Man became involved in £12m dirty money scheme after being made redundant

A criminal who became involved a £12m dirty money operation after being made redundant made £80,000 from his life of crime.

Ronald Russell, 47, played a vital role in a multi-million pound cash laundering scam because he struggled to find work after losing his job.

The High Court in Glasgow heard his meteoric rise to upper echelons of organised crime was halted after a Turkish lorry driver was stopped for a random search at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk on March 30, 2023.

A total of almost £230,000 was discovered stuffed inside a mattress within the cab of the vehicle.

Russell’s palm print was later found on a £20 note among the cash haul.

The 47-year-old was also linked to a piece of a paper with handwritten notes also in the HGV.

It eventually led to a raid at Russell’s home in Linwood by Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency.

He was found effectively trying to flush incriminating evidence down the toilet.

The story emerged after pleaded guilty last year to a charge of Russell being involved in serious organised crime.

Prosecutors launched a proceeds of crime action against Russell.

On Monday lawyers for both the Crown and Russell told judge Michael O’Grady KC that they had agreed to settle the matter.

Prosecutor Carla Fraser told judge O’Grady that lawyers were agreed that Russell had made £80,000 from his life of crime. But he only had £59,050 of that available at this point in time.

At earlier proceedings, Lady Hood jailed Russell, of Linwood, Renfrewshire, and told him: “You were made redundant and struggled to find employment.

“When it was suggested that, for personal profit, you should record the movement of money, you agreed despite stating (in a pre-sentencing report) that it was obvious it was not legal.

“You said, very frankly, that you did not really care.

“It seems your account of the offending was, at times, evasive and contradictory.”

The court heard how the lorry driver had been halted by UK Border Force officials.

The swoop at Russell’s home occurred almost a year later on March 20, 2024.

He had asked who was at his door and when told it was police, he raced back upstairs.

Russell’s partner eventually let the officers in.

Prosecutor Lindsey Dalziel told the court: “Russell was found in the main bathroom kneeling by the toilet with his arm inside the bowl.

“He was trying to dispose of pieces of paper from an A4 notepad at his side.

“A total of 26 pieces of damaged paper in the form of ledger notes were retrieved from the U-bend.”

The notes were dried off and seized along with the pad.

Ms Dalziel said: “The papers documented the movement of large-scale cash covering the period March 20, 2023 and March 19, 2024.”

She added the handwriting was the same as on the notes found in the Turkish trucker’s lorry.

The ledger papers discovered in Russell’s home had columns marked “in”, “out” and “totals”.

There was also reference to payments being made to “Shug” – an alias for Russell.

Ms Dalziel said the total money marked as moving “in” was £11,890,649.

The “out” column was £11,186,649.

Ms Dalziel said: “Russell accepts that he was including a ‘wage’ of £42,210 paid to himself under the name ‘Shug’ between March 2023 and March 2024.

“This was in various instalments, which averaged around £4,000.”

The notes revealed handovers of cash ranged between £100,000 and £465,000.

Other items were found at Russell’s property including more than £50,000 and mobile phones.

Photos on one of the devices appeared to show £164,000 and then £196,000 tied up and packaged in his bedroom.

There was a further image of a cash counting machine next to a large amount of banknotes.

Describing text messages, the advocate depute told the hearing: “There were frequent exchanges showing that Russell was counting money and querying discrepancies.”

It is not known if the cash mentioned is linked to any other “commodity” such as drugs.

On Monday, judge O’Grady passed an order which compels Russell to hand over £59,050 to prosecutors.

Crown lawyers can return to court if they identify any more of Russell’’s ill gotten gains.