The officer who took it — a woman called Marguerite Oyelowo — spent the last forty minutes of that meeting on the seating plan and not on the bank statements.
She explained why, and I have thought about it ever
since.
The money had been through so many hands that proving who knew what would take years. But a seating plan puts named people in a room on a named date. A photograph puts them shoulder to shoulder. And a man who has sworn in writing that he has never met another man cannot easily explain standing next to him under a banner with his own company’s name on it.
“People are careful with documents,” she said. “Nobody is careful at a wedding.”
Yardley Rowe Capital was suspended in the March. Piers Yardley and two others were charged in the June. It is a large case and I am told the trial will be in 2028.
