Santander ID and income check

GeoffTF

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116583#Comment_82116583

What is the problem? Your income is your income, wherever it goes.

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116782#Comment_82116782

This is presumably one of the reasons why banks are being required to perform the latest round of more intrusive checks, and why the FCA has pushed out guidance to banks around closure of unused accounts that pose a risk of being compromised and used for this sort of thing. The idea that this sort of activity wouldn't have been flagged, even back then, is perplexing.

There ought to be some massive fines in the wings for those banks who had accounts receiving multiple large cash deposits from many different post offices and didn't detect anything was amiss.

eskbanker

The idea that this sort of activity wouldn't have been flagged, even back then, is perplexing.

There ought to be some massive fines in the wings for those banks who had accounts receiving multiple large cash deposits from many different post offices and didn't detect anything was amiss.

Indeed - the implication that checks on substantial cash deposits are only applied to those made within bank branches beggars belief!

mta999

I think the article was trying to say (at least in part) that the money is going from multiple Post Offices /convenience stores etc to multiple mule accounts (where people get a small cut for forwarding the money on)

This is possible because no checksl seem to be done on the debit card when the money is deposited

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117038#Comment_82117038

It highlighted a single example of "Gheewala’s bank account [that] received more than £880,000 in cash in 200 different deposits", describing the mule's typical morning as driving from PO branch to PO branch and making deposits minutes apart and resulting in "thousands of pounds deposited in an hour or so" across 5 separate PO branches. These would be deposits of £4-5k each based on that total. I'm with eskbanker that it beggars belief this was allowed to continue to a total of 200 deposits into that one bank account.

The way the system works, the pattern would only be visible to the bank, but, as described, it seems like someone could pay large sums of cash over the PO counter without an ID check (which could easily have been passed in this case, as Gheewala was using his own bank account).

It seems like separately to that there were a bunch of other accounts being used so the total volume laundered was much higher, and perhaps that's where checking ID could have helped.

mta999

That's not how I read it, but probably I am wrong

Yes the account in question received £880,000 but not in cash - the cash was paid into multiple mule accounts and then forwarded (presumably as ordinary faster payments) to Gheewala’s account

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117067#Comment_82117067

The literal quote from the second paragraph of the article is "Gheewala’s bank account received more than £880,000 in cash in 200 different deposits". Do you think this is inaccurate? It was the police investigation into this account that allowed them to reconstruct the pattern of the cash deposits at POs ("Leicestershire police used Gheewala’s transactions to reconstruct how he operated…").

It was only after this activity was analysed were other individuals similar patterns of activity identified, suggesting there were a bunch of them all at it, the others using third party accounts. It suggests Gheewala had access to those other accounts ("Gheewala controlled the whole operation from a laptop kept in an otherwise empty house, with all the account details and their passwords written down in a notebook. As soon as the money appeared online he would, using cryptocurrency exchanges, disperse it around the world.")

AstonSmith

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116699#Comment_82116699

The form makes it sound like you earned the money again when it goes into the Santander account, as in the direct origin of the transfer is an employer rather than your own (other) account. I don't have the questions anymore so I can't give an example. Nevertheless I chose to put it as earned income after being ghosted by support, and the amount was based on the last 12 months divided up into a monthly approximate figure. They seemed to accept it as a confirmation e-mail appeared saying their records were updated within about an hour.

@Mr_Sark as above, hope it helps

mta999

According to an investigative report published by The Guardian, a man named Gheewala used personal bank accounts to launder massive amounts of illicit cash through local UK post office branches.

• The Sums: Despite officially being on government benefits, Gheewala’s bank account received more than £880,000 in cash.
• The Method: The money was moved via 200 different physical deposits. Rather than using offshore tax havens, the cash was physically handed over in "thick wodges of banknotes" at various everyday post office counters in Leicester

this is the full story

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/gang-laundered-53-million-through-10719534?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117390#Comment_82117390

The AI summary you have pasted in gives a fair TL;DR, but beyond what Gheewala was doing using his personal bank account, there was another ~£52m laundered through their portfolio of other accounts. The Leicester Mercury story (which was linked by the Guardian, but I didn't read until now) goes into more detail about the rest of the gang and is quite an interesting read.