Brothel cash mum ordered to pay up: £1
Stirling link in sex chain
A housewife who lived off the proceeds of a chain of brothels has been ordered to pay back just £1 of her ill-gotten gains.
Ana Calder’s boyfriend Jose Barbosa recruited women from Brazil to sell their bodies.
He put sex workers in flats which included properties in Barnton Street, Stirling, and Southcroft, Alva.
Calder, 36, laundered some of the £150,000 made from the venture through her bank account and used about £16,000 to pay her day-to-day expenses.
A hearing at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court was told the general criminal conduct netted £81,569.14 but that Calder’s recoverable assets were only £1.
The Crown Office said the confiscation order means they can chase her for more cash in future.
Barbosa and Calder lived in a small flat in Kirkcaldy with her sixyear-old son. They used the internet to entice prostitutes from Brazil over to Scotland.
The women, aged between 28 and 48, were set up in flats in Stirling and Alva, as well as Kirkcaldy, Perth, Dundee, Dunfermline, Hamilton and Falkirk.
Barbosa, 44, rented the flats using a Spanish ID card, a fake letter from an employer and the alias Alex Marques.
Barbosa, who was jailed for three years for his part in the scheme, charged the women for rent and advertising their services online, giving them names like Amazing Gabriella and Hot Sara.
Police were tipped off in 2013 that Barbosa was a pimp and an operation, codenamed Wolfberry, was launched.
Officers watched as he toured several flats a day, collecting wads of cash from the women and putting it in the bank.
Undercover police then went to the flats and found sex workers in almost all of them. They saw sexual paraphernalia, including condoms, and the women quoted them prices for sexual services.
Fiscal depute Siobhan Monks said: “Large sums of money had been deposited in a bank account in the name of Calder.
“She had no legitimate source of income and the day-to-day living costs were from the proceeds of prostitution.”
Calder arrived in the UK on a tourist visa in 2002 and married an Englishman. The marriage did not last and she met Barbosa in 2008.
He left Brazil after a car business he was involved in failed, leaving him with debts of £100,000.
Calder pleaded guilty on indictment to a charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
She admitted that between August 2013 and February 2014 she converted and transferred criminal property - the proceeds of prostitution - totalling £16,925 while working with Jose Barbosa.
Defence solicitor David Cranston said: “Some people make their money in morally dubious or morally reprehensible ways. She fell in love with someone who did so.”
Sheriff James Williamson imposed a community payback order with two years’ supervision and 160 hours unpaid work in the original case.
Now a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act has been made for just £1.
A Crown Office spokesman said: “Some individuals have no available assets at the time the case against them is proved in court.
“In such cases a nominal order is made against them for £1.
“This ensures that the Crown can confiscate any assets they obtain in the future up to the amount they made from their criminal activity.”
Some individuals have no assets when the case is proved in court