THE brothel owner who ran his seedy business from an address in York has lost all his money in this country and faces deportation.

York Crown Court heard that Chinese-speaking Peiwen Shi, 27, benefited by £17,965 from running the sex house in Balmoral Terrace which was staffed by Chinese women during a four-month period. Men could get sexual services for half an hour for £60 and an hour for £100.

But after police raided the brothel at the end of an undercover investigation in December 2007, they froze his four UK bank accounts and at a confiscation hearing, the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst ordered that all the banked money – £5,261.72 – be handed over to the Government as criminal profits. He heard that police finance experts had failed to locate any other assets in the UK belonging to Shi. Shi, of no fixed address, in a removal centre, awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings. He was sentenced for 21 months, reduced to 16 months on appeal, after admitting running a brothel between August 29, 2007 and mid-December 2007, and laundering criminal profits.

The Court of Appeal heard that Shi funded his business studies course through the South Bank brothel, which operated under the disguise of a massage parlour. Shi ferried Chinese women from London by train to provide sexual services to the brothel’s customers and held its purse strings.

Last summer, York Crown Court heard that the sexhouse’s madam, Chinese-speaking Li Yang, 34, of no fixed address, banked £1,215 takings on one visit to the bank alone.

She admitted the same offences and was jailed for 15 months, reduced on appeal to ten months.