James Stunt Wiki
James Stunt Biography
Who is James Stunt ?
A courier at the heart of James Stunt’s £266m money laundering enterprise wore his hat as a glove, took notes with his knuckles and hid a secret ‘code word’ in his sock to avoid being linked with the ‘ criminal behaviour’, a court heard. .
The jury at the socialite’s trial were shown CCTV video of the suspect handing over £200,000 in notes to Fowler Oldfield’s “counting room” in Bradford as the prosecution detailed the case of him against eight people in the dock.
Prosecutor Nicholas Clarke QC told the jury that the footage of a man handling cash was taken long before the pandemic, so there was only one reason to clean the surfaces. He said: ‘This was not a legitimate business. This was criminal behavior. An offender who delivers the proceeds of crime and is acutely aware of the forensic traces he might leave.’
James Stunt, the ex-husband of heiress Petra Ecclestone, is alleged to have been at the heart of the money laundering scheme to turn criminal money into gold.
Newly released footage showed a particularly careful courier covering any forensic evidence of his presence at every stage. The unidentified man is shown arriving at the Bradford office on August 19, 2016, carrying a bag full of cash.
He handles the packages with the palms of his hands or with his knuckles closed, so as not to leave fingerprints, and uses his cloth cap as a makeshift glove. He then wipes the packaging with his cloth cap and wipes down all surfaces he has touched, with the cap, his sleeves, or a tissue.
The courier was handed what the prosecution said was a code word used in the alleged money laundering operation on a piece of paper, which he tore into small pieces and stuffed into his sock. A little later, he went to the bathroom, but went back to cleaning all the surfaces, including the lock on the cubicle.
A photo shared on Instagram of staff counting wads of cash is also alleged to be incriminating evidence in a £266m money laundering trial against businessman James Stunt and his associates.
Stunt took a “very practical approach” when his company became involved in a “sophisticated” £266m money laundering operation, prosecutors said.
Clarke QC said the photo was taken at Stunt and Co’s London offices in February 2016 and shows staff counting out large amounts of “dirty” money. The man sitting on the right in front of the counting machine is Stunt’s now-dead brother, Lee Stunt, who worked with him at the time and later died of a heroin overdose.
Tens of millions of pounds passed through his office before being collected by security company G4S and the Post Office and deposited into the bank account of Bradford gold dealer Fowler Oldfield, Leeds Cloth Court has heard. Hall.
More than £46m was sent to Stunt and Co, which spent more than £50m buying gold bars from a bank which were then converted into gold grains and exported to Dubai, the court heard. . It was part of a complex scheme to turn crime proceeds into untraceable gold, the jury was told.
READ RELATED: Hai Giang- A Contestants From Survivor 42
Gregory Frankel, director of Fowler Oldfield and vice president of Stunt and Co, reportedly received the photo of the money count from his colleague Alexander Tulloch with the comment “we’ve got a logistics system in place!” The court heard that Frankel was heavily involved in the laundering operation and handed over some cash himself. Another message sent to Frankel by another co-defendant, presented in court, read: “However, James is not happy.” . . James wants to know what his profit is for this week. Concerned about profitability, etc.’.
Stunt did not pay him a salary for his role in the company, but he was able to use his London apartment and a Lamborghini car.
Heidi Buckler, 45, Gregory Frankel, 44, Paul Miller, 45, Haroon Rashid, 51, Daniel Rawson, 45, Francesca Sota, 34, James Stunt, 40, and Alexander Tulloch, 41, all deny money laundering. Stunt and Sota also deny the forgery.
James Stunt with Petra Ecclestone and her father Bernie Ecclestone in Mayfair in 2010
Stunt and his company defendants, Tulloch and Sota, say they “don’t know if he was,” the court has heard.
But prosecutors say it is “clearly obvious that this was criminal cash” and that each of the defendants “must have at least suspected that the source of the money was criminal in origin.”
Jurors were told that West Yorkshire Police launched Operation Larkshot to investigate large amounts of cash that were credited to Fowler Oldfield’s bank account and collected from three locations: Fowler Oldfield’s own premises, the offices by James Stunt in central London and a new company called Pure Nines. in Hatton Garden.
Clarke said substantial amounts of cash had been deposited into a Fowler Oldfield Limited bank account since 2014.
He told jurors that they aroused the suspicions of bank staff because “they were such an amount, on a daily basis, as might come from a Premier League football stadium on a match day or a venue or event of size Similary”.
The wider investigation found that from January 1, 2014 to September 16, 2016, more than £266 million in cash and unknown deposits were paid into Fowler Oldfield’s bank account, the court heard.
Buckler, 45, Frankel, 44, Miller, 45, Rashid, 51, Rawson, 45, Sota, 34, Stunt, 40, and Tulloch, 41, all deny money laundering. Stunt and Sota also deny the forgery.
Stunt married Ecclestone, the daughter of F1 mogul Bernie Ecclestone, in Italy in 2011. They had three children together but divorced in 2017.
James Stunt Quick and Facts
- James Stunt, 40, is one of eight defendants charged with money laundering at Leeds Cloth Hall Court
- Tens of millions of pounds passed through his office before being collected by security company, jury told
- Hundreds of thousands carried in sports bags, carrier bags and holdalls before being wrapped in black bags
- Stunt, ex-husband of Petra Ecclestone, denies money laundering and forgery at trial expected to last weeks
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
