Chinese national Feng Xu has been sentenced to seven years and four months in prison after he pleaded guilty to 22 fraud, false identity and money laundering offences at Birmingham Crown Court.
Feng rented hundreds of properties to criminal gangs, who subsequently ran brothels and cannabis farms.
In his role as ‘mastermind’ of the operation, Feng used several fake identities to secure the properties.
Feng ran his criminal network for over three years from his home in Birmingham, and it is said that a database listed 446 different addresses that he rented out, paying over £4m in rent.
Matt Rivers, Branch Commander at the National Crime Agency, said:
“Xu was a prolific operator, and an important enabler for multiple different criminal networks involved in prostitution, sexual exploitation and drug production.
“Using numerous false identities and false documentation he was able to supply hundreds of different properties across the UK.
“We believe that taking him out will have caused significant disruption to a number of different organised crime groups involved in sex trafficking and drug production.”
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Greatest come-down since Al Capone went down for tax evasion?