I think you’re right. In the UK, money laundering regulations means that employees in a bank etc must ask for an explanation of the source of funds if you try to pay in a larger sum, especially in cash, and especially more than once or twice. So there was no way he could pay in tens of thousands of €. If he had tried, there would have been a money laundering risk note filed. So, I think he was trying to spend what he could in cash. Which is not easy — well, not at the rate of $40k per week.

Seven years does not seem that much, I agree, although his early guilty plea reduced that (it would have been 11 years before parole was possible). And seven still presupposes that he behaves well and that he is not considered a threat to society — release is not automatic. But if he serves seven years, plus the loss of all of the expensive toys he had acquired, maybe that will be enough to convine him that crime doesn’t pay? I don’t know.