HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigators proved the pair laundered more than \u00a38.5m through 118 bank accounts, credit cards and cryptocurrency trading platforms.<\/p>\n
The men imported and sold products containing dangerously high levels of hydrogen peroxide through UK Teeth Whitening Ltd and IBAR Trading Ltd, which operated from the Seychelles and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
More than \u00a33.4m of the stolen money was funnelled through accounts held at Euro Pacific Bank in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
The bank was shut down in 2022 following investigations by the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
WhatsApp messages recovered from the men’s phones showed them boasting, including one from Barnes that said: “In a few hours, we’ll be in 1st class” and “platinum luggage tags, that’s how UK Teeth Whitening roll.”<\/p>\n
The messages also revealed they knew they were supplying dangerous products and could face prison if they were caught by HMRC.<\/p>\n
In an exchange, Barnes wrote: “They said they used it for 30 minutes and it’s taken the enamel off their teeth – dentist said they need new teeth.”<\/p>\n
Ramage added: “We’re on the first plane out of here if they [HMRC] come knocking. We’re talking millions and years in jail.”<\/p>\n
Barnes, from Formby, was sentenced to four years and four months, while Ramage, who had moved to Portugal, was jailed for four years and six months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigators proved the pair laundered more than \u00a38.5m through 118 bank accounts, credit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-818995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}