The gang received a jail sentence of more than 30 years in total Photo: Met Police

Four men from Whitechapel have been jailed after seizing £340,000 in the violent mugging of money transfer shop staff members.

Flying Squad detectives were able to track down the gang after CCTV footage revealed a money transfer shop employee being punched and kicked, on his way to a bank in Whitechapel Road, carrying £30,000 in a money bag.

The gang’s first heist was carried out 10 months earlier on the same money transfer shop in 2011, when they stole bags of money from the boot of a manager’s car. The gang had followed the manager for over six miles to his home in Manor Park.

Det. Sgt. Holly Simon from the Met’s Flying Squad said after Friday’s sentences at the Old Bailey: “This was a terrifying act by a very calculated group of men who used violence to steal from a small business.”

The gang received a jail sentence of more than 30 years in total. Akhbar Hussain, 40, from Stileman House on Ackroid Drive, was jailed for six years, while Shetu Meah, 31, from Colmar Close off Alderney Road, got 12 years.

Abdion Hassan, 23, from Walthamstow, was sentenced to nine years and Vinton Meade, 29, from Clapton, got five years.