UK’s largest money laundering prosecution heads for a retrial

Fake gold bars – blocks of cheaper metal plated with gold – are relatively common in the gold industry and often not easy to detect.

A group of people linked to an English gold dealer will face a retrial in the UK’s largest money laundering prosecution after a jury failed to reach verdicts for them after a nearly eight month trial.

Four defendants were found not guilty, while the remaining four will be tried again, a prosecutor said Wednesday. The group were accused of concealing and converting hundreds of millions of pounds of street cash that was banked by NatWest Group Plc.

The gold dealer, Fowler Oldfield, deposited some £266 million ($329 million) through NatWest between 2014 and 2016, prosecutors said.

They said gold bars and grain were purchased using the laundered funds for ultimate export to Dubai. All defendants denied the charges saying that authorities couldn’t prove that the cash was criminal.

Paul Miller, Heidi Buckler, Alexander Tulloch and Francesca Sota were found not guilty. Socialite James Stunt was found not guilty of one count of forgery.

(By Jonathan Browning)

Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *