LANCASHIRE traders handling large amounts of cash are being warned to be alert to the growing problem of money laundering.

Preston-based Ian Cherry of the North West Society of Chartered Accountants specialises in forensic work and said that there is a great deal of cash in the North West generated by drug trafficking.

He added: "Drug dealers will try to wash it through legitimate businesses to clean the money and they are becoming more and more ingenious.

"It's even known that some people are deliberately paying too much in taxes so they can claim a rebate of clean money from the Inland Revenue."

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