proceeds of crime Archives - The Stray Ferret

Harrogate dominatrix who ran international sex trafficking racket to be deported

A Portuguese dominatrix who ran an international sex-trafficking and prostitution racket is to be deported from the UK.

Fabiana De Souza, 43, and her English husband Gareth Derby, 55, were jailed for a combined 10 years in February last year after they were caught running a sex den in Harrogate, where many of the sex workers were based after being flown in from abroad.

Today they appeared at Leeds Crown Court for a financial-confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act. These proceedings will determine how much the former couple has to pay back for their mega-money trafficking scheme, which involved sex workers from Portugal and Brazil.

Defence barrister Michael Fullerton said full analysis of the defendants’ assets and finances had not yet been completed and De Souza had yet to provide her own statements.

He said the defence would be contesting the undisclosed sum being sought by the prosecution.

Mr Fullerton asked for an adjournment in the proceedings to allow time for De Souza to serve the statement but asked for a postponed date no later than August 21 when she would be deported from the country.

He said Derby’s defence team also needed more time to ascertain the value of a car belonging to him which appeared to have ended up in Portugal.

He claimed some of De Souza’s financial gains during the offending period were from her work as a beautician and in the fitness industry.

He said this money was “not…earned by her as a dominatrix with her own website during that period”.

Mr Fullerton claimed that De Souza’s involvement in trafficking six sex workers from abroad was for a “limited period” only.

He claimed Derby had transferred some of the money into De Souza’s account and she had received some legitimately from a family member.

‘Flying in’ sex workers

During their trial at the same court in December 2021, the jury heard that De Souza and Derby, from Norfolk, had been “flying in” sex workers from Europe and South America.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC said the couple treated the women like “commodities” as they made massive sums from their illicit trade.

De Souza, who provided dominatrix and discipline services to punters in Harrogate, was said to be the ringleader of the “large-scale commercial operation” in which she and Derby, a high-earning engineer and machine specialist, flew in sex workers from Brazil and Portugal, paid for their flights and met them at airports, before whisking them off to sex dens where men paid for “massages” and “full (sex) services”.

They had exploited the “vulnerable” women for “significant” financial gain by “controlling (their) finances (and) choice of clients”.

The sex workers were put at a “significant financial disadvantage” and forced to lie to police to avoid detection.

De Souza and Derby, who ran the lucrative business from their home in East Anglia, were arrested in August 2018 and charged with controlling prostitution for financial gain and human trafficking. They each denied the charges, but the jury found them guilty on both counts following a 10-day trial.

The charges related to six named women who worked at the Harrogate sex den and two properties in Norfolk between April 2017 and August 2018.

Bower Road brothel

Mr Lumley said De Souza rented a two-bed flat in Harrogate town centre through a letting agency “so it could be used for sex…which would be advertised on the internet by these two defendants”. He added:

“There was another (rented) flat in Norfolk put to similar use and when that became unavailable, even the home of these defendants was converted for use by sex workers.

“As soon as the (prostitutes) arrived here, they would be installed in the flat in Harrogate or elsewhere, always with the purpose of being available for sex.”

De Souza and Derby would pay for sex adverts within hours of picking the women up from airport around the country and “setting them up” at the flat on Bower Road in Harrogate. The adverts were placed on the classified escort websites Viva Street and Adult Work.

Bower Street in Harrogate

They took the bookings and “made the arrangements (with the clients)” who would pay various amounts – from £80 for half an hour to over £1,000 for an overnight stay.

The money usually ended up in De Souza’s Halifax, Bank of Scotland and NatWest bank accounts, but on occasions “cash simply changed hands, handed by the sex workers to one of these two”.

Between May 2017 and August 2018, some £38,000 cash was deposited into De Souza’s bank accounts at branches in Harrogate and Norfolk. About £9,000 of bank transfers were then made to accounts in Brazil and Portugal using a money-services bureau.

Mr Lumley said one woman was flown in on an EasyJet flight from Amsterdam and was picked up by the couple who had driven from Norfolk in a 4×4 pick-up. Derby also drove a Mercedes.

They would arrange for a train ticket to be available at the airport as they moved the women around the country “or put them on a bus and sent them up to Harrogate or somewhere else”.

