Man who helped launder £266million of criminal cash through scrap jewellery firm is jailed for eight years

A man has been jailed for eight years after helping orchestrate the largest laundering scam of criminal cash in UK history – which oversaw £266million in untraceable gold shipped to Dubai.

Samir Jagirdar, 58, used his scrap jewellery company to accept huge amounts of cash and then buy gold grain, which was smuggled to the UAE under fake invoices.

He is the seventh man to be sentenced over the laundering scheme which West Yorkshire Police's Economic Crime Unit had been investigating for a decade. 

When officers raided Jagirdar's Hatton Garden business, Pure Nines, which he used as a front to accept bags of cash brought from all over the country, they found 146 fake bars of gold, alongside a single real one.

Police said it was used to make the business appear like a 'legitimate gold dealer rather than a front for money laundering'.

Wads of cash were also found in a safe of the 'front company' as well as an automated cash counting machine, and the scammer had been regularly delivering cash to Bradford-based jewellers Fowler Oldfield.

Jagirdar, of Addiscombe Road, Croydon, was handed eight years behind bars at his sentencing at Leeds Crown Court on Monday, and was further banned from being a company director after admitting his guilt.

Two other men had been sentenced in August in relation to the scheme and four others were sentenced in March 2025.  

Samir Jagirdar, 58, has been jailed for eight years after helping orchestrate the largest laundering scam of criminal cash in UK history

When officers raided Jagirdar's Hatton Garden's business, Pure Nines, they found 146 fake bars of gold, alongside a singular real one

Jagirdar used his scrap jewellery company to accept huge amounts of cash and then buy gold grain, which was smuggled to the UAE under fake invoices

At one point, the scammers would process £1.7million a day and between 2014 and 2016 more than £200million in 'dirty money' was laundered through Fowler Oldfield's NatWest bank account.

Bank slips showed that the jeweller's accounts had shot up from £11,000 in 2012 to more than £650,000 a year later, increasing to £95million in 2015. 

Authorities caught couriers frequently visiting the jewellers, which said it bought scrap gold, carrying large quantities of cash.

Fowler Oldfield director Daniel Rawson, 47, Gregory Frankel, 47, Haroon Rashid, 54, and Arjun Babber, 32, were convicted last year over the 'eye-watering' laundering scheme that saw hundreds of millions pass through their hands, largely at Fowler Oldfield.

The 'dirty money' was delivered by couriers to the jewellers in carrier bags and holdalls full of hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time with some notes even concealed inside fast food boxes and children's toys. 

Staff then counted the cash using specialist 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. 

Frankel was sentenced to 11 years and eight months, Rawson for ten years and ten months, Rashid for ten years and Babber for 11 years. 

But only Rawson was in court to begin his custodial term with the other three having fled the country or in hiding, with Judge Andrew Stubbs KC adding that Rashid was 'sunning himself somewhere' after having 'run away to Colombia many years ago'.

Frankel is said to be living in Israel with his family and employed by the Israeli Ministry of Defence.

Ramona Senior, who was head of West Yorkshire Police Economic Crime Unit at the time and now leads the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: 'Those convicted of involvement in this criminal enterprise played their part in an operation that was laundering criminal cash on a truly industrial scale.

'Behind every bank note that went through their fingers is the harm that serious and organised crime causes in our communities, whether that be from the supply of controlled drugs and the serious violence that accompanies it, or the cruelty and exploitation of human trafficking and modern slavery.

'Money laundering is not a victimless crime and those who involve themselves in it are helping criminals to prosper from the misery of others.

'This was the largest ever investigation undertaken by West Yorkshire Police's Economic Crime Unit.

'It was a hugely challenging and complex investigation which has required an enormous amount of tenacity and skill by our specialist investigators.'

READ MORE: Flash new lives of brazen crooks behind Britain's biggest money laundering plot: JANE FRYER