LEICESTER — Organised crime groups are using post office branches across the UK to turn dirty cash into banked money, with police saying the system is far too easy to exploit. In Leicestershire, officers uncovered a laundering network centred on Jigar Gheewala, an unemployed declared bankrupt who appeared to live far beyond his means while moving huge sums through ordinary branches.
By 2020, his account had received more than £880,000 in cash in 200 separate deposits, even though he was on benefits. Investigators later found that the money had not come from offshore finance or hidden bank accounts, but from counters inside post offices in Leicester. The case, known as Operation Kilo, showed how quickly criminals can use the high street to move illicit cash into the banking system.
How Leicester investigators traced the cash trail
Leicestershire police pieced together Gheewala’s routine by following the pattern of deposits. A typical morning could mean several post offices in different parts of the city, each one only minutes from the next. He would move from a convenience store in the east of Leicester to another shop with post office services, then on to branches beside a chemist, a fried chicken outlet, a bakery and other ordinary retail premises.
Detective Supervisor Laura Panter, from the force’s economic crime team, said the investigation began with a bank account that did not match the lifestyle around it. Gheewala lived in a £1.3m house and sent three children to private school. Police later established that couriers were also bringing cash into Leicester from London and Yorkshire, before it was handed to a wider network to pay into accounts. The money was then moved on rapidly, often through cryptocurrency exchanges.
In December 2025 Gheewala was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison, alongside six co-conspirators. Police said the group moved £53m in just two years, using mules, bogus company payments and a string of bank cards and PINs to keep the cash moving.
Why post office banking has become so attractive to criminals
Post offices began accepting cash deposits on behalf of banks in 2017, and those deposits now exceed £30bn a year. The process is deliberately simple: a customer hands over cash, inserts a bank card and enters the PIN, and the post office system sends the credit to the relevant bank account. Post Office Ltd says this helps people and businesses that have lost access to nearby bank branches.
Police and former industry insiders say that same simplicity makes the system vulnerable. Branch staff cannot see account details, so they cannot tell whether the cardholder is the real account holder or whether the deposits are suspicious. Officers say there is no requirement for ID verification, no enhanced screening and no centralised CCTV in many branches, even though large volumes of cash can be paid in quickly and with little scrutiny.
Law enforcement agencies estimate that hundreds of millions of pounds of dirty money are laundered through post offices each year. National Crime Agency figures suggest about £12bn in banknotes are laundered in the UK annually, and post offices have become one of the easiest places for criminals to feed cash back into the financial system.
Horizon scandal fallout has made prosecutions harder
The wider fallout from the Horizon scandal has also affected money-laundering investigations. Police officers and prosecutors say juries may be suspicious of evidence linked to Post Office computer systems because of the company’s wrongful prosecutions of post office workers. In one Lancashire case, a detective constable decided to halt an inquiry into large-scale money laundering through branches after concerns that defence lawyers could undermine the computer evidence.
That caution means some cases never reach court unless the evidence is overwhelming. Officers say many more suspicious transactions are likely taking place behind the scenes, but they are reluctant to bring marginal cases when the public is already sympathetic to post office operators. One senior officer said the issue has become a “hot potato” since the television drama about the Horizon scandal brought the injustice to a wider audience.
The problem is not confined to Leicester. Men have been jailed in Birmingham for an almost identical scheme, a Cheltenham man was jailed in April for laundering millions through Bristol and Gloucestershire branches, and earlier cases in London and Manchester involved tens of millions of pounds. Police say the pattern is now familiar: ordinary people’s bank accounts are used as conduits, while the real criminals disappear before the money can be frozen.
Cash limits, bank closures and the pressure on post offices
The scale of cash moving through post offices has risen sharply even as everyday cash use has fallen. Cash now accounts for fewer than one in 10 transactions in the UK, yet deposits at branches have climbed from £1.9bn in October 2020 to £2.9bn in October 2025. Post Office Ltd later stopped publishing detailed monthly totals, but said deposits rose by 10% in the first quarter of this year.
That growth reflects the closure of bank branches, which has left cash-heavy businesses dependent on post offices. The Financial Conduct Authority introduced limits on how much could be deposited at once in 2023, but the change drew pushback from Post Office Ltd and retail groups that said legitimate businesses would be hit. Ministers then promised that people and firms still reliant on cash would be able to keep using it.
Post Office Ltd is also under pressure from the Horizon compensation bill, having already paid out more than £1bn. Banking now brings in about £309m a year and may already be more lucrative than mail handling. For post office operatives, the fees are part of the business model. But police warn that, unless the system changes, criminals will keep filling the gaps left by closing banks and weak checks.
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