Seventh man sentenced at Leeds Crown Court for role in £266m international laundering operation
Samir Jagirdar was jailed for seven years for his role in the multi-million pound operation
A Croydon-based business owner has been jailed for his role in laundering £266 million of criminal cash centred around a scrap jewellery firm in Bradford.
Samir Jagirdar, who was the owner and director of the company Pure Nines, based in London's Hatton Garden, was jailed for seven years today (October 12) for money laundering.
Appearing before Leeds Crown Court for sentencing, Jagirdar, 58, of Addiscombe Road, Croydon, was also banned from being a company director.
An investigation by West Yorkshire Police's Economic Crime Unit established that Pure Nines was a front for the delivery of cash to Bradford-based jewellers Fowler Oldfield and the purchase of gold which was then shipped to Dubai.
Jagirdar had admitted the offence, which took place between 2012 and 2016, at an earlier hearing.
Two men were sentenced in August of this year in connection with the investigation, while four others were sentenced in March 2025.
Years of complex and detailed analysis by officers from the Economic Crime Unit built up a clear picture that exposed the £266 million plot, in what is believed to be the largest investigation into the laundering of criminal cash in UK legal history.
Findings showed couriers from across the country regularly transporting bags full of cash to Fowler Oldfield Ltd.
The cash, which was processed at a rate of £1.7m a day at times, was banked by the company and used to buy high purity gold grain, which was then shipped to Dubai under fake shipping invoices.
Enquiries showed that between 2014 and 2016 more than £200 million in criminal cash was laundered in this way through the company’s NatWest bank account.
This process gave apparent legitimacy to the criminals’ ill-gotten gains and helped them to avoid the due diligence checks they would have faced had they attempted to bank their ‘dirty money’ or buy gold with it themselves.
At Pure Nines, officers found evidence that the shop was mainly used to count cash rather than genuine trade, including a holdall stuffed with cash, an automated cash counting machine, and bundles of cash in a safe and on the worktop.
Also in the safe was what appeared to be 147 bars of gold, but closer examination showed only one bar was actually gold while the others were fakes made by gold plating much less valuable silver bars, to give the appearance that the business was a legitimate gold dealer.