TWO money launderers were each jailed for more than two years yesterday after their plot was foiled by a covert Customs sting operation.
Mahmud Mounir Abdulrazek (34), a Danish national, was sentenced to two years and two months’ imprisonment and Hamza Khattab (31), a Swedish national, was jailed for two years and six months, having both pleaded guilty to one count of being in an arrangement facilitating the acquisition, use, possession or control of criminal property.
Setting out the case, Crown Advocate Luke Sette, prosecuting, told the Royal Court that the Jersey Customs and Immigration Service became suspicious of another man, identified only as Mr A, and discovered he had checked into Longueville Manor and paid for his £800 booking in cash before leaving the Island.
He later extended his stay on the phone and agreed with the hotel that his friends – Khattab and Abdulrazek – could stay there.
Officers searched the room and found a shoebox containing £55,148.45 in cash in the safe. They took the cash, changed the code and installed “covert surveillance equipment”, the advocate said.
Hidden cameras placed in the room recorded the two men attempting to open the safe and talking about how a bag left there was empty.
Around 15 minutes after the two men arrived at Longueville Manor, they were arrested.
Advocate Olaf Blakeley, representing Abdulrazek, said his client was not closely involved in the operation and did not know the people further up the chain.
“If anything, he was just a comfort companion,” he said. “He wasn’t doing anything.”
Advocate Mike Preston, defending Khattab, said his client was “very sorry for having got his co-defendant involved in this fateful trip”.
Khattab “thought he was doing an old friend a favour” by picking up money earned via cryptocurrency, the advocate said.
When he realised he was involved in a crime, Khattab “unfortunately went ahead anyway”, he said.
Both men were far down the chain of command, he added.
Handing down the sentence, Deputy Bailiff Mark Temple, presiding, said money laundering was “a serious offence” and that because Jersey’s economy is “significantly concerned by financial services”, there had to be a deterrent element to the sentence.
Mr Temple was presiding with Jurats Jane Ronge and Alison Opfermann.
