How £266 million of criminal cash went through the gold trade
October 16, 2026
Infographic transcript
Title: How £266 million was laundered (about €305 million) through the gold trade
1. Illicit cash: Money from criminal sources was introduced into the commercial circuit through the companies involved.
2. Purchase of gold granules: Fowler Oldfield used the funds to purchase gold granules.
3. Export to Dubai with false invoices: The gold was exported to Dubai accompanied by false invoices to conceal the criminal origin of the funds.
4. Fake gold bars: Fake gold bars were found at Pure Nines, used to simulate a legitimate commercial activity.
Gold looks like an honest asset. It is physical, valuable and easy to move, which is why criminals like it. A West Yorkshire Police investigation, which ended in sentences this year, shows how a small, long established scrap jewellery business was turned into a channel for more than £266 million of criminal cash. Police call it the largest investigation into laundering criminal cash in UK legal history.
The figures in the infographic above are approximate, and the euro figure is a rough conversion. At this week's exchange rate £266 million is closer to €315 million, so treat the infographic's figure as indicative only.
In my own work on documents and evidence, provenance is the question I return to most: where something came from, and how anyone knows.
What happened
1. Illicit cash. Couriers from across the country carried bags of cash to Fowler Oldfield, a scrap jewellery business on Hall Lane in Bradford. Its genuine trade had been buying scrap gold and jewellery for cash, but the court heard that it had changed into something else: a business processing cash on a vast scale, at times around £1.7 million a day. CCTV showed staff feeding notes through counting machines and packing them for collection by cash in transit firms.
2. Buying gold granules. The cash was banked, and the money was used to buy high purity gold grain. Police said this gave the criminal proceeds an appearance of legitimacy and let those behind them avoid the checks they would have faced if they had tried to bank the cash or buy gold themselves. Investigators calculated that more than £266 million was paid into the company's accounts between January 2014 and September 2016. Police also said that more than £200 million was laundered through its NatWest account between 2014 and 2016. The two figures describe different things: money paid in, and money established as laundered through one account.
3. Export to Dubai on false invoices. The gold was shipped to Dubai under fake shipping invoices. The court heard that most of the money reaching Fowler Oldfield by 2016 was directed there by a Dubai based man described as an international money launderer, using Pure Nines Ltd, a company in London's Hatton Garden, as a front for delivering the cash and arranging the purchase and export of the "clean" gold.
4. Fake gold bars. When officers searched Pure Nines, they found a cash counting machine, a holdall of cash and bundles of notes in a safe. They also found 147 apparent gold bars. Only one was genuine. The rest were silver plated with gold, which police said was meant to make the firm look like a real gold dealer. The BBC reports 146 fake bars.
How it was caught
The case began in 2016, when a security company raised concerns about a sharp rise in the amount of cash its staff were collecting from the Bradford premises. Surveillance then showed couriers arriving with large bags. Bank checks showed that cash paid into the company's accounts had risen from £11,000 in 2012 to more than £650,000 a year later, and to £95 million by 2015.
In September 2016, officers searched the Bradford premises and two businesses in London, including Pure Nines, arrested 16 people and recovered cash and gold worth more than £4 million. The investigation took years, with forensic analysis of invoices, emails and paperwork and more than 8,000 hours of CCTV.
The sentences
Only people convicted and sentenced are named here, as in the police and BBC reports.
March 2025, Leeds Crown Court, after a trial: Daniel Rawson, a Fowler Oldfield director, was sentenced to ten years and ten months. The court heard that three others convicted of money laundering did not attend and were sentenced in their absence: Gregory Frankel, another director, to 11 years and eight months, Haroon Rashid to ten years, and Arjun Babber to 11 years. They are believed to have left the country, and police say efforts to find them and secure extradition continue.
28 August 2026, Leeds Crown Court: Baqa Haider was jailed for six years, and Nathan Rivers, a Fowler Oldfield staff member, received 27 months suspended for two years with a curfew. Both were convicted of money laundering after a further trial that ended in July. The court heard that Haider was involved in creating the fake shipping invoices and travelling to Dubai.
12 October 2026, Leeds Crown Court: Samir Jagirdar, the owner and director of Pure Nines, admitted money laundering between 2012 and 2016 and was jailed for seven years. He was also banned from being a company director. The BBC first reported a different term and corrected it to seven years after checking with the court.
The sources do not report any acquittals. Police say proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act are continuing against all those convicted, so confiscation outcomes are not yet reported. In December 2021 NatWest was fined £264,772,619.95 after a prosecution by the Financial Conduct Authority for failing to monitor Fowler Oldfield's banking properly between November 2012 and June 2016. A further prosecution is pending and is not covered here.
What it shows
Lesson: cash volumes should match the business. A scrap jeweller whose deposits rose from thousands to tens of millions in three years should have been a flashing light. Expected activity should be set at onboarding and tested.
Lesson: invoices must match shipping reality. The fake shipping invoices only worked because nobody tested them against physical movements, customs records and counterparties. Orderly documents do not prove that goods exist.
Lesson: front companies look like businesses. Pure Nines had premises, stock and a trade name. Check what a firm actually does and who its customers are.
Lesson: verify physical stock. The gold bars were props. For bullion dealers, lenders and auditors, assay, weighing and independent inspection beat a photograph or a certificate.
The common thread is provenance: a paper trail is only as good as the checks behind it.
Sources