British jail for fraud bankers (From The Argus)

British jail for fraud bankers

4:30pm Thursday 22nd January 2009 in News By Ruth Lumley

Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew, right who is from Brighton

The bankers dubbed the NatWest Three, who were jailed in the US for a multi-million pound Enron-related fraud, have returned to Britain to serve the rest of their sentences.

Gary Mulgrew, from Brighton, David Bermingham and Giles Darby were jailed for 37 months almost a year ago.

But they successfully applied to be transferred to an English jail after striking a deal with American prosecutors and could be free by November under an early release system.

The trio, all 46, were extradited to the US under a oneway treaty designed for suspected terrorists.

Their legal teams failed to prevent their extradition under human rights legislation.

They pleaded guilty at the district court in Houston, Texas, in November 2007 and were jailed in February last year.

They were also ordered to pay back £3.5 million to the Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest's owner.

American prosecutors asked for six other counts to be dismissed in return for guilty pleas to one count of wire fraud illegally gaining money from international banking systems.

They also supported the trio's bid to serve some of the sentence in Britain.

The three men, described as ordinary family men, have been keen to return to this country.

They admitted a conflict of interest and breach of fiduciary duty by not informing NatWest that they were considering investing in a company owned by collapsed US energy giant Enron.

They left the bank and bought a stake in the company, Swap Sub, which they then sold on for a huge profit, making about £3.5 million to split between themselves.

Assistant attorney general Alice Fisher, of the criminal division of the US Department of Justice, said the trio implemented a secret and illegal deal to yield millions of pounds in profits for them at the expense of their employer.

In May 2000, within weeks of their investment, Mulgrew, Bermingham and Darby received about £3.5 million between them. In court last February, each defendant apologised for their actions during an hourlong sentencing.

Glasgow-born Mulgrew's mother is Trish Godman, deputy presiding officer at the Scottish Parliament and a Labour MSP for West Renfrewshire.

Her spokesman confirmed that all three former bankers were back in Britain.

They are being held by the Prison Service but officials have refused to say where they are imprisoned or if they are all in the same jail.