Maserati-driving Cambridge don caught with £100,000 cash in Thornton’s chocolate box at Heathrow after making more than £2m from green energy scam, pays back £1m
A Cambridge don who made a fortune from a green energy scam has paid back more than £1 million to the government.
Ehsan Abdi-Jalebi, 42, was caught with £100,000 in cash in a Thornton’s Continental chocolate box when he boarded a flight to Tehran from Heathrow airport in 2015.
He had developed a property worth £900,000 in Iran, roaring in his Maserati.
Abdi-Jalebi gained international acclaim for his work on wind turbines and founded his technology company in 2006.
He unfairly received project funding worth £2.5 million in grant money from Innovate UK and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) because they would not have paid the grant money had they known that invoices were being falsified.
The National Crime Agency announced today that the don has since sold assets and transferred £988,411 to the UK Treasury, along with £60,000 from the proceeds of a house sale in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire.
Judge Martin Beddoe dismissed Adbi-Jalebi’s (pictured) claims that the money was used to build the machine in Iran as “simply fiction” following a 2021 confiscation hearing
Abdi-Jalebi was caught with £100,000 in cash in a Thornton’s Continental chocolate box (pictured)
Wind Technologies Ltd was entitled to subsidies for part of the costs incurred, but not for the total amount.
Abdi-Jalebi amended the bills, increasing Wind Technologies’ costs to offset costs not covered by the partial grants.
So the company would receive de facto 100 percent subsidies instead of partial subsidies.
Abdi-Jalebi had admitted to changing the bills, but claimed the money had been spent on a secret advanced 1.5 megawatt wind turbine in Iran.
But after failing to provide any evidence of the mysterious project he claimed had since been destroyed, he was sentenced to four years in prison at Southwark Crown Court in 2018.
Judge Martin Beddoe dismissed Adbi-Jalebi’s claims that the money was used to build the machine in Iran as “simply fiction” following a 2021 confiscation hearing.
The judge had determined that Abdi-Jalebi had benefited in excess of £2 million and ordered him to repay £1,334,929 or serve a further eight and a half years in prison.
Following his arrest, Abdi-Jalebi lost his fellowship at Churchill College in Cambridge as the NCA spent 18 months investigating his financial history.
Abdi-Jalebi, of Trumpington, Cambridge, admitted 13 counts of forgery and was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2018
Money seized at the airport as he boarded a flight to Tehran from Heathrow
His company, Wind Technologies, received more than £1.3 million in renewable energy grants from the government and the European Union, while three affiliates received a further £1.5 million.
Abdi-Jalebi, of Trumpington, Cambridge, admitted 13 counts of forgery and was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2018.
Rob Burgess, Head of Asset Denial at the NCA, commented: ‘This is a hugely significant result and demonstrates the agency’s ability to recover criminal assets even under difficult circumstances, such as when they are held abroad .
“We have demonstrated our drive and ability to pursue ongoing enforcement activities against those subject to confiscation orders to ensure they do not retain the proceeds of their crime.”
Cynthia Caiquo, CPS Proceeds of Crime Legal Manager, said: ‘Jalebi stole government money, which was intended to provide green energy and help improve the environment.
‘Through our work with international jurisdictions, we were able to secure the repatriation of £1 million, which has now been returned to fund future projects.’
