A criminal who helped print £12million worth of counterfeit bank notes has been jailed following the largest seizure of fake cash in UK history.
Andrew Ainsworth, 61, from Farningham, was part of a gang who mass-produced stacks of fraudulent £20 notes with a specialist printing machine.
Investigators were alerted to the criminal operation after the Bank of England spotted £1.8million in dodgy cash entering circulation in January 2019.
Materials used in the gang’s printing process were then traced back to an industrial unit in Beckenham, southeast London, owned by one of its members.
A police raid on the site in May 2019 found two men with the equipment and £5.25million in fake money. The sum was also attributed to a list of names discovered by officers at the scene.
Another £5million worth of false bank notes were dumped in a residential road in southeast London, and found by a dog walker in October that year.
More than £200,000 was discovered just three months later, on a railway line between Farningham and Longfield, in Kent.
Gang member Ainsworth was found guilty of conspiring to produce counterfeit currency at Woolwich Crown Court last month, and was handed a five-and-a-half year prison sentence earlier today.
Meanwhile three other members of the group are currently serving a combined total of 22-and-a-half years behind bars after they admitted their involvement and were sentenced in January last year.
Speaking after Ainsworth’s conviction, assistance chief constable Andrew Pritchard of Kent Police said: ‘The printing press our officers raided in Beckenham was supposed to produce magazines, leaflets and flyers but instead contained the largest face-value quantity of counterfeit cash ever discovered in the UK.
‘This was a professionally run operation but those involved were naïve if they thought they could carry on undetected.’
Neil Harris, of the National Crime Agency (NCA), added the operation prevented ‘millions’ of fake cash from entering circulation.
He said: ‘Had the conspirators remained undetected, the effects would have been felt by innocent people across the UK going about their day-to-day business, particularly retailers who would have lost most of that value.
‘As well as convicting those involved in the actual printing of the notes, this investigation resulted in the convictions of those who supplied finance and would have been involved in the wholesale distribution of the counterfeit notes.
‘Serious and organised criminals will always seek ways to maximise their profits and legitimise money made through crime, the consequences of which can seriously impact the economy.
‘Identifying this and working with partners to combat illicit finances, which enables further crime, is a focus for the NCA.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
from News – Metro https://ift.tt/GSL8U0i
0 Comments