Dr. Andreas O’Shea & Sebastian Cox Represented a Married Couple Accused of Money Laundering Offences

Following a successful half-time submission of no case to answer, Dr. Andreas O’Shea and Sebastian Cox have successfully secured the acquittal of two individuals accused of laundering approximately IMP10,000 (Manx pounds). The defendants were stopped by the police some distance away from their home in a vehicle containing around IMP10,000. The currency cannot be spent in the United Kingdom, but can be exchanged 1-to-1 for Sterling. The police were told that they had agreed to exchange it on behalf of some associates on the Isle of Man.

The case turned on the legal issue of whether the prosecution could prove that the funds were in fact ‘criminal property’ where there was no admissible evidence of a criminal origin or underlying criminality. The Crown argued that the circumstances were so suspicious that the jury could be sure that there was an irresistible inference that the funds could only have been derived from crime (following the leading case in of Anwoir). After legal argument, the judge was persuaded to withdraw the case from the jury and directed their acquittal.

Andreas and Sebastian were both individually instructed by Ayeh Nowroozi of Sweetman Burke & Sinker.