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A British hedge fund dealer in the heart of the vast dividend scandal of Europe has been sentenced by a Danish court to 12 years in prison for cheating the Nordic land of DKR9BN ($ 1.3 billion).
Sanjay Shah, who was extradited from Dubai last year, was the brain behind a system that led to the repayment of billions of euros from dividend taxes that had never been paid before, found the Danish judges.
The court also ordered the seizure of DKR7.2BN from Shah, who said he would appeal immediately after the conviction on Thursday.
Various European countries, including Denmark, Germany, Italy and France, were hit by the Cum-Ex scandal in the years 2010. Public Prosecutors in Germany investigate 1500 people about the scandal, while Denmark claims that it has been cheated by a total of almost DKR13BN and has submitted accusations against nine defendants.
Shah denied a misconduct and argued that he had only exploited meshes in Danish law to be paid.
The Trader and his Solo Capital Partners of the Hedgefonds are also confronted with a British civil lawsuit established by the Tax Authority of Denmark to reclaim £ 1.4 billion in refunds.
The case was described by a judge in London as “one of the largest and most complex pieces of lawsuits” to be heard in the British commercial courts with Skat, the Danish tax authority, which presents around 250,000 pages with documents.
The 12-year-old punishment against Shah for fraud is the largest imposed in Denmark for an economic crime.
In an interview that was broadcast shortly after his conviction, Shah told the Danish television station TV2 that he was’ a greedy bastard ‘and that the money from the Danish treasury Hevelde as’ invaders’ Play Space Invaders’, where he wanted his previous top Best score.
The court in Glostrup just outside Copenhagen found He had submitted a “central and controlling role in a crime that was carefully planned and systematically organized”, with thousands of dividend residues.
It added that the three -year duration of the crime, and the facts that Shah had personally enriched himself and that his actions were only brought to an end when the tax authorities stopped the payments in 2015 due to suspicions of fraud, all meant that ‘mainly aggravating circumstances ”, leading to the imposition of the heaviest prison sentence.
Preben Bang Henriksen, a member of parliament for the prevailing liberal party who is also the legal spokesperson, greeted the judgment when demonstrating “a harsh punishment awaits you when you steal from Denmark”.
Shah had argued that it was impossible for him to receive an honest trial in Denmark after a number of members of the government had commented on the case, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen who welcomed the extradition of the Brit as a Draw that “you cannot reach impunity by staying abroad”.