Brink's-Mat robbery bullion bars bearing the refiner's mark and serial numbers of bars stolen in the Brink's-Mat robbery. According to the police spokesman, the bars were gold-coated tungsten counterfeits, and therefore could not be Johnson Matthey's stolen gold bars. He said that the arrested men planned to fraudulently claim they were from the Heathrow robbery. No explanation was given as to how the counterfeiters obtained the unpublished bar serial numbers, nor the likely benefit of counterfeiting stolen property in this way. A person named Gordon Parry laundered large amounts of cash from the robbery after the disposal of the gold according to
The Warehouse Group retail chains. At the time of purchase, those chains had around 117 stores. In 2003 the company built a $33 million (AUD) distribution centre in Queensland, to service the country. Later that year, the company introduced its Tui and Tolas inventory management systems from New Zealand. As of 2005, the Australian arm was still under-performing. Sales for 2005 were at $518.8 million (AUD), compared with $567.3 million (AUD) in 2004. The Warehouse Group Limited announced in November, 2005 that it had entered into a conditional agreement to sell The Warehouse Australia business to Catalyst Investment Managers and its parent PPM