A pensioner couple who claimed benefits while laundering hundreds of thousands of pounds from their son’s illegal mail-order drugs business have been spared jail.
Paul Cotson, 71, and his wife Stephanie, 70, invested more than £500,000 funnelled into their bank account by 43-year-old Daniel Cotson.
Daniel Cotson, of Marine Wharf in Hull, sold large quantities of unlicensed class C drugs including diazepam and temazepam online before using local shops and post offices to mail them out across the UK.
He received more than £800,000 in bank transfers before being arrested when staff at a shop in Prospect Centre, Hull, became suspicious and called police in May 2021.
He was found to be carrying two postal bags filled with drugs. Tablets with a street value of £44,000 and cocaine worth £1,250 were found at his home.
CCTV enquiries confirmed he had regularly visited the shop to send parcels.
Daniel Cotson pleaded guilty at Hull Crown Court to two counts of possessing criminal property, two of possessing cocaine with intent to supply, conspiracy to convert criminal property and supplying class C drugs.
Jailing him for three years, the judge Recorder Caroline Sellers told Cotson: “You saw a business opportunity which others may have seen as risk.”
Cotson’s parents, of The Link in Hull, were found guilty in September of conspiracy to convert criminal property.
Both were given a two-year suspended prison sentence and ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.
PC Mark Bentley, of Humberside Police, said: “They invested criminal proceeds in their own names and attempted to distance themselves from the source of the funds despite clear contrasting evidence.”
Det Insp Matt Grantham added: “This case represents a clear message that crime doesn’t pay, even when it’s kept in the family.
“These sentences are the result of a complex and sustained investigation into a family-run criminal network.”
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