Undercover officer

Following her arrest, De Souza, who is serving her sentence at a women’s prison in Peterborough, told police she had left her husband in September 2017 with the intention of divorcing him and moved to Harrogate “where no-one knew me”.

She had rented the Bower Road flat for over £700 a month and let rooms out to “others”, some of whom were “friends from Portugal”.

Derby said only that he had an “inkling that Fabia worked at the Harrogate flat as a dominatrix”.

In a text sent to a friend in January 2018, he boasted of being a “smuggler of women”.

Police trawled through the bank accounts of De Souza and her husband and found they had spent “thousands on air fares” and over £2,000 on Viva Street adverts alone.

An undercover officer posed as a client to make appointments for the sex den on Bower Road. De Souza would answer the calls in “broken English” and arrange the appointment.

The officer was offered a “range of services”. On his first visit, dressed in civilian clothes, he was met by a sex worker named ‘Lisa’ who buzzed him into the flats above shops.

He made “numerous” such visits to other women after responding to adverts including one for a “Hot Brazilian, full service”. She was about 57 years old but was advertised as 33.

De Souza and Derby, of Town Street, Upwell, in south-west Norfolk, were each jailed for five years in February 2022. They are still serving those sentences in different parts of the country and had to be transported to Leeds for the confiscation hearing.

Judge Mr Stubbs KC adjourned for a further hearing on June 27 when the case might be resolved but is likely to go to a contested, half-day hearing on July 28, when the prosecution and defence will set out their cases for a greater or lesser financial settlement based on the defendants’ assets and finances.

Ex-Harrogate guest house owner ordered to repay £140,000 for role in cannabis racket

An elderly Harrogate guest house owner who played the role of “facilitator” in a half-a-million-pound cannabis racket has been ordered to repay over £140,000 to the public purse.

Yoko Banks, 72, rented out three properties to a London-based Albanian drug gang, which set up large-scale cannabis factories harvesting “industrial” amounts of the highly potent skunk variety in some of Harrogate’s most desirable and affluent residential streets.

Banks, who was constantly in touch with the drug conspirators during their operation but played no active part in the cultivation process, was jailed for three-and-a-half years in August 2021 after she admitted three counts of being concerned in the supply of cannabis.

Her six co-conspirators Andi Kokaj, 23, Visar Sellaj, 33, Kujtim Brahaj, 50, Indrit Brahaj, 27, Bledar Elezaj, 36, and 31-year-old Erblin Elezaj, were jailed for a combined 22 years for various offences including drug supply and cannabis production.

Today, the disgraced former guest-house owner appeared for the final confiscation hearing at Leeds Crown Court under the Proceeds of Crime Act following a protracted case due in large part to Banks’s own “complex web” of properties and assets and what the prosecution described as her reluctance to co-operate with the financial investigation.

Cannabis farms

Prosecutor Martin Bosomworth said that it was agreed by both the prosecution and defence that Banks had benefited from the drug racket to the tune of £142,330.

He said it was agreed by both parties that the amount available to her was £565,347 – essentially half a million in assets or properties.

Judge Rachim Singh ordered Banks, of Scargill Road, to pay back the full benefit amount of £142,330 and gave her three months to pay on pain of 12 months in prison.

It comes just two months after one of Banks’s co-conspirators, Andi Kokaj, was made to pay back just £1 at the same court. The nominal fee was ordered due to the Albanian national’s apparent lack of means, his relatively “minor” role in the audacious drug plot and his limited financial gain.

Mr Bosomworth said the gang had converted three of Banks’ properties on Alexandra Road, Woodlands Road and Somerset Road near Harrogate town centre into cannabis farms with potential yields of up to £456,000.

They made an estimated £345,000 from the highly sophisticated enterprise in which they dug a trench outside one of the properties to install high-speed broadband so they could keep a check on the premises on internet-enabled security cameras.

Their hugely lucrative plot finally unravelled when police were called to a five-bedroom villa owned by Banks in September 2020 after reports of a “disturbance” in the street involving what appeared to be two rival gangs vying for the cannabis farm.

The gang were able to watch the police drug raid live on the internet after rigging up a superfast broadband connection linked to cameras at the property, where officers found a crossbow at the front door.

