Money launderer's assets seized

A man who stole car parts and sold them on the internet is to have assets seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Richard Brooks, 35, from Wentworth Avenue in Luton, Bedfordshire, is to lose £69,000 made from money laundering offences and theft.

He admitted the offences at St Albans Crown Court in November last year and was sentenced to a nine-month term suspended for two years.

Brooks was initially arrested in Hemel Hempstead after stealing a spare wheel.

When police seized his laptop computer, they discovered Brooks was stealing motor vehicle parts and selling them on an internet auction site.

Lifetime order

He mainly dealt with new spare wheels and tyres.

Between 2004 and December 2006, it is believed Brooks sold around 1,300 items, believed to have been stolen from locations across Hertfordshire, totalling more than £43,000.

Brooks was subsequently charged with multiple offences including converting criminal property, one count of possession of criminal property and three counts of theft from motor vehicles.

Brook's BMW car and a sum of money have already been forfeited and they fulfil a fraction of the order made against him.

However, the order will stay with him for the rest of his life and at any time that Brooks comes into a sum of money or property, officers can look to forfeit them as part of the order.