A Colombian gold dealer’s rise from “humble beginnings” to a lavish life of success in Melbourne — before a high-profile police investigation brought it all crashing down — has been chronicled in court.

Alejandro Mendieta Blanco was on Tuesday sentenced to four months’ prison followed by a two-year community corrections order with 200 hours of unpaid community work, for owning a gold dealers business that bought stolen property from crooks.

His brother Julio Mendieta Blanco, a director of the company, was sentenced to a community corrections order of two years and six months with 250 hours of unpaid community work for his role.

Judge Scott Johns said Alejandro Mendieta Blanco, 34, finished school two years ahead of his peers in Colombia and moved to Australia by himself at the age of 16, speaking almost no English.

His parents in Colombia “were not wealthy” and “times were often hard”, Judge Johns said.

The court heard how Mendieta Blanco worked as a cleaner, dishwasher and kitchen hand among other jobs, getting married, having two children, and achieving permanent residency in 2006.

He started his first business selling coin-operated massage chairs to RSLs in 2007, and in 2011 opened a shopfront buying and selling second-hand items.

By the time of his arrest in October 2017, that business – Sell Your Gold, trading as Gold Buyers Melbourne in Collins Street – had reportedly grown to a turnover of tens of millions, with a personal yearly salary of $365,000 for each brother as well as the company’s profits.

Alejandro Mendieta Blanco shared his lavish lifestyle online, posting pictures of first-class flights, expensive cars, and the best champagne – a stark contrast to the years he spent working as a cleaner to make ends meet.

Judge Johns said Mendieta Blanco’s life story showed his “hard work”, and said he was “extremely gifted, resourceful, and driven”.

He said “there was no need to deal in stolen property” because the business Mendieta Blanco built from nothing was doing well from legitimate transactions.

“From very humble beginnings at a young age you have achieved remarkable success,” Judge Johns said.

He said it was a “great shame” Mendieta Blanco sullied this reputation by “succumbing to the temptation of easy money”.

Police netted the brothers along with employee Chey Tenenboim, the business’ gold valuer who has already been sentenced to 12 months’ jail.

Police listened in on the trio’s phone conversations, placed a surveillance device inside the shop where the buying and selling was happening and used a covert operative pretending to be selling stolen goods.

The investigation proved their suspicions the store was being used by criminals to convert stolen items into cash, the court previously heard.

The investigation revealed the trio used a code word — “old” — to indicate “off-the-book” transactions: Tenenboim was heard instructing a new employee that the code word was for “people that we don’t ask for ID, like for stolen things”.

A customer interviewed by police told them he had been selling stolen jewellery to Mendieta Blanco’s store for “years”.

Police also found evidence of Tenenboim ripping off customers, especially if they “look like a junkie” as he told another employee in a recorded conversation: one transaction saw him pay $2000 for several rings that were really valued at more than $14,000.

The gold jewellery was melted into bars and sold, and the business also bought other stolen good like Louis Vuitton handbags, diamonds, and luxury watches.

Judge Johns said the stolen goods were likely to have come from domestic burglaries.

“(The) property was likely to include highly prized personal items with great sentimental value to their owners,” he said.

“(There is) no evidence you experienced any shame or disquiet,” he said to Alejandro Mendieta Blanco.

“Greed is the only reasonable explanation.”

Judge Johns said Julio Mendieta Blanco, 37, was brought into the business in 2012, after he moved to Australia after his brother with the aim of learning English and becoming a doctor.

“Around this time” he was “struggling to support (himself)” while working as a waiter in Melbourne.

“The business became successful, you became busy,” Judge Johns said to him on Tuesday.

Judge Johns said his role was not as “prominent” as the other two in the trio with a “low” benefit for him, but that he had “no hesitation” in participating in the crime.

“You no doubt thought that you could do it without getting caught,” he said to Mendieta Blanco. “It is extremely shameful behaviour, as you have acknowledged.”

The brothers had each pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods.