Hello Friends,

One of my close friends has asked me to help his situation. He wishes to transfer sums of money from his business account to my personal account as a matter of gift etc which I will not return to him rather will return to one of our common friends.
I am working in Middle east & getting paid in UK.
The sums of money he wishes will not be in one go rather split payments spanning over a year or so. The amount will be approx. GBP 50-60K.
I am not sure of what to do. I want to help him however not sure if this is acceptable or not.
I'll appreciate the views from members please.
thanks
MD

What reason did your friend give for this elaborate moving around of money? He's not giving you the money as a gift, he's using you as a go-between. You need to be aware there are several illegal possible reasons why your friend may be asking you to do this, including money laundering and tax evasion. Up to you but I wouldn't even consider getting involved in his financial manoeuvres.

Thanks for the quick reply dear friend. This doesn't seem to be for tax evasion, possibly for divorce case in process already.

If it's divorce, then that's still fraud. He's hiding money from his soon to be ex.

I agree with SoS, I'd not even consider doing this, whatever he's up to it's clearly no good.

Just say no. Sounds like you want to say no, just do it.

What do you have to gain from this? Sounds dodgy.

Banks spend quite a lot of time and effort to identify iffy or unexplained flows of funds through bank accounts, and especially from, or associated with people in the Middle East which for fairly obvious reasons is seen as a high risk area. So I would caution you against allowing anyone to route funds through your account as it clearly has the appearance of someone trying to hide something, and from a bank's perspective it might appear a whole lot worse.

At the "mild" end of negative consequences if your bank identifies the transfers, you might find your bank account being closed by the bank. You could also find HMR&C asking awkward questions and perhaps trying to tax the money transferred to you, and depending on where the funds came from and what they are eventually used for (if illegal), could see you arrested, tried, and imprisoned. "I was just looking after it for a friend" is not an effective defense!

I think is worth adding that you dont need a reason to say no, you dont need to explain why you said no. If your friend asks for a reason, or an explanation, I would view that as a further red light. All you need to say is no, and walk away, if they ask why, you can just say, because you don't want to. No explanation necessary. I think often in such situations, we can be put under peer pressure to comply, explations are given, why it isn't a problem, the questions keep getting asked, and the reasons dismissed, trivialized, and explained away.
If you decide to say no, I would also decide to not explain why, "I dont want to" and walk away. Decide that ahead of time, no reason, it will save a lot of pointless discussion, that may end up in you reversing your decision, against your better judgment.

Thanks all for your kind replies. I fully agree with the answers. The only motivation i have is to help but not at the cost of me being in difficulty.
Thanks again & I entirely agree to say no.
best regards
MD

Divorce, my ass.

dude is playing you big time. Seems like tax evasion or some sort of other money laundering scheme.

Don’t risk yourself for this.