DRUGS profits of £41,000 have been confiscated from a woman after wads of cash and wraps of heroin were found in her flat.

Tenant Fatima Bangora, 30, pleaded guilty to money laundering on Monday at Brighton Crown Court. As well as forfeiting the money, she was handed a 15 month prison sentence suspended for two years, and was ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid community work.

The sentence comes after drugs and money were found while she was the tenant of a 7th floor flat in Grove Hill, Brighton, in 2012.

At 7am on December 16, 2012, police received a 999 call about a fight in the property. In the foyer officers approached three men who admitted they had come from the flat and class A drugs were found on them.

Bangora lived there with her two young children and a lodger and said she had a house party the night before. The occupants were searched and drugs were found. There were also 20 wraps of heroin in a bedroom with an estimated £1,200 of heroin and cocaine found and a small amount of cannabis. Wads of cash – amounting to £41,925.00 - were found in a locked suitcase in Bangora's bedroom.

She claimed the money was from savings, benefits and payment for jobs. While an examination of her bank balance confirmed she was receiving benefits, the seized cash was contaminated with cannabis and determined by the court to be profits from her criminal conduct.

A confiscation order, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, sees 18.75 per cent of the cash given to police and crime commissioners and police forces for the area. In this instances Sussex Police would have received around £7,000.