Three men have been sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court today (Friday 16 January) for money laundering and perverting the course of justice.

Ragbir Singh Sandhu, 31 and from Sutton Coldfield, and Paul Smith, 31 and from Derby received 2 1/2 years for money laundering after pleading guilty. Sandhu also received 2 1/2 years for perverting the course of justice along with Manjit Dosanjh, who was given a 2 year suspended sentence and 150 hours community service, after pleading guilty to the charges.

In February 2007 Sandhu opened a business bank account using fake documents for a company that did not exist. He then intercepted a cheque for £286k, paid it into his account and then transferred some of the money out of the account, as well as withdrawing a large sum.

Similarly Smith opened two business accounts for fake companies, and paid in several intercepted cheques totalling more than £368k. Sandhu and Smith then tried to transfer £150k from Smith’s accounts into Sandhu’s, at which point the bank alerted police and the pair were arrested.

Smith was later found to be in possession of £4,400 of traveller’s cheques which had been stolen from a travel agent in Shirley.

Dosanjh was sentenced for perverting the course of justice after he opened a fraudulent account to accept £167,125 from Sandhu’s account whilst Sandhu was under a court restraining order.

Detective Inspector Chris Berrow from the West Midlands Regional Asset Recovery Team said: “Clearly this was a complicated case, but I am pleased that we have stopped this team of fraudsters. These sentences should send a message to anyone who thought that fraud will not be dealt with as serious crime, and we will continue to target these criminals.

“We will now look at using the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover the money that these criminals have gained illegally, to ensure that the communities we serve know that criminals will not benefit from crime”.