Company Director jailed for Laundering £3m with help from Wife

A company director was jailed for six years for his role in a £3 million money laundering operation.

Ranbir Singh laundered £3.3 million between 2015 and 2018, receiving help from his wife Kuldip Badesha, who worked for HMRC.

An HMRC investigation revealed that Singh was a company director to 12 firms, all of which are dormant.

Badesha worked for the HMRC compliance team and she registered the 12 firms with Companies House and did work for them, but failed to declare this to HMRC as a potential conflict of interest.

None of the companies were registered with HMRC for VAT purposes.

Badesha created two fake HMRC letters which allowed Singh to open two personal bank accounts with Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander.

A joint bank account had a turnover of over £3 million.

The account was solely used for money laundering, receiving credits up to tens of thousands of pounds.

Investigators found Badesha was leading a luxury lifestyle, which included leasing an expensive Bentley and enjoying holidays.

She was arrested in 2018 and dismissed from HMRC in November 2019.

Singh pleaded guilty to two counts of money laundering.

Badesha pleaded guilty to one count of misconduct in public office.

Judge Adam Hiddleston told Badesha:

“You are someone that has worked all your life and through this you have lost everything that you have worked for.

“What you did was to use your position of considerable trust as a no doubt valued member of the HMRC team to lend legitimacy to a claim which was not true and which you knew to be a lie.”

The judge said he accepted she had displayed “genuine remorse and regret”, telling Badesha:

“You are someone who has never been in trouble before.”

While Singh was jailed for six years, his wife received a suspended sentence.

Badesha was also sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work and five days of rehabilitation activity requirements.

Kelly Matthews, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said:

“Singh used his position as company director to launder money from business accounts to personal accounts for his own gain.

“The investigation uncovered this criminal enterprise amounted to around £3 million in turnover.”

“While his wife Badesha has abused her trusted senior position within HMRC by committing misconduct in public office.

“The work here of HMRC and the CPS has helped to see justice served against these two defendants.

“Money laundering enriches dishonest individuals and funds their future conduct. It serves to undermine the United Kingdom economy and therefore a crime that affects all of us.

“The CPS has commenced proceedings to recover these defendants’ criminal proceeds.”

Ben Rollins, Head of Anti-Corruption, HMRC, added:

“This was an appalling breach of trust from Kuldip Badesha.

“She abused her position to help her husband launder millions of pounds.

“Money laundering allows criminals to profit from the misery they inflict on their victims and often funds even more serious crimes.

“We are absolutely committed to the highest level of integrity and will track down the tiny minority who let us all down by falling short of those standards.”