A Co Clare farmer faces being jailed by a London court for laundering £5.1 million sterling through two bureaux de change in Knightsbridge.
Patrick Coughlan made a number of visits to change cash into largely Italian lira or employed couriers to handle transactions, often changing over £500,000 sterling at a time.
Southwark Crown Court heard the small denomination notes were the proceeds of cigarette smuggling into Britain by organised gangsters.
In the transactions, between December 1999 and March last year, £2.4 million worth of "clean" currency was handed to co-defendant Pio Vadacchino over £700 lunches.
Coughlan, Girrogan Heights, Ennis, Co Clare, admitted two sample charges of money laundering. Vadacchino (37), from Naples but renting flats in Porchester Square, Lancaster Gate and Hampstead, was found guilty last month of conspiracy to launder the proceeds of crime.
Mr Mark Rainsford, prosecuting, said "large sums of cash were exchanged at two bureaux de change by Coughlan and couriers acting on his behalf. Holdalls sometimes containing over half a million pounds were delivered to couriers at hotels.
They took the cash to one of the bureaux de change and exchanged it for high denomination overseas currency."
He said the cash was either smuggled out of the country or telegraphically transferred.
"Having been exchanged, large sums of cash were delivered to Vadacchino who smuggled it out of the country hidden within vehicles being driven overseas." The Italian was also laundering cash by buying luxury cars and selling them.
Sentence is expected tomorrow.