A HUSBAND and wife, and their son, have confessed to a dirty money and illicit cigarettes racket worth more than £100,000.

From their tiny corner shop in Burnley, Arshad Mahmood and Rehana Iqbal, laundered a substantial amount of cash over a six-year period, the town’s crown court was told.

And their son has also confessed to laundering £17,580 which was discovered by trading standards investigators at the family home.

The operation centred on the M&M Food Store, in Athol Street South, in the town’s Coal Clough area, according to consumer watchdogs.

Last summer Lancashire Trading Standards recovered 1,374 incorrectly labelled packets of cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco from the shop premises.

A further 820 packets, and pouches, were recovered from the family home later.

Council licensing bosses revoked M&M’s licence, a few weeks later, after finally losing patience with the store.

Twelve separate seizures had been made of illicit tobacco products from the Coal Clough shop, councillors were told, in just under a decade.

Mahmood was fined £800 by Burnley magistrates after being convicted of selling cigarettes without proper health warnings in 2015 and councillors were concerned there had been a deliberate attempt to conceal cigarettes from trading standards.

In the latest case, Mahmood, of Colne Road, Burnley, pleaded guilty to tobacco supply offences and converting criminal property, to the value of £30,065, between November 2011 and June 2017.

Iqbal, also of Colne Road, also admitted to money laundering, between November 2011 and August 2017, to the value of £61,072.

Arshad, also of Colne Road, who worked at the shop, admitted to tobacco supply offences and laundering £17,580, found at the house.

Guilty pleas to tobacco supply offences have also been entered on behalf of Highgaze Ltd, of Dickinson Road, Manchester, the parent company of M&M, by Mahmood, who is one of two registered directors.

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No pleas were entered to similar charges involving the couple’s daughter Sonia Arshad. But it is expected the prosecution will offer no evidence against her later.

Judge Jonathan Gibson remanded Mahmood, Iqbal and Arshad on bail for pre-sentence reports, along with Highgaze Ltd, until next Monday.