more than $7m from an alleged international fraudster and money launderer.
In the civil recovery application the NCA submitted that Mr. Hakki Yaman Namli, who resides in Turkey, was involved in fraud on an
international scale and had derived millions of US dollars, held in two UK bank accounts, from complex investment fraud and money laundering. Mr. Namli owned and managed the First Merchant Bank OSH Ltd in north Cyprus. The investigation showed that the bank routinely produced bank funding advices and letters of credit which it ‘sold’ to investors for an advance fee.
The NCA submitted that the banking communications were fraudulent and that the documents were actually being used to defraud investors of their funds. During the trial, the court heard that these frauds occurred over a six year period between 1996 and 2002.
On 10 May 2013, the Honourable Mr. Justice Males handed down his judgement and found that, on balance of probability, Mr. Namli was involved in fraud on an international scale and money laundering. He granted a Recovery Order over $6.5m contained in the UK bank accounts. However the judge further ruled that other money in the account was not recoverable as it represented the profits on investments made with money loaned to Mr. Namli by the bank.
The NCA appealed the decision not to grant a Recovery Order over these profits and on 4 April 2014 the Court of Appeal ruled in the NCA’s favour, granting all money held in the accounts – approximately $7.2 million and 150,000 Euro – was recoverable.
Mr. Namli also sought to appeal the original Recovery Order, but his appeal was stayed because he failed to comply with an order to give security for the NCA’s costs, approximately £680,000. After failing to comply with a further order to provide the security, his appeal was struck out by an Order of the Court of Appeal on 23 June 2014, and today (19 August) the money, totalling more than $7m, was transferred to the NCA.
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