FOUR alleged money launderers are due to appear in court later this month after being arrested by Ipswich customs officers.Investigators seized £87,000 in cash when they swooped on the three men and one woman in Essex.

FOUR alleged money launderers are due to appear in court later this month after being arrested by Ipswich customs officers.

Investigators seized £87,000 in cash when they swooped on the three men and one woman in Essex.

The Suffolk officers confiscated the money when they made the arrests at the Holiday Inn hotel near the Total Garage, Brentwood, at the A12 slip road to the M25.

John McCarthy, James Quilligan, both of Mansfield, Lisa Loizou, of Manchester, and Anastojious Gourzoildis, of South Mitcham, London, were taken into custody after the covert operation.

Each of the defendants is charged with money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act. It is believed the allegation of laundering relates to cash gained from either drug or tobacco smuggling.

McCarthy, Quilligan and Loizou, are also accused of being involved in the illegal importation of cigarettes.

The quartet were arrested on June 6, quizzed by customs officers and bailed until this week. They returned for further questioning on Monday and were charged the same day.

The four defendants made their first appearances at South East Suffolk Magistrates in Ipswich the following day.

It is believed the vast majority of the £87,010 seized was in sterling.

At the end of Tuesday's short hearing chairman of the bench Jane Hewlett adjourned the case for two weeks.

McCarthy, 35, Loizou, 39, Gourzoildis, 30, and Quilligan, 35, were freed on bail until their next hearing.

The defendants must now return to the same court on Tuesday, August 31.