‘Complicated accounts’

Last year, Banks failed in her bid to have her conviction quashed after earlier admitting her guilt.

At a previous adjourned confiscation hearing, Mr Bosomworth said that Banks owned a string of “highly marketable” properties in some of Harrogate’s most desirable areas.

He added, however, that her “complicated accounts and property empire” were proving to be a major sticking point in the ongoing financial investigation.

Leeds Crown Court. Picture: the Stray Ferret.

On that occasion, Banks – who was due to be released from New Hall women’s prison on New Year’s Eve, halfway through her jail sentence – claimed she had no money because it had been frozen in her bank account.

Mr Bosomworth said that Sellaj, the gang’s ringleader, had made £438,000 from the cannabis-cultivation enterprise and that he had £76,000 in the bank which he could pay back into public coffers.

At a contested financial confiscation hearing in May last year, it was found that Indrit Brahaj had jointly benefited from the criminal enterprise to the tune of £133,328. In his case, a confiscation order of £24,082 was made.

Kujtim Brahaj was found to have benefited to the tune of £1,194. The judge made a nominal confiscation order of £1 in his case due to limited financial means.

Banks, who had previous convictions for health-and-safety offences through her work, was due to be paid at least £12,000 a month in rent for allowing the gang to use the three properties and was also receiving “high” deposits, said Mr Bosomworth.

Ringleader Sellaj’s financial confiscation proceedings have been adjourned for a full-day hearing on a date to be fixed. This will determine the amount of cash available to him and how much he must pay back.

Ex-Harrogate guest house owner Yoko Banks given court ultimatum

Former Harrogate guest house owner Yoko Banks was told today she would not be allowed to change solicitors again after the latest attempt to recover any gains from her crime was adjourned.

Banks, 74, of Scargill Road, was jailed for three-and-a-half years in August 2021 for renting out her properties to an Albanian drug gang for “industrial” cannabis production “in the expectation of significant profit”.

She appeared at Leeds Crown Court today via a link from New Hall Prison in West Yorkshire for a confiscation hearing.

It was the latest in a series of attempts to recover any financial gain under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

A previous hearing in May was postponed when the court heard Banks intended to appeal her conviction and wanted to leave her legal team in favour of another firm of solicitors.

At the hearing before that in January, the Crown said it was not yet in a position to make a financial confiscation ruling because Banks’ defence team needed more time to delve into her “complicated” accounts and extensive “property empire”.

The court heard today she intended to change solicitors again but Judge Christopher Batty told her there was “absolutely no way” he would permit this.

He told her she either had to stick with current solicitor Sian Barber or “deal with it by yourself”.

Ms Barber said she had spoken with Banks, who has been granted legal aid, for the first time this morning and had 600 pages of notes to go through.

She added she was due to meet Banks again next month and therefore requested an adjournment.

In adjourning the case until November 4, Judge Batty said it had been a “wretched hearing”.

Michael Bosomworth, prosecuting, said:

“Her case has been dreadfully complicated. Frankly, she has messed everyone around for months.”

London gang

Banks was sentenced in August 2021, after the court heard that a London gang had invested tens of thousands of pounds into three cannabis factories at Banks’ properties on Alexandra Road, Woodlands Road and Somerset Road near Harrogate town centre.

The criminals had even dug a trench outside the three-storey Edwardian villa on Alexandra Road through which they fed electricity cables to the house to power the “highly sophisticated” cultivation system and bypass the electricity grid.

Their plot unravelled when police were called to the five-bedroom villa on September 26, 2020, after reports of a “disturbance” in the street involving what appeared to be two rival gangs vying for the cannabis farm.

Harrogate guest house owner plans to appeal cannabis racket conviction

A Harrogate guest house owner who played the role of “facilitator” in a half-a-million-pound cannabis racket has sacked her legal team as she pursues plans to appeal her conviction.

Yoko Banks, 74, rented out her properties to an Albanian drug gang for “industrial” cannabis production “in the expectation of significant profit”, Leeds Crown Court heard.

The pensioner, of Scargill Road, was jailed for three-and-a-half years in August last year after she admitted three counts of being concerned in the production of cannabis.

