A retired oil executive who was acquitted of money laundering is appealing the Serious Fraud Office’s order for him to forfeit more than $8m. Mario Ildeu de Miranda, 74, was convicted of 37 counts of money laundering in Brazil in 2019. Those convictions have since been quashed and, following a retrial, Miranda was acquitted in 2024.
Miranda’s money laundering convictions still stood when the UK SFO’s forfeiture order for $7,699,204.09 and £698,635.98 was granted against an account in the name of Tech Trade in 2023. The forfeiture was the largest amount ever seized by the SFO from a single bank account. The appeal of the decision to order forfeiture has triggered a de novo hearing in the Crown court.
Opening before His Honour Judge Mark Weekes and two magistrates, Barnaby Hone, for the SFO said: ‘Our case is, despite the large amount of reading, is a relatively simple case. We say this money has come from Mr Miranda’s corrupt practices.' Miranda argues the payment was not corrupt and he ‘never knew it was bribery, he thought maybe it was tax evasion’, Hone said.
He added that ‘the majority of Tech Trade [where the money from the $24m was paid into] cannot be shown to be legitimate’.
Referring to the Tech Trade account, Hones said: ‘[Miranda] would say this is set up for tax purposes, we say it is for nefarious means.' He described the transactions as ‘at best a shady area of law and at worst…corrupt.’
In written submissions, Ellis Sareen, for Miranda, said: ‘At the time [of the payments into Tech Trade’s account] the appellant had thought that something dubious was going on, but had thought that it was to do with tax. As Operation Car Wash [a Brazilian investigation into corruption] apparently revealed extension [sic] corruption in the oil and gas industry he became concerned that he may have unwittingly assisted in the transmission of a bribe, and in 2016 he approached the prosecution
‘As has been noted, at the time that the forfeiture order now appealed against was made, the appellant stood convicted of offences of money laundering, albeit those convictions were not final The convictions have now been quashed, and he and his co-defendants have been retried and acquitted,' he said.
In his skeleton, argyment Sareen said that with Miranda’s co-defendants also acquitted ‘there is no subsisting finding that the…payments constituted a bribe’. He said: ‘Such finding as has been made was by a court without jurisdiction, and therefore is inadmissible opinion.’
The SFO’s director Nick Ephgrave sat in the public gallery during the morning of the first day of Miranda’s appeal a If the appeal is allowed, and the forfeiture order quashed, the SFO will be ordered to return the money.
The appeal continues.
