[14] Shah worked as a banker for Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Rabobank "over a period of almost 20 years and – after finding himself unemployed in 2008 – set up his own investment management, brokerage and principal trading business".
[19] Shah was investigated in regards to tax fraud and Solo Capital closed in 2016,[4] amid the investigation by Danish authorities,[4] while his London home and offices were raided by the British National Crime Agency, and Varengold Bank (co-owned by Shah) was raided by German authorities.
[23] This was two years before Sanjay Shah's company Solo Capital enabled clients to be paid more than 8 billions of DKK in tax refunds.
[30][31][32][33] In addition, he is being investigated since 2016 by Germany and the UK via Eurojust, and by the US Treasury Department, as it is suspected that some of the money were funnelled through US pension funds.
[36] In September 2018, a High Court of Justice judge in London entered a $1.3 billion default judgment against two UK companies, Solo Capital Limited and Elysium Global (UK) Limited, which were no longer in Shah's control, at the behest of the Danish tax agency SKAT.
[37] In 2018, Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates had frozen, but not confiscated $660 million in assets belonging to Shah.
[38] In May 2019, a number of American pension funds agreed to return 1.6 billion DKK (239 million USD) in a related tax-fraud case.
[39] In September 2019, German North Channel Bank accepted a fine of 110 million DKK for its involvement in a related tax fraud scheme.
[4] In papers lodged in London's High Court as part of a civil case brought by the Danish tax authority SKAT.
[47] On 12 August 2020, the Dubai Court dismissed the Danish government's claim that it had been defrauded by Sanjay Shah of £1.5 billion (Dh7.2 bn), due to lack of evidence.
[52] On 12 September 2022 the judge of the case ruled that Shah wouldn't be extradited to Denmark, due to a lack of documents regarding the investigation.
A judge at the Court of Glostrup [da] ruled Shah to be detained pre-trial until 3 January 2024, at which point his detention would again be decided upon.
[59] On 13 December 2024, Shah was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment, the longest recorded for a financial crime in Danish history.
In February 2024, Anthony Patterson, a British trader hired by Sanjay Shah, admitted in part to charges of complicity in serious fraud,[63] and was sentenced to eight years in prison by a Danish court.
[64][65] Shah's attorney, Kaare Pihlmann, indicated that they would appeal the decision, expressing hope for a more lenient outcome in the High Court.
This sentencing marks a significant development in the ongoing investigation into cum-ex trading schemes, which have affected several European countries including Germany, Belgium, and Denmark.