How convicted criminals lost their ill-gotten gains

Steven Caddis, Gary Caddis, Brian McCulloch and Stephen Jamieson were all convicted of cocaine dealing, as a result of Operation Lockdown, a surveillance operation targeting an organised crime group in Glasgow suspected of being involved in the large-scale commercial importation and distribution of drugs.

The operation ran for 17 months and resulted in 146 arrests, including the four main targets.

Drugs with a street value of 9 million and 30 firearms and other weapons were recovered. All four principal targets pleaded guilty to dealing cocaine and one to money laundering at the High Court in Glasgow in October 2009. They were jailed for a total of 29 years.

Confiscation orders were granted against all four of the main targets, totalling more than 500,000.

Calum Menzies, 48, was convicted of producing cannabis in a former church he owned in Forfar. Police searched the property and found a sophisticated cannabis cultivation consisting of more than 100 plants with electricity connection, despite the building being considered unoccupied. The plants had a potential harvest value of 16,640.

As Menzies had a criminal lifestyle, this meant the court was entitled to consider any income and assets he obtained during the six years prior to the date of the offence were the proceeds of crime, and to take these into account when determining the amount of the confiscation order. The court made a confiscation order for 106,000.

Robert O'Hara, 34, was convicted in 2005 of murder, firearms offences and drug dealing. He was part of a Glasgow drugs gang, along with Colin McKay, Brian Kelly and Robert Murray. All four were sentenced to a total of 56 years in prison following the murder of Paul McDowall.

The judge at the trial of the gang told them they had terrorised a whole area of Glasgow and reaped substantial rewards from their conduct. Criminal confiscation proceedings were raised against O'Hara following his conviction and those proceedings concluded in November 2010.

As a result of his conviction, the High Court held that O'Hara, who is serving a life sentence with a punishment part of 20 years, had a criminal lifestyle, a finding that enabled the court to consider his income and assets obtained during the period of six years prior to the date of the offences were the proceeds of crime.

In settling the confiscation proceedings against him, O'Hara accepted that he had made 268,600 from his criminality.

The court imposed a confiscation order against him for 131,250, as that figure was equal to the value of the assets held by O'Hara.

A confiscation order can only be made for whatever is the lesser amount between an accused's criminal benefit and his realisable assets.