Stunt ‘at heart of £266m scam turning dirty cash into gold’
Petra Ecclestone’s ex on trial accused of money laundering
THE former husband of heiress Petra Ecclestone was at the heart of a £266million money laundering operation to convert criminal cash into gold, a court heard yesterday.
Tens of millions of pounds were moved between the offices and bank accounts of James Stunt’s company in London and the Bradford gold dealer Fowler Oldfield, the jury was told.
On the opening day of the trial of eight defendants, prosecutor Nicholas Clarke QC, explained the complex system used to turn allegedly dirty cash into gold.
He said it began with bags stuffed with money being delivered by couriers from across the UK to the offices of Fowler Oldfield, who then deposited it into its NatWest bank accounts.
He told Leeds Cloth Hall Court it was ‘blindingly obvious’ the £266million was ‘criminal cash’ being washed through a company account in a classic money laundering scheme to make the funds appear legitimate. He said: ‘It was a most roundabout and inefficient way of doing business.
‘The cash could have simply been taken to a bank if it was legitimate, but it had to be paid through Fowler Oldfield to hide its true origins and give it a veneer of respectability.’ The firm Stunt and Co set up a ‘gold refinery’ to produce its own official branded gold bars and also melted down bars it bought in to turn into untraceable gold beads that were exported to Dubai, the court heard.
Stunt married Petra Ecclestone, daughter of F1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, in Italy in 2011. They had three children together but divorced in 2017.
In total, £50million of gold was shipped to his processing refinery. The court heard it operated at a loss and made no business sense, unless it was part of an illegitimate money laundering scheme.
Detailing the scale of the scheme, Mr Clarke said during one month in 2016 an average of £1.7million was being paid into the Fowler Oldfield account every day.
It was the equivalent to the takings of a Premier League football match. Many of the notes were Scottish and had an ‘unusual smell’, leading bank staff to alert police who launched an investigation, called Operation Larkshot. The court heard Stunt and seven other defendants, all accused of money laundering, were working with ‘serious criminals’ who couriered large bundles of street cash.
The money was dropped off at Fowler Oldfield’s office for counting. Notes arrived in sports bags, hidden in the panels of cars, inside toy boxes and takeaway food containers, the court heard. No receipts were given.
Couriers dropping it off took care to wipe away fingerprints and leave no forensic trace on packages. One courier delivered well over £2million in 14 visits during a 14-day period. The security company G4S and the Post Office were also used to collect millions from Stunt’s office, Fowler Oldfield and another business allegedly set up as a ‘vehicle of crime’.
G4S collected a total of £141million including £13.3million in 668 bags from Stunt’s lavish office in London. The Post Office also collected £33.4million of the ‘laundered’ cash including £14.7million inside 588 bags from Stunt and Co. The next stage was to acquire gold, the jury heard. To facilitate this Fowler Oldfield paid £46million to Stunt and Co and over £200million to two legitimate gold suppliers.
Stunt struck a deal to build a refinery in the official Sheffield Assay Office – one of four offices in the UK for grading gold.
Mr Clarke said the idea was to refine scrap gold into Stunt branded gold bars. But he couldn’t produce the bars to the required quality and instead Fowler Oldfield and Stunt and Co bought in gold bars from the Bank of Nova Scotia, the court heard. These bars were melted down into grains or beads of gold which, unlike stamped bars, were ‘untraceable’. At this stage of the trial two police officers came into court carrying a see-through container full of gold beads worth £250,000.
It was shown to each jury member, with the judge telling them to ‘tip it upside down and see how it moves’.
Mr Clarke said the operation made no business sense as gold grain is taxable and bars are not.
Every transaction made a loss and could only be explained if there were ‘other reasons’ such as ‘money laundering’.
The court heard between June 2015 and August 2016 Fowler Oldfield paid Stunt and Co nearly £47million and in a similar period Stunt and Co paid out £54.6million to the Bank of Nova Scotia.
Mr Clarke said none of the defendants accepted the cash was ‘criminal property’.
Heidi Buckler, 45, Gregory Frankel, 44, Paul Miller, 45, Haroon Rashid, 51, Daniel Rawson, 45, Francesca Sota, 34, James Stunt, 40 and Alexander Tulloch, 41, all deny money laundering. Stunt and Sota also deny forgery.
The case continues.
‘Working with serious criminals’ ‘Made no business sense’