Crime gangs hit by £30m asset seizures

Published on Saturday 17 April 2010 20:58

THE value of assets seized by police from organised crime gangs and referred to the Crown officers in Scotland for confiscation rose to more than £30 million last year.

The record increase followed a radical change in tactics.

Having previously focused on seizing drugs and cash after arresting a suspect, detectives are now concentrating on assets such as homes, cars and jewellery with the help of specialist financial investigators. Property seized included several homes worth more than 1m, luxury cars, and Rolex watches typically worth 10,000 each.

The major assault on criminal assets came in Lothian and Borders, where property referred to the Crown under the Proceeds of Crime Act rose from 2m to 20m. In addition to goods and property the Lothian and Borders force also seized 170,000 worth of cash. But Strathclyde Police has also seen a rise in the amount of assets identified and referred to the Crown Office, from 8.6m in 2008-9 to 12.3m in 2009-10.

The rise in assets seized has been accompanied by an increase in arrests of suspects involved in organised crime. Lothian and Borders arrested more than 100 people involved in offences, with one operation netting 50 members of a crime gang.

As a result, more than 5m of high-value property was identified for possible confiscation.

Malcolm Graham, head of CID at Lothian and Borders, said: "There was a change in thinking which came about at a very high level.

"We realised that to minimise the harm that these people inflict on communities we needed to find the most effective means of both disrupting their activity and dismantling the groups. We worked out the best way of doing that was to make it as financially unattractive as possible."

Financial investigators were also assigned to investigate business dealings and target the white-collar criminals used to funnel illegal money into apparently legitimate businesses.

Graham said: "A number of the arrests have been of financial specialists used to mask the trail of money or to commit fraudulent activity."

Other Scottish police forces are also cracking down on alleged criminal assets. They include Grampian, which seized 337,000 of goods and property in 2009 and almost 170,000 in cash. Fife police identified 90,000 in 2009.

The Crown Office pointed out that although assets have been identified, they may not all be eventually seized.

A spokesman said: "Inevitably, the amount of money that can be realised comes down substantially from the amount that is restrained by police forces. This is because properties might have a large mortgage or some of the items identified might belong to someone else."

The Crown Office has had a number of successes since the Proceeds of Crime Act came into force in 2002.

In June 2009, it seized assets worth just over 100,000 from William Kelbie, who had been convicted of drug offences in Glasgow the previous year.

Drugs dealer Bruce Goodbrand, who had been sentenced to six years in prison for supplying drugs, had almost 60,000 worth of assets seized. However, when it was discovered he had additional assets hidden in Bulgaria, he was stripped of a further 100,000.

Where suspects are found not guilty in the criminal courts, the Crown Office still tries to strip them of their assets through the civil courts.

The Crown Office has seized assets worth 3.6m and cash worth 6.6m since 2002 through the civil courts.

Those cases include John McDaid and Deborah McIlvanney, who were convicted at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court of mortgage fraud offences.

However, they found 173,670 in their respective homes which they suspected did not relate to the mortgage fraud but to cocaine dealing by McDaid. They took action to strip him of the money, which McDaid did not defend.

Another case involved Emma Smith, from Manchester, who was stopped while driving on the M74 near Lanark. Police had intelligence suggesting she had just made a drugs delivery in Glasgow and when her car was searched they found 115,290 in cash. They made a confiscation order through the civil courts which again went undefended.