TWO former directors of a safety deposit company which allowed criminals to stash millions in cash, guns and drugs at their sites were jailed yesterday.
Milton Woolf, 55, and Jacqueline Swann, 47, were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty in January to a string of offences relating to the SDC Ltd business, which had a depository in Edgware.
Woolf, of Golders Green was given four years and six months after admitting 14 offences including money laundering and possession of a firearm.
Swan, of Barnet, was given a one year term for seven counts of failing to disclose acts of money laundering.
Both were arrested along with another ex-director, Leslie Sieff, 63, following police raids on three premises, including the one in High Street, Edgware, in June 2008, as part of Operation Rize.
The Ranulf Road, Hendon, resident, admitted possession of $60,000 in counterfeit US dollars at the same court on December 1 and was given a £1,000 fine and ordered to pay £750 costs.
Detective Superintendent Mark Ponting from the police’s economic and specialist crime command, said: "Rize was an innovative money laundering investigation targeting those who offered a service to organised crime, and in so doing has taken the proceeds of crime away from criminals and put cash back into the public purse.
"Already around £13m has been returned to public coffers, with many more investigations outstanding. More than £12 million remains held within the courts and around 900 investigations have been referred to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
"The disruption this operation has caused to organised criminal networks has been significant - impacting upon the illegal activities of international jewellery thieves, money launderers, drugs dealers, human traffickers and those trading in child pornography.”
The operation started in 2006 when intelligence suggested the SDC bosses were colluding with criminals and operating on no questions asked basis.
Observations on the three sites found a large number of clients were associated with crime, and after the raids 500 officers worked around the clock for 12 days opening more than 6,000 safety deposit boxes, each treated as a potential crime scene.
In these they uncovered guns, fake passports, drugs including crack and cannabis, gold bars, ingots and gold dust and even child abuse images.
Items discovered in the Edgware boxes included a handgun, eight rounds of ammunition, drugs and £20,000 in cash belonging to John Derriviere, who was arrested in June 2009 and was handed eight years in prison.
DS Ponting added: "There are two clear messages from today. First, that the Met is, and remains, determined to tackle serious and organised crime at all levels - and that includes those who act more subtly in the background but who are often the key facilitators for those who commit serious crime.
"Second, that the Proceeds of Crime Act is very powerful legislation - it's there to ensure that crime does not pay and that there should be no place for criminals to hide their ill-gotten gains.
"We continue to work with the safe deposit industry to ensure that the type of abuse uncovered by Operation Rize does not continue."
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