Britain's largest gold bullion robbery laundered by Mossack Fonseca

SpacePete · May 25, 2016

More than two thirds of the gold was never recovered.

Note that Mossack Fonseca says it is all lies: "The allegations you make related to the Brink's-Mat situation are entirely false. At no time did we know about any connection between that robbery and the name Parry. We were and are in the business of selling companies, not running them or their affairs."

How Mossack Fonseca helped hide millions from Britain's biggest gold bullion robbery

Laundered cash from Britain's largest gold bullion robbery was hidden with the help of an audacious plan hatched with advice from Mossack Fonseca's co-founder.

Faxes, memos and company filings from deep in the firm's archives show how, in the late 1980s, Jrgen Mossack played a vital role in advising unwittingly at first fugitive money launderer Gordon Parry.

The 1983 dawn heist had involved masked gunmen terrifying security staff into giving up vault combination numbers by dousing their genitals in petrol and threatening to set them alight. The gang drove off with 3.5 tonnes of gold, worth 26m (almost 80m today), making it the highest value robbery in British history at the time.

The raid left Britain in shock and the ensuing exploits of those involved in the elaborate laundering process established the Brink's-Mat robbery as one of the most notorious episodes in British gangland history.

More than two-thirds of the gold has never been recovered. Meanwhile, at least half a dozen killings including the 1985 stabbing of an undercover police officer have been connected to the band of criminals who battled among themselves for decades for control of the bullion.

Thirty years later leaked papers from Mossack Fonseca's archives have revealed surprising details of how the money launderers sought to outwit police on their trail.

The Brink's-Mat robbers and launderers included "Mad" Micky McAvoy, Brian "The Colonel" Robinson and Kenneth Noye, as well as Brian Reader, who at 76 was the ringleader in last year's Hatton Garden heist, another record-breaking robbery. After the robbery, large amounts of bullion were crudely smelted by Noye and Reader at the former's home in Kent before being sent to a scrap gold dealer, John "Goldfinger" Palmer, near Bath, for resmelting and onward sale into the bullion market in Sheffield.

This laundering chain rapidly generated millions in cash. At one point, extra deliveries of new 50 notes were made to a Barclays branch in Bristol to cope with increased demand for cash withdrawals. Much of the money found its way to Parry.

[snip]

The bold manoeuvre was set out clearly in instructions from Mossack himself by then acting as the main legal adviser to Feberion in an internal memo to a colleague. "Since the only 2 shares ... are in the hands of the police in London, you may suggest ... the resignation of the existing directors, including mine, [is accepted] and new directors [are appointed].

In 1990, after more than three years on the run, Parry was found by police outside Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol and brought back to Britain. He was formally arrested as he stepped off the plane at Heathrow, not far from the scene of the heist seven years earlier.

At his trial, the jury were told Parry had helped make the gold seemingly "vanish into thin air". The laundering plot, prosecutors said, had been carried out with nerve and daring, and was "little short of brilliant", inspiring a "grudging admiration". The evidence against him, however, was overwhelming. Sentencing Parry to 10 years in jail, the judge said: "There has never been a more serious case of handling." In Westminster, the case had helped galvanise policy-makers into drafting a new criminal offence of money laundering.

...

Mossack Fonseca told the Guardian: "The allegations you make related to the Brink's-Mat situation are entirely false. At no time did we know about any connection between that robbery and the name Parry. We were and are in the business of selling companies, not running them or their affairs.

"The administration of [Feberion] was entirely the domain of Centre Services. The final owner of the company was never made known to [Mr Mossack]. Mr Mossack was never contacted by the authorities of any jurisdictions with regard to the Brink's-Mat robbery. There was no point [Mossack Fonseca] reporting anything to any authority since the matter was already under investigation."

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/04/brinks-mat-how-mossack-fonseca-helped-hide-millions
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Britain's largest gold bullion robbery laundered by Mossack Fonseca

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Britain's largest gold bullion robbery laundered by Mossack Fonseca

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