Widely covered cases in Britain

Although over 230,000 money-laundering instances are currently being investigated across the United Kingdom, the media coverage attracted by MQM Chief Altaf Hussain’s case in both England and Pakistan has been exceptionally extensive.
Another money laundering and tax fraud case that has consumed a lot of print space and air time of British, American and European media houses in recent months is the one pertaining to the likely prosecution of Princess Cristina de Borbon, the sister of sitting Spanish King Felipe VI and the daughter of Spain’s King Juan Carlos who abdicated in favour of his son.
The 49-year old Princess Cristina is due to stand trial on tax fraud charges anytime during 2015 and is thus all set to become the first Spanish royal to face prosecution.
On December 22, 2014, innumerable Spanish and international media outlets had reported that Spanish prosecutors were conducting an investigation into the affairs of Cristina’s husband, former Olympic handball player Inaki Urdangarin, for four years.
Spanish prosecutors have already ordered Princess Cristina, her husband Urdangarin and 15 others to stand trial in a money laundering case that involves an amount of 6 million Euros (US $8 million dollars).
The Spanish couple had been ordered to deposit funds with the court to cover possible liabilities.
The amount is 2.6 million Euros in the case of Cristina and nearly 15 million Euros for her husband, Urdanganrin.
Media had quoted Spanish judges as saying that Cristina was suspected of two counts of co-operation in tax fraud and one of money-laundering, while her husband was accused of embezzlement and fraud.
In court appearances, Princess Cristina and her husband have been denying any wrongdoing.
(Reference: A December 22, 2014 report of Reuters)
Believed to have been practised in one form or the other for thousands of years, when affluent merchants used to move their wealth beyond the grasp of local rulers to avert

confiscation, a serious money-laundering case is surely haunting the ailing MQM boss Altaf Hussain in London.
When he was first arrested in London on suspicion of money laundering on June 3, 2014 and then granted bail after four days, Altaf Hussain’s name had featured on the list of a few very well-known Pakistanis handcuffed in Britain on charges like shop-lifting and match-fixing.
Before Altaf Hussain, a Pakistani politician was arrested in London for stealing a garment.
And in November 2011, a few Pakistani crickters were jailed in the conspiracy to bowl deliberate no balls in last year’s Test match against England.
In recent past, money laundering charges have led to the embarrassment and conviction of numerous famous rulers like Nigeria’s dictator Sani Abacha, former Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos, Panama’s Manuel Noriega, Taiwan’s Chen Shui-bian, former Ukrainian Premier Pavlo Lazarenko, former Guatemala President Alfonso Portillo, Congo’s former head of state Mobutu Sese Seko and Indonesia’s ex-President Suharto etc. In May 2014, the son of president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, Teodorin Obiang, was also charged with money laundering.
In 2008, former Israeli Finance Minister, Avraham Hirschson, was sentenced to five years in prison for theft and money-laundering.
In June 2014, the son of the all-time great Brazilian football legend Pele had been sentenced to 33 years in prison after he was found guilty of laundering money for an alleged drugs cartel.
Pele’s son Naldinho was accused of controlling a large proportion of the drugs moving through the country’s south-east region, including the supply of cocaine to the slums of Rio de Janeiro, but has been on the run from police for more than five years.
(Reference: The June 1, 2014 edition of The Independent)
Moreover, quite a few internationally-trusted banks like the Bank of New York, the Standard Chartered Bank of Britain, the HSBC bank, a Costa Rica-based centralised digital currency service “Liberty Reserve,” the London branch of South Africa’s Standard Bank and a French bank BNP Paribas etc were fined heavily for being involved in money laundering.
Simply put, the classic understanding of money laundering is a three-stage process whereby funds obtained through or generated by criminal activity are converted into another asset, often by deposit into a financial institution, and subsequently moved or concealed in order to obscure the link between the crime and the funds it generated.
(References: The November 9, 2005, the December 6, 2012, the December 11, 2012 and the June 30, 2014 editions of the New York Times)
As far as the British criminal laws and courts are concerned, they have also been very strict against their own people of any stature. The long arm of British law has clutched them all!
Here follows just a handful of examples in this regard:
In October 1968, London police had arrested John Lennon, legendary English singer and songwriter who had risen to worldwide fame as a co-founder of the band “The Beatles,” the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music.
Police had recovered uncovered a half gram of morphine, 200 grams of hashish and a cigarette-rolling machine with traces of marijuana from John Lennon’s bedroom with the help of drug-sniffing dogs. At trial, Lennon had pled guilty to the charge and had received a £150 fine and a warning that another drug-possession offence would lead to a year in jail.
In December 2008, former England Cricket all-rounder Chris Lewis had been charged with attempting to smuggle 3.37 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of more than 200,000 pounds into Britain. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Apart from these afore-cited precedents, a good number of British legislators like Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, Labour Council leader Dan Smith, Junior Defence Minister Lambton, Earl Jellicoe, eminent politician Jeffrey Howard Archer and Conservative MP Mark Pritchard etc either had to resign on corruption charges or were sentenced to imprisonment after they were found guilty of financial wrong-doings.