Company director is found guilty of money laundering

A COMPANY director has been convicted of money laundering after a bank account he controlled received nearly £200,000 from a phishing scam.

Nikki Flowers, 40, was found guilty by a jury after around two hours of deliberation following a trial at Cardiff Crown Court.

Previously it was heard Flowers, of Fishguard Road, Llanishen, Cardiff, had received £192,892 on May 24, 2018, into a bank he had opened and controlled under the name of his company Massive Dynamics Incorporated Ltd.

The money was from a company called Nationwide Platforms Ltd (NPL) where an employee was the victim of a “phishing email” claiming to be from BT which enabled fraudsters to request invoices to be paid to the account belonging to Flowers.

The defendant was not charged with any fraud offences and there was no suggestion he was involving the phishing scam.

After the money was transferred Flowers was seen on CCTV withdrawing money from an ATM.

The defendant also attempted to transfer £900 from his bank account to another account, however the transaction failed.

Flowers, who had been working at Morrisons around the time of the offence, was arrested by police and his electronic devices were seized and searched.

Opening the trial on Friday prosecutor Genevieve Reed said: “There are communications between Mr Flowers and another person at key times during this case and the same person provided bank details.

“We do not know who committed the fraud. We cannot say what role was performed by others in respect of the fraud and the laundering of those funds. What we do say is that Mr Flowers was clearly involved in an arrangement to launder funds from that fraud.”

During the short trial no evidence was given on behalf of the defence.

In his closing speech Benjamin Waidhofer, on behalf of the defendant, argued there “was no evidence at all to link him with anyone who arranged that fraud”.

Mr Waidhofer also stressed that Flowers had only given the Massive Dynamics Incorporated Ltd bank account number and sort code to one man since setting up the account with that man described as his “boss”.

It was heard the fraudulent money entered the account seven months after it was set up and that Flowers had also spoken to the bank about obtaining a business loan.

There was no attempt on the defendant’s part to conceal his name, address, or number linked to the bank account or to transfer large amounts of money out of the Massive Dynamics Incorporated Ltd account, the barrister added.

Mr Waidhofer said: “There is no evidence whatsoever, you may feel, of any arrangement between Nikki Flowers and anyone else whatsoever, certainly no evidence of any arrangement to launder money – purely an arrangement or bank account details to his boss.”

Previously Flowers had denied entering into an arrangement for facilitating the acquisition, retention, or control of criminal property but he was convicted on Tuesday.

Addressing the defendant after the jury’s verdict Judge David Wynn Morgan warned Flowers: “This is a case which ordinarily attracts a custodial sentence.”

Flowers was also urged to be “as candid as possible” with Mr Waidhofer. Sentencing was adjourned to May 28 to allow a pre-sentence report to be carried out.