James Stunt accused of being part of £266m money-laundering operation

James Stunt, the socialite and former husband of heiress Petra Ecclestone, today went on trial accused of being part of a £266million money-laundering operation.

Stunt, 40, is one of eight defendants charged with money laundering cash that was taken to premises owned by Bradford gold dealer Fowler Oldfield between January 2014 and September 2016. 

This money – carried in sports bags, carrier bags and holdalls – was then used to buy gold from two Birmingham suppliers, the court heard. 

Nicholas Clarke QC said it was ‘blindingly obvious this was criminal cash’ being washed through a company account in a classic money laundering scheme to make the funds appear legitimate.

He added: ‘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.’

Mr Clarke said during one month in 2016 an average of £1.7million was being paid into the Fowler Oldfield account every day. Many of the notes were Scottish and had an ‘unusual smell’ and it led to bank staff alerting police who launched an investigation. 

Today, Stunt was accompanied at court by girlfriend Helena Robinson, 26, with whom he has been for the past two years. He married Ms Ecclestone, daughter of F1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, in Italy in 2011. They had three children together but divorced in 2017. 

Five defendants from Fowler Oldfield – Greg Frankel, Daniel Rawson, Paul Miller, Heidi Buckler and Haroon ‘Harry’ Rashid – all say the prosecution cannot prove that any of the cash was criminal property. The other three defendants – Stunt, Alexander Tulloch and Francesca Sota – say they ‘don’t know whether it was’, Mr Clarke said.

Prosecutor Mr Clarke told jurors: ‘The prosecution say this is nonsense… Each of them must at the very least have suspected that the source of the money was criminal in origin – it could not have come from a legitimate source and no legitimate source has ever been identified for it.’

Jurors were told West Yorkshire Police launched Operation Larkshot – an investigation into large amounts of cash being credited to the bank account of Fowler Oldfield collected from three sites – Fowler Oldfield’s own premises, the offices of James Stunt in central London and a new company called Pure Nines in Hatton Garden.

Mr Clarke said substantial amounts of cash were being paid into a bank account of Fowler Oldfield Limited from 2014. 

He told jurors they aroused the suspicions of bank staff because ‘they were of such an amount, on a daily basis, as may come from a Premier League football stadium on a match day or similar size venue or event’.

‘They were in volumes that exceed collections from busy high street banks. The payments were getting much bigger in 2016. On some days, well over a million pounds in used notes was being paid into the Fowler Oldfield account,’ Mr Clarke said.

The account was referred to police, who found that between August and September 2016 daily cash deposits ranged between £787,540 and £2,424,380, with an average of £1,706,823, jurors heard.

The wider investigation discovered that from January 1 2014 until September 16 2016, more than £266million in cash and unknown deposits were paid into the Fowler Oldfield bank account.

The court heard that after the cash had credited the bank account it was transferred mainly to two Birmingham gold suppliers, Cookson Precious Metals Limited and Metalor Technologies (UK) Limited to buy gold.

Some £46million was also transferred into an account in the name of James Stunt’s company, Stunt & Co Ltd.

Mr Clarke said CCTV footage shows that during August and September 2016, couriers from all over the UK attended Fowler Oldfield with heavy bags of cash.

In one case it was inside two toy boxes wrapped in paper disguised as a birthday present. 

The court heard Fowler Oldfield was a small family jewellery company that used to buy, in relatively modest amounts, scrap gold from the jewellery trade which would then be melted down or refined into larger amounts.

But Mr Clarke said: ‘There was a dramatic transformation as Fowler Oldfield moved from that legitimate trade to becoming a vehicle for very substantial money laundering of criminal cash.

‘From the end of 2013, the bank account of Fowler Oldfield began to receive huge sums in cash deposits.’

The significant and marked change in the business of Fowler Oldfield from buyer of scrap gold involving paying out cash to very substantial receiver of cash, the escalation in the turnover of the business, the sheer value of cash involved, the number of Scottish notes among the cash received and the circumstances of its receipt and being counted, are all clear indications that the cash that was being delivered by the couriers had its origins in crime.

‘It is obvious from the totality of the evidence, and especially the CCTV recordings, that this was a sophisticated clandestine operation to receive criminal cash in such a way that Fowler Oldfield could then persuade NatWest that it was just part of their ordinary business operations.’

Mr Clarke said the money laundering then ‘went national’ as one of Fowler Oldfield’s directors, Greg Frankel, became a Vice President of Stunt & Co.

‘New premises in the south became centres of operation for receiving cash,’ he told the court.

‘Stunt’s offices are higher up in a tower block and it became more difficult to manage the sheer volume of bags of cash that had to be paid into the Fowler Oldfield account, and there were issues over the security of the collections.

‘They then got access to a new company with no history at all, Pure Nines. which could also help in the trade side of legitimising the cash.’

Buckler, 45, Frankel, 44, Miller, 45, Rashid, 51, Rawson, 45, Sota, 34, Stunt, 40, and Tulloch, 41, all deny money laundering. Stunt and Sota also deny forgery.