Burnett and Paulette Morris, both 49, claimed housing allowance, council tax benefit and free school meals for two of their children while living a jetset life off the profits of his drug deals on the streets of South London.
The pair owned mansions in Jamaica, spent hundreds of thousands on holidays and ran a stable of 14 racehorses in the Caribbean.
For six years they used family members and associates to send small amounts of around £900 a time, sometimes as many as five times a day, to contacts in Jamaica via money bureaux.
Paulette spent more than £250,000 on travel to and from Jamaica and Florida, expensive designer clothes and jewellery.
The couple owned two mansions in Jamaica, with one being developed with luxury items from Miami, including marble and a £16,000 Bang and Olufsen sound system.
A search of their homes in Bromley found knuckle-dusters and machetes as well as £4,000 in cash. Judge Nicholas Price QC, at Kingston Crown Court, said the deception to the taxpayer was “breathtaking”.
Burnett Morris was jailed for seven-and-a-half years and his wife Paulette for four years and nine months for conspiracy to transfer criminal property out of the UK, charges they had denied.
Other gang members were also jailed for transferring criminal property out of the UK. Kevin Robinson, 40, of Cambridge, was jailed for two years; Gerard Dean Wright, 28, of Catford, got 21 months; Fiona Holness, 31, of Bromley, two years; her brother Dwayne Samuel, 21, of Peckham, 18 months; and Roisin Kelville, 34, of Bromley got two years and three months.
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Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: Jetset benefit cheats jailed for drug money laundering
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