Two men have been jailed after police raided an address in Croydon that was used to further an illegal money laundering scheme worth millions of pounds.

On Friday (May 29) the Met Police revealed they had exposed an international money laundering operation that accrued £2.4 million and attempted to launder a further £1.6 million before it was shut down.

The scheme was the project of Vijaya Kumar Krishnasamy, 32, of Godstone Mount, and Chandrasekar Nallayan, 44, of Swaffham, who were sentenced on Friday.

Krishnasamy entered a guilty plea in February to conspiring to conceal, disguise, convert, transfer or remove criminal property between 1 February 2018 and 1 May 2019.

Nallayan pleaded not guilty to conspiring to conceal, disguise, convert, transfer or remove criminal property between 1 February 2018 and 1 May 2019.

He was convicted for all offences after a trial that took place at Croydon Crown Court.

Krishnasamy was sentenced to five years and nine months. Nallayan was sentenced to seven years.

Police described how they received a report from Barclays Bank that several IP addresses were repeatedly accessing multiple business accounts suspected of being utilised for money laundering.

In response they launched 'Operation Palcalla' and officers from the Met’s Economic Crime Unit worked with the Cyber Defence Alliance (CDA), to investigate.

The Met was able to trace the IP addresses to properties in the Croydon area.

On May 2 last year, a search warrant was executed at one of these addresses and Krishnasamy was arrested.

"A search revealed hundreds of pages of documents relating to dozens of suspicious businesses and hundreds of bank accounts.

"His mobile phone contained thousands of images of him accessing various suspect accounts online or withdrawing cash from ATMs," a Met statement read.

In total, police found evidence that 24 companies had been targeted by the pair through the transfer of funds to "mule" accounts.

16 victims made payments into these ‘mule’ accounts. The total value of those transfers was in excess of £2.4 million., police said.

Another eight targets realised that the emails were not genuine, and reported the suspicious emails to their bank or the police.

Had these attempts been successful, the victims would have lost close to another £1.6 million, the Met said.

Detective Constable Milena Bingley, from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime - Economic Crime Unit, said: “This shameless pair have caused untold distress and worry to their victims.

"This case shows that those responsible for money laundering will be tracked down and face up to their crimes."

Steven Wilson, CEO of the Cyber Defence Alliance, meanwhile described the partnership his organization had formed with the Met during the case.

"The Cyber Defence Alliance (CDA) were delighted to work with the MPS on Op Palcalla, a first class excellent example of public private partnerships being used to tackle those organised criminal networks targeting the financial sector, their customers and using money muling networks to cash out their criminal gains," he said.