A sacked HMRC compliance officer who abused her position to help her husband launder £3.3 million of criminal cash has been handed a 14-month suspended prison sentence.
Kuldip Badesha, of Chatham, Kent, used HMRC systems to produce letters that included fake National Insurance numbers and signatures.
The 46-year-old handed these details to her husband Ranbir Singh, who used them to open two of the 85 bank accounts, which he then used to launder money between 2015 and 2018.
Investigators discovered she was leading a lifestyle that was beyond her means, which included leasing an expensive Bentley car (pictured) and enjoying long-haul holidays.
Badesha met Ranbir Singh (also known as Ray Singh Rana), also 46, just before he was jailed for 11 years for kidnap in 2008.
She continued the relationship when he was inside prison and married him while he was on weekend release in May 2013. The criminal money began to be laundered when he was on day release and continued after leaving prison on licence in June 2014.
Badesha did not change her surname or tell HMRC about her marriage and failed to notify HMRC of her partner’s arrests and convictions. She was arrested by officers from HMRC’s Anti-Corruption Unit in 2018 and dismissed in November 2019.
The entire source of the laundered money has not been identified. But some of the cash was linked to convicted financial adviser Stewart Mark Groves, who took money from a former England footballer and was jailed in 2019 for fraud.
The pair changed their pleas to guilty just days after their criminal trial started at Southwark Crown Court on September 16, 2024.
In late November Ranbir Singh was jailed for six years at Southwark Crown Court.
Ranbir Singh was previously convicted of three other offences following recent police investigations and is currently serving more than six years for fraud, money laundering and sexual assault.
Action to recover the proceeds of crime is underway.
