Sisters of onvicted drug dealers have admitted money laundering
The sisters of convicted drug dealers have been sentenced after admitting money laundering offences.
Surriya Bi, 33, and Asia Bi, 38, both of Park Road, Rochdale, admitted money laundering to the value of £40,000 each, at an earlier hearing.
At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court Asia was jailed for 18 months and Surriya for 22 months.
Under Proceeds of Crime Act legislation both women were also ordered to pay back £40,000 within six months or face a further 12 months in prison and still be liable for the payment.
The two sisters have two brothers who are both convicted drugs dealers and between them the women laundered £80,000 of their brothers’ ill-gotten gains.
A thorough financial investigation was launched following the conviction of Mohammed Shafiq (born 3/4/81) of Park Road – brother of the defendants – who was jailed for six years in March 2011 for drugs offences.
Specially trained officers reviewed the family’s accounts and discovered that each sister had purchased a house with large deposits.
Surriya Bi bought a house on Park Road in December 2008 for £100k, paying a £40,000 deposit. She also owned an expensive car – a 2007 Audi A4 valued at £16,000 – that police have seized as part of the money laundering investigation.
She also paid a 10% deposit on a second house that she bought for £70k in November 2009 and had a collective balance in her bank accounts of £7,000.
Asia Bi paid a deposit of £20,000 on a house she bought on Roch Street for £67k in March 2005.
She paid £36,000 off the mortgage between May 2007 and June 2008 and has more than £7,000 in several bank accounts.
Detective Constable Gerard Fisher, said: “Between them these two sisters have laundered £80,000: money provided by their brothers and their associates from drug dealing activities.
“This has been a long, drawn out inquiry that we first started in 2010.
“Along the way we took out top and street level dealers. Now we have secured convictions against those not involved in the drug dealing directly, but who have benefited financially from it.
“We worked closely with financial investigators in the force who secured this POCA ruling, meaning that the two sisters have to pay back every single penny that they made and laundered as a result of their brothers’ criminal enterprise.”