Her six co-conspirators, Visar Sellaj, 33, Kujtim Brahaj, 50, Indrit Brahaj, 27, Bledar Elezaj, 36, Andi Kokaj, 23, and 31-year-old Erblin Elezaj, an illegal immigrant, were jailed for a combined 22 years for various offences including drug supply and production of skunk cannabis.

Banks, who owns properties across Harrogate, was back in court today to face financial confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

But they were postponed once again after the court heard she was still intent on appealing her conviction and wanted to leave her legal team in favour of another firm of solicitors.

Prosecutor Michael Bosomworth said there was also an issue with a statement provided by one of Banks’s co-defendants, the gang’s ringleader Sellaj, who claimed that some of the money in his bank account had been transferred to him by relatives in Albania.

He added, however, that the major sticking point involved Banks and her “complicated accounts and property empire”.

Mr Bosomworth said Banks was now claiming “she only understands Japanese” – although she spoke in English in the dock and appeared to understand everything that was put to her.

Matters have been further complicated by Banks initially telling her legal team she didn’t wish to appeal, but then changing her mind.

She had pursued the appeal “notwithstanding she told (her solicitors) she wasn’t pursuing it” and was now in the process of transferring legal aid to a new team of solicitors.

If her legal aid application is granted, it would mean her costs being covered at least partly by public money.

Banks has “messed everyone around” for 18 months

Mr Bosomworth said there had been an issue between Banks and her present solicitors and she was “awaiting legal aid to be transferred”.

He said it was the Crown’s case that Banks had “messed everyone around for the last 18 months” and that the prosecution would “invite the court to consider the matter on the basis she is just not co-operating”.

He added that any order made today in terms of benefit and confiscation amount would “inevitably” be challenged by Banks who, as things stood, did not have any legal representation.

Mr Bosomworth said it was incumbent on Banks to submit a statement to the court showing her assets and “what the issues are”, but she had not yet served one.

When Recorder Mr Baird asked Banks if she understood what had been said and that she must submit a statement, she said she did and that she had “messed up quite a lot” during the legal case.

At the previous hearing in January, the Crown said it was not yet in a position to make a financial confiscation ruling because Banks’s defence team needed more time to delve into her “complicated” accounts and extensive “property empire”.

Leeds Crown Court. Picture: the Stray Ferret.

Banks’s then defence counsel said that a forensic accountant had been instructed to scrutinise her accounts and the “considerable amount” of properties and other assets she owned.

Mr Recorder Baird adjourned the confiscation proceedings until July 29.

He said:

“These are important matters for Mrs Banks. There’s a lot of money at stake here and I take the view that she should be legally represented.”

Banks was ‘facilitator’ in cannabis racket

At the sentence hearing in August 2021, the court heard that the “professional”, London-based gang had invested tens of thousands of pounds into three cannabis factories at Banks’s properties on Alexandra Road, Woodlands Road and Somerset Road near Harrogate town centre.

Their plot finally unravelled when police were called to the five-bedroom villa on September 26, 2020, after reports of a “disturbance” in the street involving what appeared to be two rival gangs vying for the cannabis farm.

Banks had rented her properties to the Albanians through an “unidentified individual who goes by the name of Francesco”, who sub-let the houses to the gang’s ringleader Sellaj.

The total potential yield of the cannabis factories was valued at up to £456,000, not including previous harvests.

Although Banks was not involved in the cultivation, she had played a “facilitating” or advisory role in the plot and was constantly “pressing (the gang) be paid by them”.

Banks – who had previous convictions for health-and-safety offences through her work – was due to be paid at least £12,000 a month in rent for the three properties and was also receiving “high” deposits.

Harrogate guest house owner was ‘facilitator’ in £500k cannabis racket

A Harrogate woman who played the role of “facilitator” in a half-a-million-pound cannabis racket will have her accounts scrutinised before a financial-confiscation hearing to determine how much she pays back.

Yoko Banks, 73, a former guest-house owner, rented out her properties to an Albanian drug gang for “industrial” cannabis production “in the expectation of significant profit”, Leeds Crown Court heard.

The disgraced pensioner was jailed for three-and-a-half years in August last year after she admitted three counts of being concerned in the production of cannabis.

