Wembley bank trader and Marylebone man accused of €100m fraud

A bank trader from Wembley accused of pulling off a 100 million euro fraud on an off-shore oil firm will stand trial later this year.

Luis Nobre, 48, , of King George Crescent, duped the Allseas Group Ltd into handing over the vast sum to his company Larn Ltd in November 2011, it is alleged.

He is accused of pulling off the scam in Malta using bogus bank guarantees worth more than five billion US dollars, and laundering some of the proceeds through an accomplice’s bank account in Singapore.

Nobre, sole director of Larn Ltd, whose firms are registered to exclusive addresses in Harley Street and Marylebone, cut a dash at Southwark Crown Court on Friday in a dapper pin-striped blue suit and black fedora.

He denied all nine money laundering and fraud charges and was joined in the dock by Nadeem Khan, 54, of Harley Street, Marylebone, and Buddika Kadurugamuwa, 45, of Wood Lane, Shepherds Bush.

They both denied a single count of helping Nobre fraudulently get 100 million euros (around £75.3m) transferred to Larn Ltd from the Allseas Group in November 2011.

Nobre is also accused of laundering more than 900,000 Swiss Francs, some of it paid to a Singaporean account belonging to Kadurugamuwa, obtaining bank cards pre-loaded with funds from the Allseas Group, using a bank card belonging to the Federal Bank of the Middle East and having bogus papers showing he had guarantees of one billion euro, 2.37 billion US dollars and 2.03 billion US dollars.

Judge Martin Beddoe set a trial date of September 7 and bailed all three defendants until a pre-trial hearing on July 24.