Final member of gang jailed

The final member of a West Midlands money laundering gang embroiled in the people trafficking operation which caused the deaths of 21 illegal immigrants in Morecambe Bay, has been jailed.

Sentencing Yan Li to three years in prison, Judge Sean Morris said she "turned a blind eye" to the criminal origins of £400,000 of gangmasters' money which she transferred in and out of her bank accounts from addresses at Oriental Medical Centres, in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley; High Street, in Knowle and Stratford Road, in Shirley.

Money laundering by the gang dubbed by police as the Li Crime Group – which included Li, sister Bo Li and her partner Anthony Whale - was linked to the exploitation of illegal immigrants, including the twenty one Chinese cockle pickers who drowned at Morecambe Bay in February 2004, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

Chinese herbal doctor Bo Li, aged 41, of Nelson Road, Wolverhampton, and landlord Whale, aged 34, of Holbeache Road, Kingswinford, were found guilty of sending criminal money out of the UK and using it to purchase property, in February this year. Bo Li was jailed for six and a half years and Whale for five.

Mr David Matthew, prosecuting, told the court that 39-year-old Li was arrested when she returned to the Midlands from her home in Norway.

Li, who has a 10-year-old daughter, admitted 29 counts of money laundering between September 2002 and November 2006.