A BRADFORD man jailed three years ago for money laundering has been ordered to hand over £275,000 at a confiscation hearing.

Mohammed Khan, 43, of Park View Road, Heaton, was imprisoned for 19 months at Bradford Crown Court in February, 2018, for transferring criminal property.

He was one of three men jailed for their role in a transfer of almost £32,000 of what a judge ruled to be criminal money related to the supply of Class A drugs.

Today, Recorder Jeremy Hill-Baker stated that Khan’s benefit from crime was £275,000 and, as his assets exceeded that amount, he was ordered to repay the same sum.

Khan was given three months to pay or face two years’ imprisonment.

Prosecutor Andrew Semple told the court in 2018 that on February 15, 2016, a co-accused called Sajid Khan, of Walsall, received bags filled with cash from the two other defendants.

The money, which amounted to just under £32,000, was separated into two bags. In one, there were some smaller ‘dealer bags’, which were found to contain remnants of heroin.

Mr Semple said the crown’s case was that it was criminal money related to the supply of Class A drugs.

Sajid Khan travelled to Bradford from Birmingham to meet the other two defendants, arriving in the area at around 8pm.

As he travelled back to Birmingham following the meeting, police officers pulled him over on the M62 motorway where the money was found in the rear footwell.

When interviewed, Sajid Khan said he had been asked by a friend to pick a bag up.

Mohammed Khan was arrested around a year later.

He said the money was related to the hiring out of performance cars. It had to be paid after one vehicle was involved in a crash. It was nothing to do with drugs.

Judge Jonathan Rose rejected Mohammed Khan’s explanation as a “nonsense” and said he was the “more involved” of the three men.

He concluded that the money came from the supply of Class A drugs.

The Proceeds of Crime Act hearing was to determine Khan’s benefit from his criminali-ty.

Barristers for the Crown and for Khan reached agreement on the figures so that the matter could be settled.