A money launderer from Dundee, who transferred hundreds of pounds from a cruel bank scam into cryptocurrency, has failed in a bid to blame unknown drug users attending round-the-clock parties at her former city home.
Natalie Elliot appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court accused of possessing and concealing criminal money obtained in a bank scam.
Hundreds of pounds were transferred into her account before being used to buy cryptocurrency, which disappeared into an untraceable digital wallet.
Shortly before the fraud took place, Elliot opened multiple accounts with various banks.
The former cocaine addict said her old home in Dundee was used for drug-fuelled parties and unknown drug users were regularly in her home.
Her bid to blame one of them for pinching bank details she had stuffed in a kitchen drawer failed.
Money trail
After a joint minute of evidence was agreed, prosecutor Michael Robertson was not required to call any witnesses.
It was agreed Elliot opened a Natwest bank account in June 2020 and closed it that August.
In July 2020, a woman fell victim to a scam in which someone phoned her pretending to be from her bank and £900 was payed by her into Elliot’s Natwest account.
Elliot had also opened a Clearbank account through cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase UK Ltd.
Very quickly, £885 of the money fraudulently obtained was used to buy just over 0.1 Bitcoin which was sent to an unknown and untraceable digital wallet.
Blamed other drug users
27-year-old Elliot, now of Wallace Crescent in Stirling, is drug-free but explained her old home at Mauchline Place East in Dundee usually had an open door policy due to the round-the-clock debauched parties happening there.
Elliot claimed, at the time of the fraud, she was looking to switch bank from TSB, so opened a host of accounts with the likes of Natwest, Monzo and Bank of Scotland.
She said she continues to use the Bank of Scotland account and stuffed all the other paperwork, cards included, in a kitchen drawer.
Elliot said it was “more than possible” someone took the Natwest details used in the scam.
She said: “It was very manic. I was a drug addict, I took a lot of cocaine, I had a lot of parties.
“My door was pretty much open to anybody.
“There were lots of people in my house back then, friends of friends of friends and people I didn’t know.
“It was all drug users and drug takers.
“I was going nine, 10, 11 days not sleeping.”
Her solicitor Gary McIlravey said: “In my submission, her evidence was brutally honest.
“Plainly, she is a different person to who she was back then.”
Accounts not opened ‘haphazardly’
Sheriff John Rafferty convicted Elliot of two contraventions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
He found that between June and July in 2020, first offender Elliot acquired criminal property, namely £900.
The sheriff also found, over the same period, she concealed or disguised the cash by transferring a quantity of it into cryptocurrency.
Sheriff Rafferty said: “Ms Elliot, in your evidence, you claim to remember a number of things that happened in 2020.
“You’re unable to say what the issue was with the TSB account.
“I don’t accept your evidence. I don’t accept that you haphazardly opened up multiple accounts.
“It’s clear to me that these accounts were opened by you and used by you for the commission of the offences.
“I’m driven to find you guilty. There’s no reasonable doubt in the matter.”
The sheriff deferred sentencing to October 31 for reports.
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