Money launderer gets suspended term

A casino worker was sentenced today for laundering thousands of pounds of drug money with her father, police said.

Nicola Rosser, 36, of King Street, Margate, Kent, used the training she had surrounding money laundering to carry out the crime alongside Derek Rosser, 63.

Canterbury Crown Court heard the pair were guilty of laundering thousands of pounds of cash - the proceeds of a profitable international drug-trafficking plot - into euros.

They were arrested after they were stopped while driving along Thanet Way near Faversham on June 29 last year.

Police searched the vehicle and discovered a blue drawstring bag containing £9,300 in cash. Neither occupant of the car was willing to explain why they had the money so both were arrested on suspicion of money laundering.

A later search of a vehicle belonging to Nicola Rosser revealed documentation relating to three cash transactions on June 28 last year, in which euros worth £18,420 were bought.

CCTV from two of the three money shops revealed her as the person buying the euros.

When police searched her father's home at Waterways Caravan Park, Reculver, near Herne Bay, they seized a blue cash box containing £4,000 and 2,000 euros.

He appeared at the court on June 17 where he pleaded guilty to three charges of converting criminal property and three charges of possession of criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Today he was handed a two-year jail sentence for being in possession of £93,600 of criminal property, and a further five sentences of eight months each to run concurrently, a spokeswoman for Kent Police said.

His daughter had admitted three charges of converting criminal property and was given an eight-month sentence suspended for two years. She was also made the subject of a six-month night-time curfew, the spokeswoman said.

Detective Sergeant David Ecuyer of Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate led the investigation.

He said: "This investigation concerns a known criminal with previous convictions for the importation of drugs and his daughter, a woman who because of her employment in a casino, has benefited from training into money laundering.

"This combination means that these offenders knew very well what they were doing and the amount of cash concerned is a significant amount.

"Both have been given ample opportunity to give a plausible explanation for their actions but have elected to remain silent.

"International drug trafficking is a profitable business and the laundering of the proceeds will form an integral part of the criminality concerned, especially when assisted by professional enablers such as Nicola Rosser.

"If the harm to the community through drug abuse is to be abated, it will in part be by making the trafficking a less profitable enterprise."

A Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation hearing is expected to take place early next year.