We're looking to deprive criminals
of their ill-gotten gains and if you take
the cash out of crime, you're preventing
the commission of further crime." THE REVENUE and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) has appointed its first head of asset forfeiture. Souymya Majumdar joins the RCPO from the Criminal Prosecution Service where he had significant involvement with the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act. He takes control of the 28-strong Asset Forfeiture Unit, which is dedicated to freezing and confiscating assets used to fund organised crime. He said: "We're looking to deprive criminals of their ill-gotten gains and if you take the cash out of crime, you're preventing the commission of further crime." The appointment comes as the RCPO prepares to celebrate its first birthday in April. The unit will target drug trafficking and money
laundering among other issues, and will involve work with similar authorities overseas as well as handling domestic cases.
ASSETS SEIZED
Three years on from the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) coming into force and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) can report a record number of assets being seized from the criminals of London. In 2005 the Met made 231 individual cash seizures, averaging over £30,000 a day up from £20,000 a day in 2003. Some single seizures were over half a million pounds. In excess of £10 million in cash has been seized by the MPS in the last calendar year. In addition to the cash that has been seized, other assets totalling over £28 million have been ordered for confiscation by the courts during 2005.
This is over three times more than two years ago, with a steady increase in performance over the last four years. The Met has three operational teams leading Opera-tion Payback: the Economic and Specialist Crime Command's Sterling Enforcement Team, specialising in proactive anti-money laundering operations; the Financial Investigation Unit; and, the multiagency RART (London Region Asset Recovery Team) providing 'Payback' support to the MPS. Over the next year financial investigation units will be rolled out across the MPS to increase the attack on criminal assets in order to reduce crime. The MPS is a key national player taking over 30 per cent of the national total of police confiscations and cash forfeitures.
Under the Home Office Incentivisation scheme, the MPS is now able to receive a greater share of all recovered criminal assets, which will be used to invest in combating crime,
targeting criminally gained proceeds. In order to enhance crime reduction and drive up performance on asset seizure, the MPS has formed an implementation team led by a POCA champion who will coordinate activity across the whole of the service.
As part of the renewed focus on POCA, over the next couple of years, a financial investigation unit will be established in each of the MPS's 32 boroughs. Detective Superintendent Trevor Shepherd, head of proactivity and financial investigations for the Economic and Specialist Crime Command said: "The Met and its RART continue to lead the way in asset recovery from criminals. We have seen a staggering increase in the number of seizures carried out under the provisions of POCA.
CRIME DOESN'T PAY
"An increase in Payback
officers across the capital means even more criminals will discover that crime doesn't pay."
The Enforcement Task Force collected its highest single payment from a confiscation order in a matter investigated by HM Revenue and Customs and prosecuted by the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office. On the February 17, £3,336,027 was received by the Magistrates' Court in full payment of a confiscation order made on February 9, at Stafford Crown Court. A man from Lichfield, Stafford-shire, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of cheating the public revenue contrary to common law. He had failed to disclose in his tax returns the existence of an overseas trust which had been funded by way of transfers from his business, a company concerned with the making of spare parts for the armaments industry. These transfers had been disguised through false invoicing by which cheque payments apparently to an American company were actually paid into an account controlled by the defendant offshore.
On March 1, the Assets
Recovery Agency were granted an Interim Receiving Order (IRO) at Belfast High Court on an estimated £3.6 million worth of assets in a suspected smuggling and money laundering case. Assets belonging to the couple form County Armagh include business and residential properties, a caravan, land, the contents of over 30 bank accounts, over 70 vehicles including articulated lorries, a Bentley Continental, a Jaguar X-Type, a Range Rover, and a helicopter.
A father convicted of a £100,000 deception and his daughter were ordered to pay more than £90,000 compensation to their 82 year old victim. The father is currently serving seven years for deception and the judge at Maidstone Crown Court on 27 February ordered that all of his £75,841 assets go to the victim, a man formerly of Haywards Heath. His daughter who was given community service at a previous hearing for money laundering, was ordered to give £15,000 of her £59,683 assets to the victim with the rest being confiscated. DC Sue Maccallum-Stewart, Sussex Police said: "The victim's family is absolutely delighted. It is nice to see that these people did not profit from their crime."
Leicestershire Constabulary launched a campaign to crackdown on criminals flaunting the profits of their crimes in local neighbourhoods called 'Too much bling? Give us a ring'. Members of the public are being urged to report anyone they know who is living a lavish lifestyle funded by suspected criminal activity. Detective Sergeant Mick Beattie, of the Force's Economic Crime Unit, explains: " The Proceeds of Crime Act is just as effective against criminals like the car thieves, burglars and street robbers who blight our local communities. Once there is enough evidence pointing to the cash or property being the proceeds of crime, the burden can be on the accused to explain where it has come from - which can be a difficult thing to do if you've got a top of the range Mercedes on the drive and £10,000 from dealing drugs stuffed under your mattress. If you suspect someone near you is profiting from the proceeds of crime, call the police and help us to hit them where it hurts - in their wallets."
Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) Chris Eyre said: "We are committed to using the full extent of our powers under this legislation to track down and recover these ill-gotten gains and with over £2 million recovered in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland already, criminals need to get the message that crime does not pay anymore."
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The Wales Regional Asset Recovery Team in partnership with Dyfed Powys Police took two West Wales men back to court to payback the proceeds of their criminal activities. Both men were at the centre of a conspiracy to supply cannabis on a massive scale in the Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion areas and were convicted in March 2005 at Swansea Crown court for offences including conspiracy to supply a Cannabis resin. A financial investigation conducted by the Wales RART identified that one of the men had used his son's savings account and laundered at least £30,000 through it in order to conceal the profits of his drug dealing. The investigation also uncovered massive amounts of unexplained income and expenditure which the Court agreed had all come from the proceeds of his drug trafficking. At the financial hearing the court heard how to justify the money they had bought and sold cars, even though he had not declared this to the tax authorities or produced any meaningful evidence to support their claim.
One of the men was ordered to pay back £222,500 and was given 6 months to pay. If he fails to pay within the period, he will serve a further 3 years imprisonment. At the hearing, he signed over the contents of all his bank accounts (over £60,000) towards the order and may well have to sell his house in order to pay the rest. The second man received a confiscation order where the court agreed that his benefit from his part in the drug dealing activities as being £7,620. Speaking after the hearings, Alan Brown of the Wales Regional Asset Recovery Team said: "This is an excellent result for Dyfed Powys Police and the Wales RART and reinforces the message that we will, by utilising the Proceeds of Crime legislation, seek to remove the financial incentive of engaging in drug trafficking and other crimes. We will continue to target those groups and individuals who seek to profit from their criminality and who have an adverse effect on our communities. In addition to depriving these particular criminals of their ill gotten gains the Confiscation orders made by the Court in this case means that additional funds will become available to be recycled into further crime reduction initiatives."
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On 24 February 2006, at Southwark Crown Court, a man from Middlesex was sentenced to two years in prison and made subject to a confiscation order of £17,000, which has to be paid within nine months. He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud his employer out of £280,000. Whilst working for a high street bank, he admitted working with a criminal gang, opening bank accounts, loans and credit cards in false names, which were then defaulted on. City of London Police believe total losses to the bank could be as much as £306,000. He also transferred monies to both his and family accounts from fraudulently opened accounts. This individual is one person arrested as part of an ongoing police operation into corrupt bank staff and criminal gangs who have opened and controlled fraudulently opened bank accounts. This enquiry has currently resulted in more than 30 arrests and 30 search warrants.
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Reprinted from National New, the state information service in the United Kingdom.
