POLICE began to sift through the financial assets of John and Anne Darwin yesterday to recover the money the couple defrauded in their £250,000 canoe-death scam.
The Darwins hatched their plot to beat bankruptcy after running into financial difficulties. Their "determined, sustained and sophisticated" fraud ended on Wednesday at Teesside Crown Court where John Darwin, 57, was jailed for six years and three
months and his wife Anne, 56, for six-and-a-half years.
In total, the Darwins claimed £250,820.75 in insurance payments and pension pay-outs.
The money was used to pay off the hefty mortgage on their large marital home and portfolio of rental properties.
When all the houses were sold off, the couple laundered the money – even using their own sons, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29 – via Jersey to Panama, where the couple started a new life.
Police believe that at the time the Darwins were arrested last December, their assets were worth £500,000 – the equivalent of $1 million in Panama.
After Mr Darwin walked into a London police station, officers began unravelling their complicated finances in Panama.
Detective Inspector Andy Greenwood, who led the inquiry into the couple,
said police had started the process of retrieving the money. A worldwide order is in place freezing the couple's assets.
"We will pursue them through the Proceeds of Crime Act. All of the life they have built in Panama has been on the back of criminal activity" he said.
The full article contains 255 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
