Gregory Frankel
Introduction
Gregory Frankel is the director who controlled Fowler Oldfield Ltd, the Bradford scrap-jewellery business at the centre of a £266 million money-laundering operation — described by prosecutors and police as the largest cash-laundering investigation in UK legal history. He was found guilty of concealing, disguising, converting and transferring criminal property after a trial at Leeds Crown Court and was sentenced in his absence on Friday, March 7, 2025, to eleven years and eight months in prison. Frankel — 47 at sentencing, from Shipley, West Yorkshire — failed to attend his trial, is believed to have left the country, and remains one of three fugitive defendants from the case whom West Yorkshire Police is actively seeking.
Background Information
Frankel ran Fowler Oldfield alongside co-director Daniel Rawson. The Hall Lane business had spent decades legitimately buying scrap jewellery and gold for cash, but from the early 2010s its accounts became the destination for criminal cash from across Britain: couriers delivered sports bags, carrier bags and holdalls of banknotes, at times up to £1.7 million a day, the money was banked with NatWest, and high-purity gold grain bought with the proceeds was shipped to Dubai under fake invoices. The Crown Prosecution Service told his trial that Frankel controlled the business, signed the contract for cash collections by G4S, knew of the volume of cash being credited to Fowler Oldfield and the way it was delivered, and collected and delivered some of the cash himself. More than £266 million passed through the company’s accounts between January 2014 and September 2016.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted after trial, sentenced in absence. Frankel was found guilty by a jury of money-laundering offences. The account below is drawn from the Crown Prosecution Service, West Yorkshire Police and BBC reporting; he has never been taken into custody.
At the Leeds Crown Court trial the prosecution case against Frankel centred on his control of the company through which the cash flowed: the CPS said he signed the G4S cash-collection contract, understood the scale and mechanics of the deliveries, and personally collected and delivered some of the money. He was convicted alongside Rawson, Haroon Rashid and Arjun Babber of money-laundering offences, but unlike Rawson — the only defendant in court that day — Frankel did not appear, and the judge sentenced him in his absence to eleven years and eight months, the longest term of the four. The BBC reported that arrest warrants were issued for the three absent men, who were believed to have fled the country. The judge described the scale of the conspiracy — turning criminal cash into untraceable gold — as “eye-watering.”
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case drew sustained national attention for its scale, and the force renewed its hunt for Frankel and his fellow absconders in August 2026. Ramona Senior, who led the investigation as head of the West Yorkshire Police Economic Crime Unit, said at the time: “We remain absolutely determined to do everything we can to ensure these men are found and returned to the UK to serve their sentences. They will never be forgotten about and the longer they stay at large only delays them starting to serve the sentences rightly imposed on them.” The police asked anyone with information on the three men or their contacts to come forward, quoting Operation Larkshot. The banking dimension of the scandal — NatWest’s £264,772,619.95 Financial Conduct Authority fine in December 2021 for failing to monitor Fowler Oldfield’s account — was cited in coverage as the case’s institutional legacy.
Current Status
Frankel is a sentenced fugitive: the eleven-years-and-eight-months term imposed on March 7, 2025, cannot begin until he is returned to custody, and enquiries to locate him and secure his extradition remain ongoing per West Yorkshire Police. Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings against those convicted are ongoing. The wider case has since produced further sentences — Samir Jagirdar, whose Pure Nines Ltd fronted the cash deliveries, was jailed for seven years in October 2026, and Baqa Haider and Nathan Rivers were sentenced in August 2026 — leaving Frankel, Rashid and Babber the only unserved sentences in the operation.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Frankel’s flight converted a commercial directorship into a manhunt: the longest sentence in the conspiracy, an outstanding arrest warrant, and a police appeal that has kept his name and photograph in circulation since March 2025. His departure from the country before trial means he has served none of the term, and the extradition enquiries make his return a matter of when, not whether, in the force’s public framing. The conviction record and the Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings await him whenever that happens.