A BROTHEL owner who ran two bordellos in Edgware and another in Stanmore has been ordered to repay £120,000 of illegal income - or else serve two years in jail.
Harrow Police's Payback Unit successful asked a judge to demand the sum from Braz Alves Junior, a 41-year-old Brazilian of Rathbone House, Brondesbury Road, Kilburn, at Harrow Crown Court on Thursday.
The Proceeds of Crime Act application came after the defendant was given on October 14 last year at the crown court a 12-month suspended prison sentence for money laundering of £54,000 and a three-month suspended jail term for three counts of keeping a brothel.
Detective Constable Justin Scott, the Payback Unit, said: "Mr Junior has lived off the proceeds of his criminal activity over the last five years.
"This has been a long and complex investigation and I am extremely pleased with the result handed out by the judge.
"Braz Alves Junior will have to pay back the proceeds of his immoral earnings to the public purse within six months. Failure to do so will lead to two years' imprisonment."
Members of Queensbury Safer Neighbourhood Team investigated Junior in 2010 after being tipped-off about a brothel in Teignmouth Close, Edgware, that lay a stone's throw from Canons High School.
They served closure orders on that property and two homes being used as sex establishments - one in Turner Road, Edgware, and another in Honeypot Lane, Stanmore.
Bank statements found during a search of these addresses led officers to conduct enquiries with Lloyds Bank that showed over the course of five years Junior had made substantial cash deposits which he could not account for and which he had not declared to the Inland Revenue.
He was subsequently arrested, charged in October 2010 and sentenced at court after admitting all the charges in April 2011.
Det Con Scott said: "Mr Junior has lived off the proceeds of his criminal activity for the last five years.
"However, what he had not accounted for was that his disgruntled neighbours were not prepared to put up with such behaviour and reported him to the police.
"By coming forward and providing statements to the police they helped bring about this successful prosecution.
"Police Sergeant Lorraine Warren of Queensbury SNT and her team must also be praised for conducting a diligent initial investigation which brought about the closure of these brothels."
