Three men have been sentenced for their part in an £825,000 fraud.

Mark Harrington, Sylvester Williams and Godfrey Lennon worked together on the scam, which saw them accessing email accounts and sending over requests for payment with the details of a business bank account belonging to Harrington.

The first offence occurred in September 2018 when an investment fund company was sent an invoice by a property development company they were working with on a project. Shortly after receiving the original email, the investment fund received a second one with amended bank account details.

The investment company then paid the invoiced amount of £825,138.49 into the bank account as requested. However, the account did not belong to the property development company but was instead Harrington’s business account.

Once the money arrived in Harrington’s account, he then transferred it into various other accounts.

The fraud was discovered when the property development company chased the payment.

Five weeks later, the group attempted to defraud another person out of money. On that occasion a man who was giving some money to a relative after selling a property received an email reportedly from their relative with the bank account details to send the money to. However, the man became suspicious when noticing it was a business account and not a personal one so contacted his relative to check who confirmed they had not sent the email. On that occasion, no money was sent.

Harrington was arrested and in interview, he told officers he had been persuaded by a man named Sylvester Williams to allow his bank account to be used in the scam.

Further investigations showed three payments totalling almost £354,000 being made to a Dubai bank account in the name of Godfrey Lennon.

Williams and Lennon were both arrested and interviewed in connection with the offences.  

All three men were subsequently charged with conspiracy to conceal / disguise / transfer / remove criminal property (money laundering).

Harrington and Lennon admitted the charge and Williams was found guilty after a trial at Derby Crown Court.

They appeared at the same court for sentencing on 3 April where:

• Harrington, 42, of Leander Rise, Burton upon Trent was jailed for 20 months, suspended for two years
• Williams, 64, of Kedleston Street, Derby, was jailed for three years
• Lennon, 65, of Inwood Avenue, Croydon was jailed for 18 months.

Senior Criminal Finance Manager, Graham Prince, who oversaw the case, said: “Offences such as this have a massive impact on businesses, and the people they employ, so they are far from a victimless crime.

“These three men worked together to take a substantial amount of money from this company while their calculated actions almost cost a member of the public tens of thousands of pounds.

“Even after being arrested they denied any involvement with the offence before two of them finally admitted what they had done, while the third was convicted at court.

“I am pleased that they have now been brought to justice for their parts in this callous scheme.

“We continue to try and identify hidden assets in the UK and overseas belonging to these three men so they can be stripped of them. We’re also working towards a Proceeds of Crime Act case to recover the money that they stole.

“Fraud and money laundering is a national threat to the UK economy, and I would encourage members of the public to report any suspicious criminal activity of this type to their local police or Crimestoppers.”