Four men sentenced in money laundering plot which turned £200m into untraceable gold

Gregory Frankel, 47, Daniel Rawson, 47, Haroon Rashid, 54, and Arjun Babber, 32, were convicted over the conspiracy to turn criminal cash into untraceable gold, in what has been described as one of the UK’s largest ever money laundering prosecutions.

On Friday a judge who described the scale of the operation as “eye-watering” jailed Frankel for 11 years and eight months, Rawson for 10 years and 10 months, Rashid for 10 years and Babber for 11 years.

Only Rawson was in court to hear and begin his sentence, with Judge Andrew Stubbs KC saying Rashid had “run away to Colombia many years ago” and was “sunning himself somewhere”, while Babber had been “spirited away” from The Priory hospital by his family before the trial.

During the Leeds Crown Court trial, jurors heard that between 2014 and 2016, more than £200 million from the proceeds of crime was brought from across the country to Bradford gold dealer Fowler Oldfield, Mr Stunt’s business premises in London, and an office in Hatton Garden of a “front company” called Pure Nines Limited.

The defendants were accused of hiding the origin of the money by laundering it through a company bank account and using the proceeds to buy gold which was shipped to Dubai.

On Tuesday Mr Stunt, former son-in-law of Formula 1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, was cleared of any involvement in the scheme.

He told the trial he had never suspected he was “entering into a criminal agreement” when he went into business with Fowler Oldfield owners Frankel and Rawson, and had simply agreed to let them deposit their clients’ cash in his Mayfair office.

The other four defendants were found guilty of money laundering.

Mr Stunt and Rawson were the only defendants present during the trial.

During the sentencing hearing, Judge Stubbs said Babber had attempted to leave the country before the trial and later checked himself into The Priory when his attempt failed.

When a warrant was issued for his arrest, his family “spirited him away”, the judge said, adding that Priory staff had wrongly refused to allow the police access.

Richard Littler KC, representing Frankel, said he lives in Israel with his family and was employed by the Israeli Ministry of Defence there, adding: “Custody, when it begins for Mr Frankel, will be a difficult experience for him.”

The court heard Frankel and Rawson were the directors of Fowler Oldfield, an unsuccessful backstreet jewellers in Bradford which had become nothing more than a “front of genuine trade” for a multimillion-pound money laundering operation by the time police intervened in September 2016.

The court heard the “dirty money” was delivered by couriers to Fowler Oldfield in carrier bags and holdalls full of hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time, even being concealed on occasions inside fast food boxes and children’s toys.

The cash was counted on the premises by staff using specialist counting machines before being bundled together for collection by G4S or the Post Office, who delivered it to NatWest to be deposited into Fowler Oldfield’s bank account.

Judge Stubbs said the money was therefore sent by respectable companies into the banking system “in a way that was not possible to the criminals”.

Rashid collected cash and brought it to be laundered at Fowler Oldfield, with prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC saying he provided a money laundering service for others and was “the most likely route by which Frankel and Rawson became involved in money laundering”.

Babber, who was based in London where other members of his family ran the “well-known and reputable business” RPS Jewellers Limited, had his own company called Goldsteel Limited.

Mr Sandiford said that in 2015 Babber began to launder cash for others through Fowler Oldfield “on a scale that dwarfed that of Rashid”.

Jurors heard Mr Stunt, who was found not guilty of money laundering, met Frankel and Rawson at the Sheffield Assay Office, where he had built a refinery as part of a legitimate business turning scrap gold into high purity, branded gold bars.

He started a “joint venture” with them in 2015 which would see them running the refinery and providing scrap gold, while Mr Stunt provided the financial backing.

Mr Stunt said he later accepted a proposal by Frankel and Rawson for their clients’ cash to be deposited in his office at Leconfield House.

Asked by his barrister, Trevor Burke KC, whether he believed he was “entering into a criminal agreement to facilitate the deposit of criminal proceeds of crime”, Stunt replied: “Absolutely not.”