HITEN’S ILLEGAL GAINS HALTED
Back in July 2002 Hiten Patel, a 31 year old male from Hackney, East London was arrested by London crime squad officers on suspicion of handling stolen goods. His arrest followed a lengthy enquiry by officers from both the London Borough of Hackney and crime squad officers.
Following Patel’s arrest, a lock-up container he rented at an East London storage site was searched and a large quantity of electrical items including laptop computers and mobile phones were seized. Subsequent enquiries found that a large majority of the items were stolen.
Patel subsequently appeared at Southwark Crown Court, where he pleaded guilty to three counts of handling stolen goods and two counts of attempting to handle stolen goods. Patel received a 16 month sentence prison sentence for these crimes.
London RART then undertook what would become a lengthy financial investigation to recover the benefit that Patel had accrued from his criminal activities. It was discovered that the turnover of Patel’s personal bank accounts amounted to £766,831. A further whopping £1,262,445 was deposited into the bank accounts of his unemployed relatives. None of this revenue was derived from legitimate earnings as very few business transactions went through the bank accounts and none of the income was declared to the Inland Revenue.
Patel’s illegitimate assets spread as far as the United States of America where he held two bank accounts in his own name and one in the name of S D Patel, to which £292,350 had been transferred from the United Kingdom. 5 properties had been purchased in the United Kingdom in the names of the defendant’s family members. It was submitted to the Court that Patel himself orchestrated these purchases, as the income by family members was insufficient to have afforded them such extravagancies.
On 30th August 2007, His Honour Judge Testar at Southwark Crown Court made a confiscation order in the sum of £950,000 against Hiten Patel with a default prison sentence of 5 years if he does not pay the order within 6 months. The Judge went a stage further and commended Jacqui Nicholson the London RART officer on the excellent case she prepared on behalf of the Crown.
Acting Detective Inspector Paul Clements from London RART added, “this was an excellent result in many respects, most importantly it shows that the court is willing to use all its powers to remove the benefit gleaned from crime. The public can be reassured with this result that crime does not pay”.