Baqa Haider

Introduction

Baqa Haider is a 51-year-old man of Bob Marley Way, Lambeth, London, and the brother-in-law of Samir Jagirdar, the Pure Nines Ltd owner whose company fronted the delivery of criminal cash to Bradford jewellers Fowler Oldfield in a £266 million money-laundering operation — the largest cash-laundering investigation in UK legal history, in West Yorkshire Police’s description. Haider was shown to have been involved in the operation with Jagirdar: the two men created fake shipping invoices and travelled to Dubai to export and deliver the gold. He was convicted of money laundering after a trial that concluded in July 2026 and was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Friday, August 28, 2026, to six years in prison.

Background Information

The Fowler Oldfield operation, uncovered by West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit from 2016, moved criminal cash from across Britain to the Bradford premises — at times £1.7 million a day — where it was banked and converted into high-purity gold grain shipped to Dubai under fake invoices. Most of the cash funnelled to Fowler Oldfield by 2016 had been directed there by Shahid Qadar, described in court as an international money launderer based in Dubai, using Pure Nines Ltd, the Hatton Garden company set up by Jagirdar. Evidence established the firm was a front for cash delivery and the export of “cleaned” gold. Haider entered the operation through his family tie to Jagirdar: the police found the two brothers-in-law together created the fake shipping paperwork and made the Dubai trips that moved the gold out.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted after trial and sentenced. Haider was found guilty by a jury of money laundering. The account below is drawn from West Yorkshire Police’s reporting of the case; he denied the offence at trial and was convicted by the jury’s verdict.

Haider went to trial and lost. The further trial, which concluded in July 2026, convicted him of money laundering alongside Nathan Rivers, a Fowler Oldfield staff member. Sentencing both men at Leeds Crown Court on August 28, 2026, the court jailed Haider for six years. Rivers, 45, of Rathmell Road, Leeds, received a 27-month term suspended for two years with a curfew requirement. Jagirdar himself, who had pleaded guilty to laundering money through Pure Nines between 2012 and 2016 ahead of the trial, was awaiting his own sentencing at the time of the August hearing; he was jailed for seven years in October 2026. The case against the family circle of the operation — the two brothers-in-law at its Dubai-facing end — thus ended with both convicted and imprisoned.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The August 2026 sentencing release in which Haider’s conviction was announced framed the operation’s scale: couriers had delivered bags of criminal cash to the Hall Lane premises for years, the money was processed through counting machines and banked at NatWest, and more than £266 million entered the company’s accounts between January 2014 and September 2016. Ramona Senior, who led the investigation as head of the Economic Crime Unit, said those convicted “played their part in an operation that was laundering criminal cash on a truly industrial scale,” and that behind every bank note lay the harm of drug supply, serious violence, trafficking and modern slavery. Proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act against all those convicted, including Haider, are ongoing.

Current Status

Haider is serving a six-year sentence imposed at Leeds Crown Court on August 28, 2026, following his trial conviction for money laundering. The Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings against him and the other convicted members of the operation continue. The wider case is nearly fully sentenced: Jagirdar received seven years plus a directorship ban in October 2026 as the seventh defendant sentenced, the four March 2025 defendants — Fowler Oldfield directors Daniel Rawson and Gregory Frankel, Haroon Rashid and Arjun Babber — received terms from ten to nearly twelve years, with Frankel, Rashid and Babber still being sought abroad, and Rivers received the suspended term alongside Haider.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Haider’s role in the operation ran through his family tie to Jagirdar, and it cost him six years of liberty and exposure to confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The conviction record — established by a jury at trial rather than by plea — places him among the convicted principals of the largest cash-laundering investigation in UK legal history. For the Dubai-facing end of the conspiracy that he and Jagirdar ran, the fake-invoice apparatus and the gold shipments ended with the 2016 raids, and the family connection that drew him in is now the fact that ties his name to the case’s public record.

Sources

• West Yorkshire Police, “Further man jailed over £266 million Bradford-based money laundering operation.” source