British trader found guilty of £1bn fraud
A British hedge fund trader has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Denmark, after being found guilty of orchestrating a tax fraud that cost the Danish government more than £1bn.
In addition to the prison term, financier Sanjay Shah, who was the founder of London-based hedge fund Solo Capital Partners, received a permanent entry ban to Denmark and will have assets worth $1bn (DKK 7.2bn) seized, as well as a string of properties.
"We do believe that there is a fair chance that the High Court might reach a different conclusion, and obviously we're also hoping for a more lenient judgment," his lawyer, Kaare Pihlmann told the BBC.
Nanna Blach told the court that Shah had played a "completely central and controlling role" in a scheme that had led to "unjust" payments, adding that the crime had been "meticulously planned and organised".
Prosecutors had accused Shah of being the mastermind of a so-called cum-ex scheme, using a series of complex trades in order to fraudulently reclaim more than £1bn (DKK 9bn) in dividend tax refunds from the Danish treasury between 2012 and 2015.
