Barbara Ouddah a café owner from Birchington was given a suspended prison sentenced of nine months imprisonment and ordered to do 100 hours of community service for her part in money laundering in order to supply criminals serving time in a Kent prison with Heroin.

Barbara Ouddah for some reason apparently spent £9,000 on heroin for her foster son Wesley Adyinka (Dalby Square, Cliftonville) while he was a prisoner at Elmley Prison. In total from August 2006 to May 2007 Kent Police monitored over £14,000 being paid to an account held by one Nadia Baptiste (London) the partner of another prisoner at Elmley Prison. The full chain of events can be read on the Kent Police Website.

The sentence was given towards the end of September at Maidstone Crown Court and marks the end of two years of investigations by Kent Police’s Serious Economic Crime Unit. Other Thanet residents include Stephen and Brian MacDonagh (Bath Road in Margate) You can read more from Kent News although they echo closely the content from the Kent Police Website. (For a fresh telling of the story try invictafm.co.uk).

The life of crime: The £14,000 that Nadia Baptiste of London obtained during the investigation represents an average turnover of around £1,500 a month. As businesses go this is a very small turnover as the average enterprise is only looking to make between 5% and 20% on the cost of materials. Like in any other business the £14,000 would have to include the cost of obtaining the heroin and possibly the cost of transporting it to the prison.

Does crime actually pay? Keep reading to find out.

Does Crime Pay: Let us assume that heroin is a product which is 50% profit - a ridiculously high value even in the world of crime. Nadia Baptiste who is listed as unemployed and so might only be claiming JSA which is not a very large amount of money. Yet if she was keeping half the money herself she would get to keep £750 a month.

The true value of Nadia's earnings from heroin dealing is likely to be nearer £300 a month less any cost of her partners habit. Assuming that she did not use the drug (I don't know so let's give her the benefit of the doubt) then what is she doing to earn between £10 and £25 a day?

Crime as a job: First she has to make contact with a supplier. This itself is fraught with a few dangers. She would have to pay cash and would likely take the cash to him or her. It is likely that other small time dealers and addicts would be hounding for the drugs to. Some might be desperate for cash.

so Nadia would have to face the risk of robbery and attack each time she obtained a fresh supply. Not to mention risking getting arrested while she possessed the heroin. After that she would have to repackage it ready to supply and then she would have to spend money on travel to Kent. I'm assuming she was the one that took the drug supply to the prison so she would have been working two to three fairly full days every week.

All for £25 a day: An easy way to make £25 is to work a part time shift cash in hand pretty much anywhere you fancy. The risks are far lower and the worse that can happen is a slapped wrist (and maybe some docked benefits). The chances are that Nadia was averaging as little as £2 a day which can as easily be achieved picking up loose change around supermarkets.

Before tax you could earn £990 a month working at McDonald's on basic minimum wage, would not run the risk of arrest, violence or dangerously aggressive clients (and if any did show up you would have the backup of other staff and police). What is more you would be protected by the laws of the land and stand the chance of a pay rise each year and some level of promotion. Furthermore all financial risks are taken by someone else too.

Crime, it seems does not pay well at all: No mater what the media tells you there is no money to be made selling drugs directly. There are no promotion prospects and the more success you have the more risks you will be exposed to. The retirement plan sucks too.