Assets Recovery Agency targets criminal profits

Criminals will no longer be able to enjoy a "champagne lifestyle" funded with dirty money made at the expense of the victims of organised crime.

The new Assets Recovery Agency, which became operational today, is armed with an array of powers to seize, investigate, and recover assets and other wealth obtained as a result of illegal activities.

Former PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan, who faces the additional challenge of dealing with paramilitaries, heads the Northern Ireland bureau of the Agency. Working with the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, and the Serious Fraud Office the Agency will track down profits from illegal activities.

The Agency is able to take civil action to recover the proceeds of unlawful activity and to tax any individual or company where there are "reasonable grounds to suspect" they have gained financially from crime. Currently staffed with 70 full-time experts throughout the UK, the Agency is set to expand by more than a quarter by March, with this rapid growth due to continue for at least two years.

At the launch today, Jane Earl, Director of the Assets Recovery Agency, said: "I became Director of the Assets Recovery Agency because I want to contribute personally to lowering the crime rates in this country. Our work – in seizing assets that have been accumulated unlawfully - will be an integral part of the Government’s overall crime reduction strategy. I look forward to receiving cases from our law enforcement partner organisations and to working with them to help reduce crime in communities up and down the country."

The Agency’s crackdown on criminals’ assets will be supported by a new Taskforce to make sure that criminals subject to existing confiscation orders pay up in full – £1.3 million has already been netted since the Taskforce began work in December 2002;

New laws tightening up on money laundering, which come into force today, require financial institutions to report all transactions where there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to know or suspect money laundering.

The Irish Republic already has a similar agency, the Criminal Assets Bureau, and its operation was used as a model fro the setting up of the new agency.

(SP)