'Cash-for-crash' scammer admits further money laundering

Mark McCracken "concealed, disguised, converted, transferred or removed" the proceeds of early criminal activity

A criminal jailed for masterminding a £600,000 insurance fraud has admitted further money-laundering charges.

Mark McCracken was sentenced to seven years in 2016 for organising fake car crashes to make bogus claims.

Appearing at Carlisle Crown Court, the 50-year-old pleaded guilty to nine money-laundering offences.

The serving prisoner will be sentenced at a later date with his mother and sister, who admitted helping him to hide his criminal assets.

They are Linda McCracken, 69, and 47-year-old Melanie Wilson, of separate addresses at Brindlefield, Wigton.

The court was told that McCracken "concealed, disguised, converted, transferred or removed" the proceeds of early criminal activity - said to include the "cash-for-crash" fraud - between 1997 and 2015.

He did so by buying houses in false names and earning rent from them, stashing tens of thousands of pounds in cash in two different Wigton properties.