Prosecutors Recover £1.8 Million from Fugitive Money Launderer Named in Panama Papers
Assets including a home, painting, and gold bars were sold to recover funds from Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, who remains at large.
Crime-fighting officials have recovered £1.8 million from Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, a money launderer whose company accounts were listed in the Panama Papers. Mayhew-Lewis, 71, has been on the run since March 2023 and is believed to be in Africa. The recovery was made under proceeds of crime powers through the sale of his assets.
The largest sum, £766,000, was generated from the sale of his six-bedroom home in Oxted, Surrey. Separately, a painting by artist Frank Auerbach, titled 'Albert Street, 2009', was auctioned on November 14, 2024, for £620,000. The National Crime Agency (NCA) seized the artwork, identifying it as a means Mayhew-Lewis used to 'clean' criminal cash after its purchase in 2017.
An additional £469,000 was raised from the sale of nearly 18 pounds of gold bars and shavings. These were discovered in a Bentley car belonging to Mayhew-Lewis when he was arrested in 2019.
Mayhew-Lewis was named in the Panama Papers, a 2016 data leak from law firm Mossack Fonseca that exposed offshore accounts used to hide assets, evade taxes, and launder money. His home in Oxted was listed in the disclosures as he was a shareholder of a now-dissolved Bahamian company.
Crown Prosecution Service sources confirmed the recovered money came from assets held by the NCA and was not voluntarily surrendered. The NCA described Mayhew-Lewis as providing services that helped criminals obscure the origins of their cash by filtering payments through multiple companies.
Mayhew-Lewis was arrested in 2020 but absconded while on bail. He was sentenced in his absence to five years in prison for money laundering and received an additional nine-month sentence for perverting the course of justice related to a scheme evading speeding offenses. NCA analysis of his communications revealed he helped criminals blur cash origins using overseas companies and fake documents, and on at least one occasion, assisted a client in purchasing a company used to fraudulently obtain a bounce back loan.
Customers of Mayhew-Lewis included the Tawiah organised crime group. Darryl Tawiah, the group's leader, received a further 25-year sentence in 2022 for running the organization from prison, directing couriers to deposit cash into accounts linked to companies where Mayhew-Lewis or his associates were directors.
David Spencer, Head of Crime and Justice at the Policy Exchange think tank, credited the NCA for pursuing the criminal's assets and raised a broader question about government measures to increase such recoveries. Overall seizures under the Proceeds of Crime Act have averaged around £152 million annually over the last six years.
The total amount recovered from Mayhew-Lewis exceeds sums paid by notorious criminals, including some involved in the 2015 Hatton Garden heist. Olivia Rose of the Crown Prosecution Service's Proceeds of Crime Division stated that the recovered funds, now exceeding £766,000 towards his Confiscation Order, will be used to fight organised crime.