A WEALTHY crook has been jailed for a second time after dogged police pursued him for seven years over his ill-gotten gains.
Gary Spinks lived a lavish lifestyle, driving fast cars and buying houses, despite claiming he was a market trader selling pants and socks.
The money launderer and cigarette smuggler was jailed in 2007 after a court heard he made nearly £400,000 from his crimes.
He was ordered to hand over assets worth £198,000 – but police later discovered he owned a piece of land worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Last year, officers took out a new Proceeds of Crime application to seize assets from Spinks, 38 – but he failed to pay. He has now appeared at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court and was jailed for one year and four months and was also ordered to pay back £71,000.
Detective Sergeant Craig Hughes. of Derbyshire police, said: "The Proceeds of Crime Act is an excellent piece of legislation which allows us to make sure that criminals are stripped of any wealth they have made illegally."
In 2006, Spinks, of Station Road, Borrowash, pleaded guilty to four money laundering offences when Derby Crown Court heard that he had made £395,700 from crime.
The market trader bought property, drove a top-of-the range BMW car and also spent £5,000 on his honeymoon.
He was sentenced to 12 months in jail in January 2007 after admitting transferring criminal property, possession of criminal property and two counts of converting criminal property. Six months later he was brought back before the courts and ordered to hand over available assets of nearly £198,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
A judge ruled that, in the future, the authorities could return to seize more of his money.
It has now been revealed this is what happened in 2010 when police officers discovered he owned land valued at £65,000 while carrying out a routine examination of the original case.
A request by police was made to the court in July 2013 to confiscate further funds to reflect the discovery of the new assets but Spinks failed to pay back the cash.
The Derby Telegraph previously reported that when Spinks was first arrested for money laundering, he was planning another home move and had brochures for houses costing up to £335,000.
Justin Widoger, prosecuting, told the court that Spinks, then of Woodwards Close, had bought and sold a range of properties. After making money from one house sale he gave a man named Nichol £63,000 which went into a Co-op account.
When the cash was repaid to Spinks, it had risen to £70,000.
He later bought a £98,000 house with a deposit of £46,000, and paid for a £41,000 BMW car in an "extremely convoluted manner", not registering the vehicle or insurance in his name.
He said he was getting married and wanted to hide the fact that the vehicle was his in case of divorce.
He had twice previously been fined for tobacco smuggling.
