CRIMINALS from Worcestershire were part of an audacious "high-stakes" criminal conspiracy which defrauded NHS hospitals, councils and the Guernsey government out of £12.6 million.

An organised crime network targeted 22 mostly public bodies in a divert fraud. The dirty money was transferred to international accounts and laundered into legitimate businesses.

The bold scheme had the potential to have siphoned off £20 million into accounts the criminals controlled, mainly at the taxpayers' expense.

Sentencing 10 of those involved at Leicester Crown Court, Judge Philip Head said: "This was a sophisticated and widespread fraud in its conception and execution."

Jailing the conspirators for between 10 years and 22 weeks, he added: "These bodies were selected because it was hoped their accounting processes would be vulnerable."

The case can only now be reported after reporting restrictions were lifted.

Cash was extracted by fooling organisations with forged letters pretending to be from legitimate building firms, already carrying out work for the public bodies.

The fraudsters took full advantage of the fact that public sector contracts were freely available to see, under financial transparency rules.

The co-conspirators would write, either by email or fax, claiming to have changed their companies' banking details, and supply instead an account controlled by the criminals.

The "prime-mover", identified in court as

Nigerian national Bayo Awonorin, remains at large, having failed to answer to police bail.

After a Lincoln-based NHS hospital first raised the alarm, diligent investigation work by detectives from Lincolnshire Police led them to uncover a "seamless process" of a fraud and money laundering operation

crossing international borders, involving not just the UK, but Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Ill-gotten gains were then laundered through "many layers" of accounts, with the cash funnelled to legitimate businesses, including a children's soft play area development in Scotland and a cafe in Sutton Coldfield,

West Midlands.

The conspiracy's tendrils stretched to company accounts in Poland, Dubai and Nigeria, with targets including an airport development run by the States of Guernsey, the Royal College of Arts (RCA), and NHS trusts in

Lincolnshire, London, and the North.

The conspiracy's "trusted lieutenant" Stephen Tyndale, 47, of Albany Road, Southwark, London, was jailed for 10 years each, for conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to launder money, to run concurrently.

Asif Habib, 53, of Al Barsha, Dubai, Imitiaz Khoda, 44, of Dallas Road, Lancaster, Abdul Naeem, 36, of Lineholt Close, Redditch, and his brother Mohammed Nadeem, 33, also of Redditch, were convicted of conspiring to launder the dirty cash.

Habib was jailed for 40 months, Khoda for 54 months, and the brothers for 67 months each.

Father-of-seven Oghogho Ehanire, 42, of Brackenbury Road, Preston,

Lancashire, was jailed for 12 months suspended for two years for laundering.

Also given suspended jail terms for laundering were Yagnesh Patel, 46, of Rookery Road, Staines, Surrey (15 months), Zaheed Muhammed, 48, of Tinto Road, Glasgow (21 months), and Abdul Ghaffar, 68, of Lineholt Close, Redditch (22 weeks).

Tariq Khan, 35, of Meadway, Ilford, Essex, was jailed for eight months and ordered to repay £20,000 to the Lincolnshire NHS trust after admitting perverting the course of justice by supplying false documents

to police.

An 11th person, Monica Thomson, 40, of Ivy Way, Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, will be sentenced for her part in the conspiracy next month.