House sale ensures crime does not pay - Pearson

The home of a murdered loyalist paramilitary leader which was seized by the Assets Recovery Agency has been auctioned for £410,000.

The auction of Jim Johnston's house follows September’s High Court order to seize the cash and property assets worth more than £1 million from the former drug dealer.

Other properties which include seven additional houses in Northern Ireland, commercial premises in Belfast and a holiday home in Co Sligo will be disposed of over the coming months while the investment portfolio is currently being liquidated.

Johnston, 45, a member of the outlawed Red Hand Commando, was shot dead in the driveway of his home at Crawfordsburn during a loyalist feud in May 2003.

Commenting on the sale, Security Minister and Chair of the Organised Crime Task Force, Ian Pearson congratulated the Assets Recovery Agency for its “tenacity in its relentless pursuit of criminal assets”.

"The assets recovery process is complex and challenging and I am delighted to see the first assets to be seized and sold under the Proceeds of Crime Act is in Northern Ireland,” Mr Pearson said. “This is just the first stage in making sure that crime and terrorism does not pay.

"The sale of this house and the liquidation of aspects of the financial portfolio represents a new phase of permanently removing from criminals their ill gotten gains".

The Assets Recovery Agency, which began work last year, is modelled on the Republic of Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau, which was set up in 1996 after the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.

(MB/SP)