A madam who ran brothels in the borough has been jailed and ordered to pay back over a million pounds.

Li Ying, of Fortune Green Road, West Hampstead made £1,338,891 from running 12 brothels in the boroughs of Wandsworth, Camden, Barnet, Harrow, Brent and Ealing.

Southwark Crown Court heard she also made money from brothels in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire over six years.

Officers investigating the use of depositories to store proceeds of crime uncovered £150,00 and a fake passport for Ying stored in a safe at the Hampstead Safe Depository, in Finchley Road, North London.

Five days later Ying was arrested in 2009 after she surrendered herself to police.

The madam was found guilty of controlling prostitution, concealing criminal property and three counts of money laundering at Southwark Crown Court in July 2011.

Ying was sentenced to a five years imprisonment, with her sentence of nine-and-half years imprisonment running concurrently.

On Friday, March 22, she was ordered to pay a confiscation order for the full £1,338,891 within six months, with a further five years added to her sentence if she fails to do so.