A sacked HM Revenue and Customs officer who helped her husband launder £3.3million was caught after leasing an expensive Bentley car and enjoying lavish holidays.

Kuldip Badesha used the taxman’s systems to produce letters including fake National Insurance numbers and signatures.

The 46-year-old then handed the details to her partner Ranbir Singh who opened two of 85 bank accounts with them and then used them to launder money between 2015 and 2018.

The former compliance officer, of Cockpit Pilot’s View, Chatham, met Singh, 46, before he was jailed for 11 years for kidnap in 2008 and continued the relationship while he was in prison.

They married while he was on weekend release in May 2013 but Badesha did not change her name or tell HMRC of her marriage, or her partner’s arrests and convictions.

The criminal money began to be laundered while Singh was on day release and continued after he left prison on licence in June 2014.

Badesha was arrested by HMRC’s anti-corruption officers in 2018 and was dismissed the next year after investigators discovered she was living beyond her means, such as leasing an expensive Bentley car and enjoying long-haul holidays.

During a trial at Southwark Crown Court in September, she pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office while acting as a public officer, while Singh admitted to converting and transferring criminal property.

Last Wednesday (November 27), Badesha was handed a 14-month suspended sentence and Singh was jailed for six years.

Head of anti-corruption and internal investigations at HMRC, Ben Rollins, said: “This was an appalling breach of trust from Kuldip Badesha.

“She abused her position to help her husband launder millions of pounds.

“Money laundering allows criminals to profit from the misery they inflict on their victims and often funds even more serious crimes.

“We are absolutely committed to the highest level of integrity and will track down the tiny minority who let us all down by falling short of those standards.”

Singh was previously convicted of three other offences following recent police investigations and is currently serving more than six years for fraud, money laundering and sexual assault.

Kelly Matthews, a unit heard for the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) serious economic organised and international directorate, said: “Singh used his position as company director to launder money from business accounts to personal accounts for his own gain. The investigation uncovered this criminal enterprise amounted to around £3 million in turnover.

“While his wife Badesha has abused her trusted senior position within HMRC by committing misconduct in public office.

The entire source of the laundered money has not been identified.

But some of the cash was linked to convicted financial adviser Stewart Mark Groves, who took money from a former England and Premier League footballer and was jailed in 2019 for fraud.

Action to recover the proceeds of crime is underway.