A watch dealer from West London has been jailed for 18 months for selling hundreds of stolen luxury watches.
Nadeem Tayyab Malick, who is listed on Companies House as the only director of Quality Marque Watches in the London suburb of Northwood, was arrested on 21 March 2016 by officers from the Met’s Flying Squad after he tried to sell a gold Rolex to a dealer in London’s Hatton Garden jewellery district.
The Hatton Garden jeweller discovered that the watch had been listed with the Art Loss Register as having been stolen in a robbery in Mayfair of 6 January.
During that robbery, four men raided a watch shop in Mayfair where they smashed display cabinets and stole 81 watches valued at £1.1 million.
The thieves fled the scene on motorcycles but were stopped by police at Portland Place.
While being pursued by officers, one of the men was seen to discard a bag. When officers recovered the bag it was found to contain 41 watches from the robbery valued at £650,000.
The man who discarded the bag of watches is currently serving a seven year prison sentence for the robbery.
Following the robbery, the store owner supplied the details of the outstanding 40 stolen watches to the Art Loss Register which is a private database of stolen or lost art, antiques and collectibles. The Art Loss Register runs a database dedicated solely to lost and stolen watches.
On 21 March 2016, the Art Loss Register carried out a watch search for a Hatton Garden watch dealer who had been offered for sale a gold Rolex watch by Mr Malick and discovered it had been stolen in the robbery in Mayfair of 6 January.
Mr Malick was arrested the same day by officers from the Met’s Flying Squad. When he was arrested he was in possession of a stolen vintage Rolex GMT Master watch valued at £13,500 and a search discovered a bag containing 27 other watches.
A further 60 watches were recovered during the search of his home address making a total of 78 watches. Of the 78 seized watches, 50 were found to have been stolen.
Of the 50 stolen watches 32 were stolen from a jewellers in Milton Keynes on 21 November 2015. Fourteen were stolen from a jeweller in Oxford on 31 December 2015, two had come from residential burglaries and one had been purchased with a fraudulent credit card.
The total value of the stolen watches found to be in Mr Malick’s possession was £113,450.
Mr Malick claimed to be an occasional watch dealer who often purchased timepieces for spare parts or repairs. Detectives made enquiries into his business dealings and found overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Between September 2014 and May 2016, Mr Malick supplied 288 watches to a pre-owned watch specialist with a combined value of £691,080. The watch specialist provided police with a full list of the watches they had purchased from Malick and 25 were found to have been stolen.
A second pre-owned watch specialist purchased 247 watches from Mr Malick between September 2014 and June 2016. The total value of the watches sold by Malick to this second dealer was £519,370. This dealer also provided details of the purchases and 31 were found to have been stolen during burglaries, robberies, thefts and snatches in London, Thames Valley and Bedfordshire.
Between September 14 and June 2016, Mr Malick had watches sold £1,210,450 in watches to the two specialist dealers. This includes £179,075 in stolen watches. In addition, £113,450 in stolen watches were recovered from Malick when he was arrested.
Despite the considerable cash flow, officers found that Mr Malick was not declaring any earnings although he was actually earning beyond the maximum turnover that can be traded before being subject to compulsory registration as a company.
Detective Constable Kevin Parley of the Met’s Flying Squad said: “Despite purporting to be a small-time player on the watch dealing field, I compiled overwhelming evidence of handling stolen goods against Malick.
“Each of the 106 stolen watches that he handled represents a victim of crime and I am pleased that the sentence handed down today reflects that.
“The assistance provided by the Art Loss Register continues to be of great investigative value to police and contributes hugely to reuniting stolen goods with their rightful owners.”
