Socialite James Stunt cleared of money laundering

A jury has cleared socialite James Stunt of taking part in a £200 million money laundering plot to turn criminal cash into untraceable gold.

The former son-in-law of Formula 1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone stood trial accused of allowing his prestigious Mayfair office to be used as “a trusted hub for money laundering”.

A jury sitting at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday found Mr Stunt, 43, not guilty of being involved in the network, that saw £200 million from the proceeds of crime laundered over two years, prosecutors said.

During the trial, prosecutors said that between 2014 and 2016, cash was brought from across the country to Bradford gold dealer Fowler Oldfield, Mr Stunt’s business premises in London, and an office in Hatton Garden, central London, of a company called Pure Nines Limited.

The other four defendants – Gregory Frankel, 47, Daniel Rawson, 47, Haroon Rashid, 54, and Arjun Babber, 32 – were found guilty of money laundering.

Mr Stunt and Rawson were the only defendants present during the trial and to hear the verdicts on Tuesday. Frankel, Rashid and Babber were found guilty in their absence.

Rawson started sobbing after his guilty verdict was confirmed, and had to be comforted by a dock officer.

Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, told the jury how Frankel and Rawson were the owners of Bradford jewellers Fowler Oldfield, which had become the centre of a multimillion-pound money laundering operation by the time police intervened in September 2016.

The jury heard the “dirty money” was delivered by couriers to three sites – Fowler Oldfield, Stunt & Co and Pure Nines – before being paid into Fowler Oldfield’s bank account.

Mr Stunt was married to Bernie Ecclestone’s daughter Petra for six years before they divorced in 2017.

During his defence at the trial, Mr Stunt said he never suspected he was “entering into a criminal agreement” when he went into business with Frankel and Rawson.

He said he met them at the Sheffield Assay Office, where he had built a refinery as part of a legitimate business turning scrap gold into high purity, branded gold bars.

Jurors heard he started a “joint venture” with Fowler Oldfield in 2015 which would see them running the refinery and providing scrap gold, while Mr Stunt provided the financial backing.

Asked by his barrister, Trevor Burke KC, whether he believed he was “entering into a criminal agreement to facilitate the deposit of criminal proceeds of crime”, Stunt replied, “Absolutely not.”

He told jurors he had gone bankrupt after his assets were frozen during the police investigation. This included, he claimed, sports cars, six properties, bank accounts around the world, more than 100 works of art and £30 million in rare wines.

He said that by 2020 “everyone was locked down but I had been doing lockdown before the pandemic”.

“I was a bit like Howard Hughes, I never went out, I just stayed home,” he said.

Rashid was accused of collecting cash and bringing it to be laundered at Fowler Oldfield, with Mr Sandiford saying he provided a money laundering service for others and was “the most likely route by which Frankel and Rawson became involved in money laundering”.

Mr Sandiford said in 2015 that Babber began to launder cash for others through Fowler Oldfield “on a scale that dwarfed that of Rashid”.

After leaving court Mr Stunt told reporters he wanted to thank the jury and his legal team, and said: “I just want to have a private life.”

The four defendants who were convicted will be sentenced at a date to be fixed.