How to spend 50m pounds ...

2006-02-24 18:24

London - Problem. How to get rid of £50m.

Easy if the money is legitimate, but a major headache if it comes from what looks like being Britain's biggest-ever cash robbery.

Six raiders, posing as police officers, got away with the huge haul after they snatched the manager of a security depot on Tuesday evening, took his wife and young son hostage and threatened to kill them unless he co-operated.

But rather than planning a life of luxury, said money laundering expert Peter Lilley, the gang had probably got away with more cash than they could possibly handle.

He said they basically had three options: stash the money, try to spend it, or launder it.

None of these would be easy and in some cases impossible, so the gang might end up actually having to destroy it, Lilley told Reuters.

"I think they have stolen too much money," he said. "If they had got five million, 10 million, 15, it would have been much easier than 50 million."

Although day-to-day life can be conducted in cash, buying luxury items or property would be almost impossible.

"Stupid as it sounds, 50 million pounds of notes actually has no value whatsoever until you convert it to value," he said.

"If you want to go and buy a Ferrari - if you come into the garage with more than 10£000 pounds in cash there are now certain money laundering rules that the garage has to follow regarding the source of the funds.

"Can you just go and blow 50 million pounds? The answer is no," Lilley said.

Money to burn?

One solution might be to get the money out of the country to places where laundering might be possible - but much would depend on how professional the gang were.

Criminals would be prepared to pay or lose 30% of the cash to anyone who could help them out and there were organised gangs able to launder sums of around £5m at a time outside the UK through offshore companies, gold and property.

Lilley suggested unscrupulous financial bodies or companies in Africa, former Soviet countries, the Middle East or South America might also be prepared to take on the cash without asking questions.

Another option might be the diamond market in Antwerp in Belgium which was traditionally a cash-based market.

"The possibility of you being able to successfully launder £50m in Britain is fairly minimal unless you literally break it up into tranches of 2 000, 3 000 or 5 000 or something like that," Lilley said.

On Friday, police said they had arrested their third suspect in connection with the robbery, a woman trying to open an account at a building society in southeast London. Media reports said she had gone into the branch with thousands of pounds in cash.

"If this is anything to do with the robbery, it's absolute stupidity beyond belief," said Lilley. "That's the one thing you don't do."

But he said it was possible the gang had no international connections at all and that, after thinking "all their Christmases had come at once," no longer knew what to do with the cash.

"You think you're extremely rich but actually, until you can do something with it, it's just paper."

- Reuters