It comes after the final three members of the London-based group were sentenced today (March 10) following a five-year investigation by the Organised Crime Partnership (OCP)

Artem Terzyan, 39, of Russia, and Deivis Grochiatskij, 45, of Lithuania were charged as part of a joint National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service unit.

Investigators used surveillance evidence, combined with banking and Companies’ House records analysis, to prove the pair set up bank accounts linked to shell companies to launder money through.

The Met shared money would be transferred from one shell company to another in a complex web of transfers before being sent to international accounts in Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

The two men also laundered £10 million from fraudulent Bounce Back Loans (BBLs) for the various shell companies they had established.

Furthermore, OCP investigators discovered that the group traded in the sale and purchase of luxury pre-owned watches as another method of laundering illicit funds.

In relation to the crimes, Andy Tickner of the OCP stated: “Finally, the case established that Terzyan and Grochiatskij had established a sophisticated, large-scale money laundering system through which they transferred £70 million in criminal cash out of the UK.

“We were also able to build a picture around the structure of the network, as well as members’ individual roles in setting up bogus companies and moving money, both physically between bank accounts.”