They made up to ten bank deposits a day and paid in up to £200,000 daily – but the visits raised suspicions
10:55, 30 Jan 2026Updated 11:12, 30 Jan 2026
Birmingham money launderers, Shazad Jahan (left) and Sajid Nawaz (right) were found to have deposited around £17 million in a year into city Post Offices to ‘clean’ cash for criminals
Two Birmingham criminals who helped clean up £17million of dirty money were nailed by their repeated trips to the Post Office.
Shazad Jahan, from Bordesley Green, and Sajid Nawaz, from Kitts Green, were part of a four-strong team who deposited ‘vast amounts of cash’ into bank accounts.
They made more than ten daily visits to different Post Office branches – depositing up to £200,000-a-day – before the cash was moved to other accounts.
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Jahan and Nawaz, along with a third named man, Naveed Gul from Peterborough, were uncovered after a ‘lengthy and complex investigation’ by West Midlands Police into cash deposits at numerous Post Offices around the east of Birmingham.
But their multiple visits in 2021 and 2022, and the amounts being deposited, raised suspicions.
A file photo of a Post Office sign(Image: Lewis Stickley/PA Wire)
Officers from the Regional Economic Crime Unit for the West Midlands (ROCUWM) worked with the Post Office, banks, the National Crime Agency, the National Economic Crime Centre, and the UK Financial Intelligence Unit, investigated.
Detectives followed the money trail and found the ‘professionally organised group of criminals’ laundered £17 million in just one year.
Two suspects were arrested in June 2021 at a Birmingham Post Office.
£15,000 and the bag Sajid Nawaz carried in to the Post Office
Nawaz was found inside the Post Office with £15,000 in a carrier bag which he was about to deposit. Another £85,000 was found in a cardboard box in the vehicle he had travelled in.
Nawaz was carrying the bank card of a company account used to launder the money.
He was also holding a mobile phone open on a WhatsApp group chat called “Action”, which had details of Post Office locations and amounts that should be paid into each branch.
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Police found Jahan was directing the operation, set up the WhatsApp group and was giving depositing instructions.
He was also found to have accessed the bank account online and transferred the money out of the account into another business account.
The £85,000 recovered from a vehicle
Police raided two properties linked to Jahan in May 2022 and arrested him at Birmingham Airport after he returned from Dubai.
His phone was seized and found to contain logins for the company bank accounts into which the money deposited was being paid.
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Officers also found log-in details for the account it was transferred onto – companies which investigators believed were set up for the sole purpose of money laundering.
Gul was identified as being a director of one of those companies and the only account holder of a business bank account through which more than £2.5m cash was deposited and transferred on.
Despite denying any knowledge of money going in and out of this account, investigators were able to prove his involvement.
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Police said they recovered a ‘large amount of illicit cash’, which was forfeited as a result of the investigation.
Eight account freezing orders saw a total of £867,000 forfeited, with a new crypto exchange based in London, laundering the proceeds of crime, forced out of business.
An organisation which provided the group with a banking platform collapsed into administration following the referral to the Financial Conduct Authority.
In addition, £100,000 cash was seized and forfeited when the men were arrested and another £9,000 cash found in searches of their addresses was also seized and forfeited.
So far, police have recovered close to £1 million of the £17 million laundered in total.
Birmingham Crown Court(Image: Nick Wilkinson/Birmingham Live)
The three men admitted offences related to money laundering in relation to over £3m and were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday, January 23.
Jahan, 45, of Sommerville Road, Bordesley Green was jailed for money laundering for five years and five months
Nawaz, 59, of Clopton Road, Kitts Green, admitted encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence with intent contrary to section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 and was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.
Gul, 47, of Western Avenue, Peterborough, was also jailed for money laundering for four years and three months
Police said another man had been charged as part of the investigation but failed to attend court and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
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Senior investigating officer from ROCUWM, Jonathan Jones, said: “These sentences are a result of a lengthy and complex investigation, and they show that we don’t give up.
“We estimate that a total of around £17m in cash was laundered in just one year – an extraordinary amount of money.
“The group may have thought they could get away with it, but our investigators stuck to the trail of the money and uncovered a series of businesses set up for the purposes of layering illicit funds.
“Working with a range of private and public partners, we’ve been able to seize and forfeit around £976,000, as well as securing criminal charges against the individuals, who are now facing the consequences of their actions.”
“I hope this sends a clear message: anyone involved in this kind of scam, or trying to cheat the financial system, will be brought to justice.”
A West Midlands Police spokesperson added: “If you have concerns about financial crime or money laundering, or any information you think may be useful to us, you should call us on 101 or report it via Live Chat on our website.”