R v Hasani (2024) – Proceeds of Crime Charges Overturned on Appeal

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Our client who is in his 30s was charged for dealing with property suspected proceeds of crime pursuant to section 193C of the Crimes Act 1900.

This offence occurs if you receive, possess, try to hide or dispose of property including cash in circumstances there are reasonable grounds to suspect is proceeds of a crime.

Leading up to his arrest by police, our client was driving his vehicle on the highway above the speed limit. A highway patrol police officer stopped our client’s vehicle before asking him for his driver licence.

Unfortunately our client did not have his driver licence on him at the time. He was about 5 hours away from home, and on route to his way back home to his wife and kids. He attempted to call his wife to ask her to find and take a picture of his driver licence.

The police officer’s suspicions grew, resulting in the officer conducting a search of his vehicle. As a consequence of the search, police found hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash discreetly stored underneath the spare wheel cavity of the boot of his vehicle.

The cash was seized and our client arrested before being taken to the police station for further questioning. Our client declined the formal interview with police but was recorded disclosing other information to police on police body worn camera that didn’t assist him in his case.

Our client who works as a landscaper in the construction industry is usually paid in cash by his customers which included individuals and construction companies for small projects. Our client saved his cash earning over the years to buy earth moving machinery for his business.

The purpose of his trip was to attend in person to view and potentially negotiate a price to purchase a bobcat for his landscaping business with the intention to pay in cash with the hope to get a discount on the price. The police did not believe him.

As a consequence, after the Wentworth Local Court Magistrate was not convinced and found our client guilty, we immediately lodged an appeal to the Broken Hill District Court. Our client engaged our Principal lawyer Jimmy Singh and Senior Counsel Simon Buchan (QC) who specialises in money laundering and white collar crimes.

After many months of preparation and careful planning, our appeal was successful. The charge was dismissed and our client was acquitted.

The NSW Crime Commission concurrently initiated supreme court proceedings in the nature of a global order to freeze and attempt to seize and forfeit all of our client’s assets including bank accounts and their family home all valued in the millions of dollars. This caused significant hardship to our client and his family.

Our Principal Jimmy Singh and counsel Emmanuel Kerkyasharian who specialise in crime commission proceedings were also engaged to deal with the crime commission proceedings at the same time.

After a year of negotiations, the Crime Commission eventually agreed to withdraw its Supreme Court proceedings.

This ultimately led to the freezing order application being withdrawn and dismissed, allowing our client and his young family to move on with their lives after about 2 years of court proceedings.

Published on 04/09/2025