A British man faces four and a half years in jail after being convicted of money laundering that involved funneling money through Canada, among other countries, to perpetrators of a boiler room fraud.
The UK Financial Services Authority announced that Michael McInerney was convicted of three counts of money laundering and sentenced to four and half years in jail, following a joint investigation by the FSA and City of London Police. It reports that McInerney acted as a banker for a syndicate of boiler rooms that defrauded an estimated 1,700 investors out of £27.5 million. Three men behind the scheme have already been sentenced to jail for a total of 19 years.
The FSA says that McInerney opened bank accounts for three different companies (Rock Solid Asset Management, Worldwide Assets Limited and Universal Management Services) which were purportedly for property management, but were actually in the business of receiving the proceeds of boiler room fraud. He also arranged transfers of funds to offshore accounts in Jersey and Malta, and funds were distributed to accounts in Canada, Hong Kong, Dubai, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, Slovakia, and Austria, which were operated by the boiler room fraudsters.
Tracey McDermott, the FSA’s acting director of enforcement and financial crime, said the sentence in the case “sends a clear message that the court takes boiler room offences seriously and will hand down significant sentences to those involved in them.”