A retired solicitor has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for his part in the attempted sale of a stolen painting worth £500,000.

On Wednesday (July 1) Anthony Blok, a solicitor who had been practising for 48 years, was found guilty of money laundering, perjury and perverting the course of justice.

The jury at Croydon Crown Court heard how Blok, 72, from Fulham, was the senior partner of Sears Blok Solicitors, in Camberwell, and began practicing as a solicitor back in 1960.

Over a 10-year period Blok, a former Wandsworth resident, was helping his client sell a painting worth £500,000 but later stole it from its owner, an elderly lady living alone on the Isle of Man, in 1993.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Art and Antiques Unit launched a proactive operation to recover the painting without success prior to 2002, but the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 enabled the Money Laundering Investigation Team to use the strong new legislation to investigate the criminal activities of Blok.

In 1995, officers from the Art and Antiques Unit applied for a court order to obtain his client's personal details, which Blok had previously refused to disclose.

The order was eventually quashed in the High Court after Blok lied to the court about the true identity of his client and was charged with perjury.

Blok even went so far as to give the name of an innocent man in place of his client to hide his involvement in the theft, his attempts at selling the painting on and attempts to remove the painting from the Arts Lost Register.

According to police, in a separate case a few years earlier Blok was caught lying about the source of some bail money for a client.

Officers say in 2002 Blok paid £75,000 cash for the bail of another of his clients who was arrested for money laundering.

During that trial, Blok stated he had received the cash outside the court building from a man he did not know but CCTV footage showed him receiving the cash inside the court from his client's daughters.

This activity confirmed to police that Blok was heavily corrupt and the cash has since been seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

In 2006 Blok’s office was searched and police seized £30,000 in cash but the painting was never recovered.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Ponting, of the Specialist Crime Command, said: "Blok's criminality spread across a significant period of time and finally bringing him to justice should send a clear message to all those involved, or thinking of becoming involved in this type of criminality that we will not tolerate anyone who is breaking the law, no matter what their age or profession."

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