West Sussex man jailed over £1.2m fraud at Queen's private bank
Luke Williams sold info from Coutts customers to an organised crime group
Last updated 18th May 2021
An former employee at the Queen's private bank Coutts has been jailed for his role in a £1.2 million fraud.
32-year-old Luke Williams, from Haywards Heath, abused his position at the bank to access the security details of customers.
He then passed these on to three other members of an organised crime group, who called the bank claiming to be genuine customers accessing their accounts.
They transferred funds to third party accounts, which were quickly withdrawn, according to the banking industry group UK Finance.
Southwark Crown Court heard the attempted fraud on the bank totalled £2.4 million, although Coutts was able to prevent half of the payments happening once it spotted the scam.
All victims have been refunded.
Williams was jailed for four years at the court on Monday (May 17th) for committing fraud by abuse of position.
Two other men were jailed alongside him - 30-year-old Ricky Burgess of Leigh-on-Sea in Essex and 34-year-old Francis Buckman of Southend-on-Sea were convicted of conspiracy to defraud and jailed for two years and 14 months respectively.
36-year-old Michael Sonowo, of Havering in north-east London, was handed a conditional discharge as well as a community order for 12 months. He was also ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work for committing money laundering offences.
Founded in 1692, Coutts is one of the most exclusive private banks in the world, with clients said to include the Queen, David Beckham and Elton John.