Joanne Marie Jones (49) told the Royal Court that she had amassed a small fortune from various activities, including selling items at car boot sales.
She denies charges of concealing and converting over £400,000 in alleged proceeds from drugs trafficking. Ms Jones was arrested last year and the police found over £80,000 in a suitcase in her attic and almost 500 grams of cannabis resin hidden at a car wash she owned, the court heard.
During cross-examination by Crown Advocate David Hopwood, Ms Jones said that money the Crown argued was the proceeds of long-time drug trafficking was made through a number of cash-in-hand side jobs she worked over decades.
Advocate Hopwood asked Ms Jones about transcripts of conversations she had which referred to additional funds.
In one, Ms Jones was speaking from La Moye prison with someone named ‘Sharon’.
In portions of the transcripts read for the court, ‘Sharon’ says ‘by the way, I know you have the money, the tomatoes, from the greenhouse’.
Mr Hopwood contended that referred to drugs profits Ms Jones had ‘amassed in addition to what was found in the attic’.
But Ms Jones denied this and said it was a conversation with her auntie who was attempting to talk in code about rents owed by the lodger in Ms Jones’ granny flat.
Ms Jones denies putting alleged drugs profits of £18,200 into a Welsh bank account between 2011 and 2014, moving another £10,700 to the same account in 2015 and 2016, and converting further alleged drugs money by purchasing a £65,000 Welsh property in March 2013 and then depositing just under £300,000 in fixed-deposit investments in May 2015.
She has already admitted a number of related offences – including possession of the cannabis which she claims she was holding for a friend – and has been in prison at La Moye for 14 months.
Mr Hopwood asked whether Ms Jones had any receipts from the myriad of items she claimed she had sold over the years which included scrap metals, antiques, kayaks and fishing boats, lobster and sea bass, watches and jewellery, mannequins and bric-a-brac.
Mr Hopwood said she seemed to have great success at car boot sales.
‘I don’t think you understand how much money is made at car boot sales these days,’ Ms Jones said.
The Crown Advocate also asked Ms Jones why she had deleted 67 per cent of text messages from people with drugs convictions from her phone, compared to less than five per cent of her messages from other people.
‘I have short of 2,000 friends. Are you expecting me to ask everyone if they have a drugs conviction,’ she replied.
The trial continues.
