The owners of one of Cardiff’s best-known restaurants have had assets of £1.5m seized from them following their convictions, in 2005 for money laundering.

Carina Chan 36, and her husband Kin Chan, 46, who own the Happy Gathering, were ordered by a judge to pay back, £1.5m accumulated over six years. But the popular Canton restaurant should remain open, as it is other assets they are selling off.

Kin Chan was jailed for six months at Cardiff Crown Court and his wife given a 3 month suspended sentence after they pleaded guilty to laundering £128,000 between March 2003 and July 2004.

The court heard that as well as having considerable cash assets, the husband and wife team owned several properties in the UK and Hong Kong and had more than 17 bank accounts that needed to be investigated.

On 14th February, the couple, who live with their two children in a £500,000 house at Triscom Drive, Llandaff, were before Judge David Wynn Morgan for a proceeds of crime hearing.

The court heard that following their conviction, asset recovery investigators had looked into the financial affairs six years before the offence was committed and found they had benefited from criminality to a total of £1.5m. Kin Chan accepted responsibility for £1.2m and his wife’s benefit was declared to be £300,000.

They were given 12 months to pay the amount into Home Office funds or face five years and two-and-a- half years respectively in jail. They were given 12 months to pay the cash because some property is jointly owned with other family members.

Mr Chan’s father ran the Happy Gathering for around 20 years before his son took over during the 1990s.

The team investigating criminal assets said looked into the details of all 17 bank accounts as well as tracing the properties here and abroad.

Senior customs officer Alan Brown said "The legislation is there and we use it to recover the profits of crime whatever that criminality may be."

DCI Steve Tooby, another member of the multi-agency team, said: "People should know that we are able to go back years as we did in this case."

Both officers said they expected the Chans to sell off assets other than the Happy Gathering, adding: "It’s not in anyone’s interest that a business be sold putting people out of work."