A Leigh woman who was involved in a money-laundering operation which supplied luxury cars to help criminals, has avoided prison.

Molly Jones, 23, worked at the London-based Bespoke VIP car hire company.

The firm hired out Ferraris, Bentleys Lamborghinis and other luxury vehicles to known criminals, helping them move around the capital without being flagged by number plate recognition cameras.

The trial followed £48,000 fraudulently taken from an un-named person’s bank account.

Specialist investigators trawled through 10,000 pages of bank statements and business receipts to prove the firm, based at London’s Canary Wharf, was “washing” criminal cash.

Jones, of Bohemia Chase, Leigh, was found guilty at trial alongside Bespoke VIP owner Ranjit Sagoo, 31, of Aintree Avenue, Newham, East London.

On Tuesday, she appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court and was handed a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years as well as a 12-month supervision order for conspiracy to steal.

Sagoo, 31, was jailed for two years for acquiring and dealing in criminal property and was banned from holding a directorship for five years.

The court was told Jones worked on Bespoke VIP’s accounts and created a joint account for fellow scammer Jemma Deabreau and the bank fraud victim.

Deabreau transferred the victim’s money into Sagoo’s business account. It was then transferred through another launderer, Figen Sahir, to Jones’s former boyfriend, Samir Banks.

Detectives from the Central Criminal Finance Team started probing the company’s dealings in 2012, the court heard.

Painstaking analysis of the firms accounts showed over five years, Sagoo had received more than £1million, for which he could not account.

Deabreau, 48, of Portgate Close, Westminster, was handed a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years for conspiracy to steal and acquiring and dealing in criminal property.

Banks, 29, of no fixed address, was jailed for three and a half years for conspiracy to steal.

Sahir, 28, of Agnes George Walk, Newham, was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment suspended for a year for acquiring and dealing in criminal property.

Three other East Londoners, Jigdeep Sagoo, 25, Carl Robinson, 38, and Laura Buttigieg, 32, were found not guilty of charges brought in connection with the operation.

After the court hearing, Det Con Ryan Mills, who led the investigation, said: "Sagoo and his associates tried to hide cash through what is known as 'layering'.

“They transferred the money through multiple bank accounts, trying to distance it as far as possible from the crime it originated from.

“But today's result shows that no matter how hard criminals try to hide their illicit cash, no matter what complex system they set up, we will unpick it and prove what they have done."

Detectives are now seeking a confiscation order, to make the criminal gang pay back money