Money laundering gang ordered to repay £150,000

Two members of a gang which laundered £79m have been ordered to repay almost £150,000 of their ill-gotten gains.

Coral Wade and Paul Williams, from Rotherham, were among 10 people sentenced between 2024 and 2025 for their roles in the operation, which prosecutors said was run from a family home in the town.

At a hearing at Sheffield Crown Court, Wade, 53, was told to repay £146,176 she had available, having made £242,534.97 from the scheme, while Williams, 66, who made £42,142.25, was ordered to repay just £5.

Other members of the gang, who were jailed for up to six years, will find out how much they will have to repay at a later date.

Prosecutors said the conspiracy, which operated between October 2016 and March 2019, operated in two ways.

The first was through "sums from thousands to hundreds of thousands of pounds" in "dirty" cash being collected during handovers carried out in the car parks of public houses and supermarkets.

The second was through 14 "sham" companies operated and controlled by the defendants, which would be used to process the "dirty" cash collected.

Some of the "sham" companies had tens of millions of pounds in their accounts, with His Honour Judge David Dixon labelling the "crime of the highest order."

Judge Dixon told the court that wherever it was sourced "the volume of funds through one family shows their importance to the underworld involved in criminal enterprises regionally if not nationally."

Wade was jailed for 52 months in July 2025 for conspiracy to launder money, while Williams received a 45-month jail term for the same offence.

Addressing Williams, who was said to have just £20.72 available to pay, Judge Dixon said: "I expect payment pretty quickly.

"While I'm only fixing that nominal amount, they can in theory come after you for £42,000 in future.

"If you put money on the lottery tonight and you happen to win, they will come knocking at your door."

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