Drug lord’s wife is jailed

Apr 1 2009 by Chloe Griffiths, Wallasey News

THE wife of a Wirral drugs baron is behind bars for laundering his dirty cash.

Gangster’s moll Sara Shea used her university-educated husband Keith’s drugs cash to pay for a deposit on a house, flash cars and a luxurious wedding reception.

Keith Shea, 38, was locked up for 15 years in 2007 after he was caught plotting to flood the streets with cocaine, while storing a deadly arsenal of weapons.

Jailing former beautician Sara Shea from Wallasey for two-and-a-half years, Judge David Harris QC said a deterrent message needed to be sent out.

He told designer-clad Shea, who wore sunglasses: “There are other partners who may be in this position. The message has to go out to them that if they meddle in the proceeds of crime, particularly drug crime, there will be serious repercussions for them.”

Liverpool crown court heard the couple led a champagne life-style off his ill-gotten gains – holidaying in luxurious resorts in Mexico, Marbella, and Nice, driving top-end cars and buying designer clothes and jewellery.

In just a year, the Shea’s blew nearly £90,000 in cash on lavish entertainment, including executive boxes at football games, concerts and at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Sara Shea claimed she never knew her Aston Martin-driving husband was a drugs lord. But Graham Pickavance, prosecuting, told the court the couple were stripped of £7,000 and 2,000 euros cash at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport that was heavily contaminated with class A drugs. Ex-travel agent Sara Shea was carrying half the cash.

The 30-year-old, of Montpellier Court, Wallasey, later admitted she suspected their jet-set life-style was funded by his criminal activity.

She admitted 11 money laundering charges, which totalled £104,000 in dirty cash passing through her hands.

But Jonathan Clarke, defending, told the court she had inadvertently become involved because of her husband’s actions.

He said: “Her money laundering was such that she simply spent the money she received from her husband or was in possession of items that he had bought. She found herself there rather than seeking it.”