A GAMBLING addict became embroiled in a plot to launder almost a million pounds to pay off his mounting debts.

Robert Barefoot, 26, of High Wycombe, said he was drawn into the plan because he owed thousands of pounds to loan sharks.

Aylesbury Crown Court heard that cocaine-addicted Barefoot was asked by underworld lenders to launder £987,000 for them by transferring the money to offshore accounts in Dubai and Hong Kong.

Prosecutor Kevin West said Barefoot tried to transfer £950,000 of the money from a Barclays account he used for spread betting to a separate account abroad and keeping the rest as payment for the operation.

However the bank became suspicious and froze Barefoot's account. He was arrested shortly afterwards. Mr West said police were still trying to discover how the money had been taken and by whom.

Michael Hooper, defence counsel, said Barefoot had originally been unwilling to comply with the loan sharks.

He said: "The money was transferred into his account anyway as the people he was dealing with had his bank details. He was put under pressure and told he had to carry on with the plan."

Mr Hooper added: "He was not by any means the mastermind of the idea or likely to be a substantial benefactor."

The court heard that Barefoot had racked up debts of close to £60,000 at HSBC branches in Wycombe, Marlow and Beaconsfield using forged documents and fake drivers' licences. At the High Wycombe branch alone he amassed a £43,281 overdraft.

The forged documents were kept in a storage unit Barefoot hired in Desborough Road, High Wycombe.

After failing to pay the rent, the owners seized the contents of the unit and phoned the police on finding the bogus identifications.

Mr Hooper said the money to be laundered and debts, which totalled more than a million pounds, had been paid back to its rightful owners.

Barefoot was jailed for four and a half years after pleading guilty to five counts of attaining services by deception, one count of making a false instrument and one count retaining proceeds of crime between October 2003 and February 2004.

Judge Morton Jack said: "No doubt you were acting under the influence of various addictions to gambling, to drugs, maybe to money.

"However you let yourself willingly and knowingly become involved in a major fraud. The fraud could not have worked without your co-operation."