(Updated on Apr. 22 with details of Dosanjh’s cousin)

Four men were sentenced by a UK court on Tuesday to a combined 25 years in prison for evading tax and laundering money using the EU carbon market, a legal source told Carbon Pulse.

Gurmail Dosanjh, 46 from Gravesend, Kent was handed 8 years in prison and Narinder Chada, 61 from Meopham, Kent was given 7 years after they were both found guilty earlier this month of conspiring to cheat the public purse of £11.7 million following a two-month trial at London’s Southwark Crown Court.

Father and son duo Daniel Andrew Barrs and Daniel Barrs, both from Surrey, were given 7 years and 3 years in prison, respectively, for facilitating money laundering in this case and a previous one dealt with by HMRC in 2012. The two men were found to have laundered more than £20 million in total.

Chada and Dosanjh were charged with setting up companies to buy and sell EU ETS allowances at market rates, and then selling them on for a cheaper price and pocketing the VAT.

All four men were also disqualified from being directors for between seven and 10 years, the source said.

Authorities in Kent and Essex commenced their investigation in May 2011 after receiving information from HMRC about offences committed in 2009, with the first arrests in the case made in Apr. 2012.

Police said the trail of laundered cash ran from the UK across the channel to Europe, and as far afield as the Middle East, New Zealand and Australia.

Authorities are now attempting to recoup as much of the money as possible.

According to the Mirror newspaper, Dosanjh is a cousin of Sandeep Singh Dosanjh, who headed London-based KO Brokers and was jailed in 2012 for 15 years for committing a similar crime.

Singh Dosanjh was found guilty of defrauding the taxman for £38 million, and was later ordered to repay £13 million or face an additional 10 years in prison.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com