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LONDON - One of Britain's most feared crime bosses will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering.
Terry Adams, 52, head of the infamous Adam's family, also known as the A-Team or the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate, pleaded guilty last month on the eve of what was to have been a three month trial.
Adams, who has been described by one gangland torture victim as looking like "a cross between Liberace and Peter Stringfellow", could face up to 14 years in jail.
Adams, who criminologists say modelled his "firm" on the notorious East End Kray Twins, admitted to conspiring with others to conceal or disguise property and assets amassed from years of criminal activity.
He has been estimated to be worth tens of millions of pounds and linked to dozens of gangland murders.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said at his hearing that Adams went to great lengths to cover his tracks, attempting to frustrate legal proceedings at every possible opportunity.
When Adams was arrested police seized 500,000 pounds ($1.43 million) worth of arts and antiques, 48,000 pounds worth of jewellery and 59,000 pounds in banknotes stuffed in a shoebox in his attic.
Joanna Barnes, an associate of Adams, who the CPS said helped him evade justice, pleaded guilty to forgery and will be sentenced alongside him.
Adams was born into a respectable law-abiding working class Irish Catholic family, in a poorer part of Islington, north London.
Crime experts say he began by extorting money from traders and stallholders with his brothers Patsy and Tommy at street markets close to their home in Clerkenwell before moving on to armed robbery and drug trafficking.
- REUTERS