‘Complicated property empire’

Banks, who owns a string of “highly marketable” properties in some of Harrogate’s most desirable areas, now faces financial punishment under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), which will determine how much she has to pay back for her part in the drug plot worth at least half a million.

She was back in court today via video link from New Hall women’s prison in Wakefield.

Prosecutor Michael Bosomworth said the Crown was not yet in a position to make a financial confiscation ruling because Banks’ defence team needed more time to delve into her “complicated” accounts and extensive “property empire”.

He added:

“It’s a somewhat complicated property empire and there’s going to be some time (needed) to prepare it.”

He said that Banks’ solicitors were hiring a forensic accountant to pore over her properties and assets.

Yoko Banks was jailed at Leeds Crown Court last year. Picture: the Stray Ferret.

Banks’ defence counsel confirmed that a forensic accountant had been instructed to scrutinise her accounts and the “considerable amount” of properties and other assets” she owned.

Judge Neil Clark granted the defence an extra eight weeks to carry out an intensive audit of Banks’ assets.

She and her co-defendants will be back in court on Monday via video link when new dates will be set for the POCA hearings.

London gang invested in Banks’ properties

At the sentence hearing in August, the court heard that the “professional”, London-based gang had invested tens of thousands of pounds into three cannabis factories at Banks’s properties on Alexandra Road, Woodlands Road and Somerset Road near Harrogate town centre.

Their plot finally unravelled when police were called to the five-bedroom villa on September 26 last year after reports of a “disturbance” in the street involving what appeared to be two rival gangs vying for the lucrative cannabis farm.

Officers found 283 plants in four growing rooms inside the mock-Tudor house, which was fitted with CCTV cameras. Chillingly, they also found a “large” crossbow and arrows next to the front door. The plants had a potential yield of up to 21 kilos.

Mr Bosomworth said the “organised” gang had operated the lighting, electrical and “security” systems remotely through broadband technology and were even able to watch a “live feed” of the drugs bust over the internet.

There were other large grows at two of Banks’s other properties, which had the “capability of producing industrial amounts” of skunk.

She had rented the properties to the Albanians through an “unidentified individual who goes by the name of Francesco”, who sub-let the houses to the gang’s ringleader Sellaj.

Before the drug raid, the gang had fled in a Transit van and an Audi which were “trapped” on the M1 by police in Hertfordshire and finally stopped on the M25 just after midnight.

Police found 30kg of “saleable”, harvested cannabis plants inside the van worth about £300,000.

Inside the £26,000 Audi SQ5, which belonged to Sellaj, police found £3,675 in cash and an 18-carat-gold Rolex watch worth £28,000.

As well as the 283 plants at the Alexandra Road factory, there were also 143 “root balls” from previous harvests and 6kg of cannabis flower buds. The “industrial” operation would have yielded between 11kg and 33 kilos worth up to £330,000.

Fifty-nine cannabis plants, worth up to £83,000, were found at Banks’s Somerset Road property and 86 plants, with a “bulk value” of up to £62,000, were discovered at the house on Woodlands Road.

The total potential yield of the 395 plants was 45 kilos, with a combined value of up to £456,000. This was in addition to the 30 kilos found in the van and did not include previous harvests.

Banks played ‘facilitating role’

Although Banks was not involved in the cultivation, she had played a “facilitating” or advisory role in the plot. She was in “regular communication” with ‘Francesco’ and Sellaj through Whatsapp messages and was constantly “pressing to be paid by them”.

Banks -—who had previous convictions for health-and-safety offences through her work — was due to be paid at least £12,000 a month in rent for the three properties and was also receiving “high” deposits.

Her defence team claimed she had let out the properties to “supplement” her weekly pension due to financial pressures.

It’s understood that Banks had been planning to appeal her conviction but had since abandoned the idea.

‘Flying in’ sex workers

Bower Road brothel

Undercover officer

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Cannabis farms

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‘Complicated accounts’

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London gang

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Banks has “messed everyone around” for 18 months

Banks was ‘facilitator’ in cannabis racket

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‘Complicated property empire’

London gang invested in Banks’ properties

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Banks played ‘facilitating role’