Diamonds and money bills

NEW FINANCIAL DATA LEAK MAY SHED LIGHT ON 1983 LONDON BRINK’S-MAT DIAMOND HEIST

A massive leak of documents that exposes the offshore holdings of a dozen current and former world leaders and provides details of the hidden financial dealings of over 100 politicians and public officials around the world may also shed light on the 1983 robbery of the Brink’s-Mat warehouse at London’s Heathrow Airport, according to information published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The more than 10 million leaked financial records result from a yearlong investigation by the ICIJ, a German newspaper and more than 100 other news organizations.

The ICIJ explains that during the Brink’s-Mat heist, six robbers slipped into the warehouse and forced security guards to open the vault in which they found nearly 7,000 gold bars, diamonds and cash, most of which was never recovered.

According to the ICIJ, some of the documents show that a Panama-based law firm ‘may have helped the conspirators keep the spoils out of the hands of authorities by protecting a company tied to Gordon Parry, a London wheeler-dealer who laundered money for the Brink’s-Mat plotters’.

A spokesman for the law firm said any allegations that the law firm helped shield the proceeds of the Brink’s-Mat robbery ‘are entirely false’, notes the ICIJ, and that the law firm’s founder ‘never had any dealings’ with Gordon Parry nor was ever contacted by police about the robbery.

The ICIJ also describes the law firm as having its ‘fingers in the African diamond trade’, the international art market and other businesses that thrive on secrecy.

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