Prosecution Lawyers | Emmlegal.com

 Edmonds Marshall McMahon is a firm with ‘unsparing attention to detail’ that is ‘the very model of how fraud cases should be prosecuted in the Magistrates and Crown Courts’ (Legal 500). We are a unique firm of solicitors and barristers with an unrivalled track record in conducting major fraud prosecutions and regulatory work. Our founding partners have a combined 70 years’ experience in criminal justice.Founded in 2012, we offer a novel service to companies, organisations and individuals who have been Bankruptcy Fraud the victims of crime. We have significant experience in the private prosecution of offences of fraud, corporate dishonesty and financial crime.

We can also advise clients on the best means of retrieving assets that are linked to the United Kingdom, and recovering the proceeds of crime, whether by civil asset recovery or criminal confiscation and compensation orders. We remain the only law firm in this country dedicated to private prosecution.We do not believe in a ‘one size fits all’ approach to address fraud. We prefer to use our extensive experience, hard won reputation and expertise in tracing stolen monies to provide the most effective solution to a problem. We pride ourselves on our imaginative approach to our cases and the exceptional results that we achieve for our clients.

Facts of the fraud

The fraud was relatively sophisticated, involving the creation of numerous corporate entities around the world. Essentially the defendants were involved in syphoning off money ultimately owed to two companies, Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (“LAP”) and FM Capital Partners Limited (“FMCP”), diverting them to offshore entities controlled by themselves.

LAP was the Libyan sovereign wealth fund. Bessot and Marino were entrusted to invest hundreds and hundreds of millions of US dollars belonging to LAP through FMCP (a company incorporated in England and Wales and of which Bessot and Marino were both were directors). Bessot secretly arranged for a proportion of the funds under investment to be paid to himself and Marino, via an offshore company. They were assisted by Ohmura, who initially Embezzlement Uk worked at Bank Julius Baer, through which the investments were made. Ohmura subsequently set up his own company to act as an intermediary through which secret profits were paid to Marino and Bessot’s offshore company after deducting his own cut to facilitate the transaction.

In addition to earning fees for FMCP, fees were also paid to an offshore company controlled by Bessot. The offshore company was supposedly acting as the “introducer”, “arranger” or “distributor” of the financial products engineered by the banks that were offering them. The first deal resulted in Bessot and Marino receiving $3.125 million, from which Bessot received $300,000. Ohmura received $625,000 through his company Conquest Capital Ltd (a Caymanian company) in return for his part in bringing about this $3.125 million payment. A payment of fees was also paid to Ohmura’s Swiss company called Conquest Financial Partners AG (“CFP”). CFP then paid most of the money on to a company set up in the Corporate Fraud Seychelles called Ironfly International Ltd (“Ironfly”). Ironfly was jointly owned by Bessot and Marino and was set up by Bessot for that purpose, at Marino’s instigation.

Bessot also set up two other offshore companies, one for himself called Regent 121 Ltd and one for Marino called Leopard Technology Ltd; all three companies had bank accounts in Monaco. After payments were made to Ironfly, they would be divided up between Bessot and Marino to Leopard and Regent 121. The use of these offshore companies by Bessot and Marino was designed to hide the fact that they were receiving payments for investments managed by FMCP. They had to be hidden because the defendants were not entitled to receive fees: any fees should have been paid to FMCP, a company in which LAP had a 55% share.