Fresh jail sentences In UKs largest £266m money-laundering operation of

By Tony O’Reilly-

Two more men have been sentenced for their roles in a sprawling £266 million money-laundering operation centred on a Bradford jewellery business, bringing another chapter to a case that investigators describe as one of the most significant criminal-cash investigations ever mounted in the UK.

The latest convictions follow years of painstaking work by West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit, which pieced together a complex network in which vast quantities of cash were transported across the country, counted in business premises and channelled through the banking system before being converted into gold and moved overseas.

At the centre of the operation was Fowler Oldfield Ltd, a long-established scrap jewellery business based on Hall Lane in Bradford. What initially appeared to be a legitimate trade in gold and jewellery was, investigators established, being used to give the proceeds of organised crime the appearance of legitimate wealth.

On Friday, Baqa Haider, 51, (pictured)of Bob Marley Way, Lambeth, London, was sentenced to six years in prison at Leeds Crown Court after being convicted of money laundering following a trial that concluded in July. Nathan Rivers, 45, of Rathmell Road, Leeds, who worked at Fowler Oldfield, was sentenced to 27 months, suspended for two years, with a curfew requirement.

Their sentences come after four other men were jailed in March 2025 following convictions arising from the same investigation. Fowler Oldfield directors Gregory Frankel and Daniel Rawson, along with Haroon Rashid and Arjun Babber, received sentences ranging from 10 to 11 years and eight months. Three of them were sentenced in their absence after failing to attend court and are believed to have fled the country. Police continue to pursue efforts to locate them and secure their extradition to Britain.

The scale of the operation is difficult to comprehend. Investigators calculated that more than £266 million was paid into Fowler Oldfield’s accounts between January 2014 and September 2016, with more than £200 million identified as criminal cash being laundered through the company during the period.

At its height, cash was reportedly being processed at a rate approaching £1.7 million a day.The investigation began in 2016 after a security company raised concerns about the extraordinary increase in cash being collected from the Bradford premises. Fowler Oldfield had legitimately bought scrap jewellery, including gold, for cash, but investigators soon discovered that the scale and nature of the business had changed dramatically.

Surveillance showed couriers repeatedly arriving at the Hall Lane premises carrying large bags of money. They came from different parts of the country, delivering hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time.The figures recorded by the bank painted an even more striking picture. Fowler Oldfield’s cash activity had risen from around £11,000 in 2012 to more than £650,000 the following year. By 2015, payments into its accounts had reached £95 million.

Cash found at Fowler didfied operation                                 Image: West Yorkshire Police

When officers finally moved in during September 2016, they executed search warrants at Fowler Oldfield and two linked London businesses, including Pure Nines Ltd in Hatton Garden. Sixteen people were arrested and cash and gold worth more than £4 million was recovered.

Inside Fowler Oldfield, CCTV captured the extraordinary mechanics of the operation. Staff were seen processing enormous quantities of banknotes through automated counting machines before bundling the money for collection by legitimate cash-in-transit companies. The cash was then deposited into the Fowler Oldfield NatWest account, allowing money originating from criminal activity to enter the legitimate financial system.

The London operation revealed an equally elaborate façade. At Pure Nines, investigators found a holdall stuffed with cash, a counting machine and bundles of banknotes in a safe and across work surfaces. What appeared to be a collection of 147 gold bars was, on closer inspection, largely fake. Only one was actually gold; the others were silver bars coated in gold to create the impression of a genuine precious-metals business.

Investigators said the cash was ultimately used to buy high-purity gold grain, which was exported to Dubai using fabricated shipping invoices. The process allowed criminal proceeds to be transformed into apparently legitimate assets while avoiding the scrutiny criminals would have faced if they had attempted to bank or purchase gold with the money themselves.

A key figure in the operation was Shahid Qadar, described in court as an international money launderer based in Dubai. Much of the money directed towards Fowler Oldfield was said to have originated through his network. Pure Nines had been established by Samir Jagirdar, who investigators found was involved in the movement of cash and the purchase and export of gold. His brother-in-law, Haider, was also involved, including in the creation of false shipping documentation and journeys to Dubai.

The scale and complexity of the investigation meant that police had to work through thousands of documents, invoices and emails while examining more than 8,000 hours of CCTV footage. It was this forensic reconstruction of the operation that prosecutors ultimately used to demonstrate how the apparently respectable businesses had become conduits for criminal wealth.

The case also exposed serious weaknesses in the financial safeguards designed to prevent money laundering. In December 2021, NatWest was fined £264,772,619.95 after the Financial Conduct Authority successfully prosecuted the bank for failing to comply with anti-money-laundering regulations in relation to its monitoring of Fowler Oldfield. The FCA said approximately £365 million had been deposited with NatWest over the relevant period, including around £264 million in cash.

The fine was particularly significant because it marked the first criminal prosecution brought by the FCA against a bank for money-laundering regulatory failures. The regulator said warning signs included huge cash deposits, large quantities of Scottish banknotes and suspicious behaviour by people depositing money. NatWest’s systems also incorrectly treated some cash deposits as cheque deposits, reducing the level of scrutiny they received.

The Fowler Oldfield affair therefore became more than a story about criminal couriers and bags of cash. It became a stark illustration of how organised crime can exploit apparently legitimate businesses and weaknesses in the financial system to move enormous sums of money.

There is also a striking historical perspective to the Bradford case. In March 2025, the Crown Prosecution Service described the Fowler Oldfield prosecution as one of the largest money-laundering cases ever brought before the courts in England and Wales, involving a colossal quantity of criminal cash. ut Britain has since seen another case surpass it in value, demonstrating how rapidly the nature and scale of money laundering is evolving.

In November 2025, Zhimin Qian was sentenced to 11 years and eight months for offences involving illegally obtained cryptocurrency, while Seng Hok Ling received four years and 11 months. The Metropolitan Police described the investigation as the largest money-laundering case in UK history by value, following the seizure of more than 60,000 Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency was connected to a fraud in China that prosecutors said had more than 128,000 victims.

That case represents a new generation of laundering: instead of sports bags packed with banknotes moving between jewellery businesses, vast sums can now be transferred digitally across borders and concealed through cryptocurrency. Yet the underlying objective remains remarkably similar — to separate criminal wealth from its origins and make it usable.

The Bradford investigation is a reminder that traditional cash laundering remains a powerful tool for organised crime. Police said the money was linked to serious criminality including drug trafficking and the violence and exploitation associated with organised crime. As Ramona Senior, who led the investigation while heading West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit, put it, behind every banknote passing through such a network can be the human harm caused by the crimes that generated it.

The investigation is still not completely over. Proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act remain ongoing against those convicted, while police continue to search for Frankel, Rashid and Babber. Gary Smith, 62, of Apperley Bridge, Bradford, is also due to stand trial at Leeds Crown Court from February 2027, accused under Section 330 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 of failing to report suspicious activity while working in the regulated sector.

A spokesperson from West Yorkshire Police told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”The latest sentences represent the culmination of a decade-long pursuit of a criminal enterprise that operated on an extraordinary scale. What began with a security company questioning why a Bradford jewellery business was suddenly handling huge amounts of cash ultimately unravelled a network stretching from northern England to London and Dubai.

‘Organised crime does not simply depend on generating illegal money. It depends on finding ways to make that money look legitimate. In Bradford, investigators found a business that allegedly provided precisely that bridge — transforming bags of unexplained cash into bank deposits, gold and international transfers.

And while the technology of laundering continues to change, from banknotes and gold to Bitcoin, the principle remains the same. Criminal fortunes need somewhere to hide. In this case, West Yorkshire Police spent years following the money until the façade finally collapsed.