Brits jailed for money laundering
Two British men who financed a jet-set lifestyle and owned property around the world from profits they made by laundering drug money have been jailed.
Dublin-based businessman Paul Murphy and Andrew Winters, from Surrey, were jailed for a total of 11 years and six months.
A Swiss judge passed the sentences after they were convicted of funnelling £4.5 million of drugs money through secret Swiss bank accounts for Colombian cocaine barons.
Murphy, 40, who is British but who lived in Southerncross, Bray, Co Wicklow, was jailed for six years while Winters, 47, was jailed for five-and-a-half years.
Both had denied charges of money laundering and drug trafficking in the court in the Swiss city of Lugano.
The seven-member jury dropped the more serious charge of drug trafficking but found Mr Winters guilty of acting as Mr Murphy's cash courier.
Judge Agnese Balestra-Bianchi said there was no doubt they were part of a "complex money-laundering system" operating in the US, Britain, Italy and Switzerland.
The judge described the case as "very serious" and "very important for Switzerland" in its fight against money-laundering.
Mr Winters, who was living in Miami when he and Mr Murphy were arrested by police in Lugano in December 1998, and Mr Murphy have already served two years and two months on remand.
They were also ordered to pay a fine of £120,000 each and will be banned from Switzerland for 15 years on their release.
