The criminal assets were seized by NCA officers during an investigation into money launderer Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, 69, whose clients included drug traffickers.

Mayhew-Lewis, a Jamaican national of Oxted in Surrey, was caught with eight kilos of gold bars when he was arrested in 2019 by West Midlands Police officers acting on NCA intelligence.

The gold, valued at more than £400,000, was found stowed in a compartment of his Bentley.

He is currently on the run, having failed to turn up for sentencing at his trial in March 2023. He was given a five-year jail term for money laundering at Southwark Crown Court in his absence.