Cash kisser will pay back, er £630

A high living money launderer who flaunted his wealth by kissing wads of banknotes has been ordered to pay just back £630.

Dan-Gabriel Aiyegbusi, 24, dressed in expensive designer clothes and drove around in a flash white Mercedes while showing off his millionaire lifestyle on social media.

Aiyegbusi used a fake Facebook profile of ‘Muyiwa Oluwafemi’, to cover up his role as a middle-man in a series of scams.

He was cleared of rinsing £94,900 as part of a £2,090,000 phishing scam on Wester Ross Fisheries following a trial at Southwark Crown Court earlier this year.

But Aiyegbusi earlier admitted five separate counts of conspiracy to transfer criminal property and was jailed for five years in January.

According to the prosecution his benefit from crime was £61,167.98 but he now only has £630 in terms of realisable assets.

He was ordered to pay the sum within 28 days or serve another 10 days in default following a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Aiyegbusi had admitted he was an international money launderer during his trial – but not on the scale the prosecution claimed.

Denying involvement in the fisheries scam Aiyegbusi insisted: ‘I wouldn’t bite off more than I could chew.’

‘I don’t do jobs I can’t handle,’ he told the court.

‘I don’t like being a failure. I don’t like stressing myself out.

‘I don’t like owing money, it’s not something I enjoy – being a failure, being looked down on.

‘I’m not gonna sit here and plead guilty and take the wrap for something I didn’t do.

‘I understand the totality of loss to Wester Ross Fisheries. I heard they lost something like 50 employees.

‘Somebody needs to be punished for that but unfortunately I’m not the person for it and I have no relation to it.’

Aiyegbusi added: ‘My grandfather is actually an elder at a church. I would never lie in the name of God, never.’

He had used his Facebook account to advertise compromised online bank accounts, after gaining access to the username and password by ‘phishing’.

The profile also contained photos of compromised online bank accounts being emptied of funds, with videos of cash, expensive watches and cars.

Aiyegbusi used the posts to attract other individuals to provide use of their bank account to him, which he would use as ‘mule’ accounts to receive and cash-out the proceeds of his online fraud operation.

He was arrested in New Street, Luton, on 26 June last year after an undercover police officer known as Kath posed as a client and set up several meetings.

In his police interview the launderer denied all criminal involvement involving Wester Ross Fisheries.

‘He was told that Kath was in fact an undercover officer, and he expressed some surprise at that,’ said Anthony Hucklesby, prosecuting.

‘He accepted his interactions with Kath and observed that the police had more or less tracked his place in the food chain and not demur from their categorisation of him as a mule herder.

‘He went on to explain how the money comes from frauds originating from call centres in India and referred to them as “India jobs”.

‘He offered some insight into the cash out process. He maintained, however, that he was not involved in transfers of anything like £95,000 from Wester Ross.

‘The biggest job he’d ever cashed out was in relation to one of the cards provided to him by Kath. He accepted having been shopping in Selfridges with that card.’

Aiyegbusi, of Summit Eastern Boulevard, Leicester, denied and was cleared of three charges of conspiracy to transfer criminal property, including £94,900 to Wester Ross Fisheries, £57,410 to Hampshire roofing firm D Adams and Sons, and £10,000 to a Valerie Stewart.

But he admitted five separate counts of conspiracy to transfer criminal property, and possession with intent to supply 49 rocks of crack cocaine and cannabis.

Judge Christopher Hehir jailed him for a total of five years.

Speaking after he was sentenced in January Detective Inspector Philip McInerney, from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime – Cyber Crime Unit, said: ‘Aiyegbusi didn’t have a care in the world as he stole people’s hard-earned cash and then flaunted it all over social media to boost his ego and brag about it.

‘Aiyegbusi admitted in court that he had never worked a day in his life, instead acquiring huge sums of money from innocent members of the public, through large-scale cyber-enabled fraud committed across the UK banking sector.’

One of Aiygebusi’s victims, who is 80, said: ‘I was so pleased to hear the good news, as it has caused me and my husband a lot of stress and worry.

‘I would receive numerous telephone calls from someone purporting to be from a telephone company saying there is a fault. I’ve been too scared to answer the phone in case the same thing happens again.’