Kitchen boss hid drug cash

A businessman has been found guilty of allowing his West Midland kitchen firm to be used as a front for laundering up to £1 million from organised criminal activity.

Richard John Williams, who runs Aldridge Interiors, would look after huge sums of cash for a nationwide drugs gang, his five-week trial heard.

The 45-year-old was yesterday convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of two charges of concealing criminal property relating to money laundering.

He was convicted along with four others in a case triggered by the discovery at Heathrow Airport of 6kg of cocaine worth an estimated £300,000, hidden in books imported from the Dominican Republic.

Williams was arrested in April 2008 after he was spotted delivering huge sums of cash to an international currency exchange in London to convert it into Euros. He said the cash was from cigarette trading, but the trial heard it had been made from drug trafficking.

The court heard up to £1million passed through the business in Portland Road. When Williams was arrested at home in Marshall Close, Aldridge, he was found in possession of 10,000 Euros.

In February, he admitted conspiracy to evade duty on 2.3 million cigarettes in a separate case at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

The jury found Williams not guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine and of conspiracy to contravene custom and excise.

He is believed to have been asked to hide the cash by Paul Price, 39, of Hungry Lane, Weeford, near Lichfield, who admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine and conspiracy to contravene custom and excise. Three others were found guilty of being involved in the plot and told to expect jail terms.