Proposals to remove criminals' ill-gotten gains published.

M2 PRESSWIRE-5 March 2001-UK Government: Proposals to remove criminals' ill-gotten gains published (C)1994-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:05032001

Proposals to deprive criminals of their ill-gotten gains by introducing a civil recovery scheme and giving financial investigators greater powers, were outlined in draft legislation, published today by the Home Secretary Jack Straw.

The "Proceeds of Crime" Bill would establish a Criminal Assets Recovery Agency (CARA) which would investigate and remove offenders' wealth accumulated through criminal activity, such as cash, cars and houses.

The draft Bill would provide new powers for financial investigators to help them trace and recover the cash and goods derived from crime.

These include the power to restrain property at the start of a criminal investigation to avoid it being hidden or dissipated.

It would introduce, for the first time, a UK-wide scheme for recovering the proceeds of crime through civil proceedings rather than the criminal courts.

The draft Bill would also give the Director of CARA the ability to carry out tax functions, for example income tax, capital gains, corporation and inheritance taxes, where he has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person's income or gains were derived from crime. This would apply to individuals, companies or partnerships.

Work to pave the way for these changes is already underway. The Home Secretary announced last July, a total of GBP54 million over the next three years to set up CARA.

This includes strengthening the financial investigation capacity of police forces. The Performance and Innovation Unit report, published last June, envisaged a substantial increase in the number of trained financial investigators.

Part of the GBP54 million has also been earmarked to fund a Centre of Excellence for financial investigation within CARA. This money would pay for the training and accreditation of greater numbers of financial investigators in law enforcement agencies and government.

Mr Straw said: "Criminals are motivated by money and profit and the fact that in many cases they appear to be 'untouchable', damages public confidence in the criminal justice system.

"Through a range of new measures, including civil recovery and taxation, we will target those individuals that benefit from crime, crippling their criminal enterprises and stripping them of the means to commit further offences.

"By removing the assets offenders have accumulated through criminality, we will deter others from following suit and send out a clear message to the public that nobody is beyond the…