A couple believed to have made up to £1 million selling toxic skin-whitening creams to black women were ordered to pay nearly £100,000 in fines and costs yesterday.

Yinka Oluyemi, 46, and her 49-year-old husband, Michael, disregarded a number of official warnings and a criminal conviction for selling banned lightening products from their two southeast London cosmetic shops.

Inner London Crown Court was told how the pair, who have put their £725,000 house in Sydenham, southeast London, up for sale, sold creams containing powerful prescription-only steroids and a chemical outlawed for use on the skin because it increases the risk of skin cancer.

Unsuspecting customers, desperate to lighten their skin, paid between £1.99 and £5.99 for goods that could cause permanent disfiguration, long-term damage to blood vessels and infections.

Judge Nicholas Philpot called the couple “hard-faced business folk determined to make money regardless of the danger to public health” before giving each of them a nine-month jail term, suspended for two years. He decided against a custodial sentence after hearing that one of the Oluyemis’ three children is disabled and requires constant care.

They were ordered to pay a total of £94,767 in fines and costs and suspended from being company directors for five years.

Earlier the court was told how the couple were repeatedly told that selling the banned lightening creams breached the Medicines Act 1968.

Despite the warnings and a number of fines, the Oluyemis continued to restock their shelves over five years. Even a court appearance and conviction could not deter them and they were charged only after undercover investigators from the medicines and healthcare products regulatory body (MHRA) bought illicit creams at one of the couple’s shops.

Faced with overwhelming evidence, the pair admitted a total of ten charges of flouting medicine safety regulations between July 1 and December 2, 2005. Six of the counts concerned the supply of cosmetic goods containing banned hydroquinone, while the others involved selling or offering for sale prescription-only products.

It is thought that the Oluyemis made half of their £2 million annual turnover selling the goods.

Skin whiteners, which have long been used in Japan, where alabaster skin is coveted, have become popular in Britain over the past few years as black women seek ways to imitate a new generation of black celebrities who have lighter skin. Some are prepared to risk their health because they believe that dark skin means failure while fair skin equates to success.

On the legitimate market, the products contain no bleaching agents and are designed to brighten an individual’s natural skin tone and smooth out imperfections. Unlike their illegal counterparts, the safe creams are expensive, ranging from £30 to £70. Banned cosmetics, however, can be bought cheaply and easily from shops around the country.

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