A chartered accountant unwittingly helped launder

A chartered accountant unwittingly helped launder part of the proceeds of a pnds stlng 1.

3 million confidence trick, a jury heard today.

(Thurs)

Richard Walker set up bank accounts and companies for a friend and business acquaintance without knowing he was masterminding an international advance fee fraud.

London’s Southwark Crown Court heard how a Swiss woman lost the fortune after being convinced money was needed up front to liberate a pnds stlng 26 million legacy from Nigeria.

Over five years she believed she was dealing with the Nigerian government, representatives of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the country’s embassy in London.

In truth, once wealthy Patricia Haussener had been targeted by ‘expert’ fraudsters and now faces bankruptcy and losing her Zurich home.

Walker admits he established companies and accounts for Austin Ajearo – said to be the fraud’s mastermind – who later vanished.

He agrees he later receiving thousands of dollars into an account of his firm Walker Wayne at Barclays Bank, George Street, Luton, and another in Watford, from Mrs Haussener, who he believed to be a client of Nigerian based Broad International Resources.

Walker, who at the time lived and worked from Serpentine Road, Sevenoaks, Kent, said he earned more than pnds stlng 3,700 in fees for ‘dissipating’ the money in line with Ajaero’s instructions.

Walker, 57, now of Salisbury Road, Southborough, Kent, denies conspiracy to defraud on or before June 1999.

He is alleged to have used his bank accounts to
facilitate payments of the cash from the scam to be siphoned abroad.

Martin Hicks, prosecuting, said by August 1998 Mrs Haussner’s predicament became clear.

‘There was no pay out and no money and she was victim of an advance fee fraud.

‘As a result of the payments she had made, she incurred losses of dollars 1.

8 million.

‘As a result, she lost her home and filed for bankruptcy.

‘

Mr Hicks added: ‘It maybe tempting in this court today in a formal atmosphere, and with the benefit of hindsight, to dismiss her as foolhardy and naive.

‘But please bear in mind she was without a shadow of a doubt targeted, and targeted by a highly expert gang of fraudsters, one of which was this defendant.

‘

Mr Hicks said Walker was involved with two companies, CBN Finance and Asset Management Corporation, with registered offices in Dublin, but using an accommodation address in London’s Regent Street.

‘The Crown submit it became a vehicle for this fraud.

It did so in particular by purporting to stand for the Central Bank of Nigeria.

‘

The second company was Chapplegate Investments, with registered offices at Wood Way, Watford, – once Walker’s home and the registered office of his accountancy practice – again allegedly used to receive payments connected with the scam.

Walker was arrested in 1999 – computer discs and documents relating to the two companies and Mrs Haussener being seized in his study at his Sevenoaks home.

But he told the jury he had allowed Ajearo to use his office and the papers had been left there, along with a fake cheque for US dollars 25 million.

Walker described Ajearo as a quantity surveyor, property investor, a company chairman, and finance consultant, who he was prepared to help as an accountant.

He said despite being an officer of both companies for a short time ‘I played no active role.

‘

And he told the court: ‘Chapplegate was a company Ajearo asked me to set up.

He specified the name and I applied for and got the company for him,’ he said.

‘It was similar to setting up CBN.

‘

He admitted he opened the company bank accounts.

‘He had a slight paranoia about being Nigerian – he had experienced prejudice in the past because he was black and a foreigner.

‘

Walker said he knew payments of US dollars 74,000 and dollars 715,000 had come from Mrs Haussener in 1997 – on the first occasion speaking to her over the ‘phone to confirm the money arrived.

He said he believed the victim was a client of Broad International Resources and Ajearo its agent in London.

‘I found nothing suspicious about this at all,’ he said.

He said he was ‘happy’ to receive fees for complying with a series of payments out of his accountancy business.

But he admitted he made no further inquiries about the money, despite being told by Mr Hicks: ‘Ajearo is actually laundering money through you, it’s a disguise.

‘

Walker said he believed what Ajearo had told him.

‘I did not appreciate what was going to happen.

‘

And he maintains he too was a victim of the fraud.

ends