11 August 2020
Will the Economic Crime Levy bring much needed investment in the fight against economic crime?
The Government announced its intention to introduce an Economic Crime Levy in the Budget 2020. This is designed to fund government action to tackle money laundering and help deliver the reforms committed to in the Economic Crime plan 2019-2020. It has since followed up on this - on 21 July - with the launch of a consultation as to how such a levy would operate.
3 August 2020
NCA’s Annual Report 2019-20: a focus on recovering the proceeds of crime and asset denial
In the Home Secretary’s foreword to the National Crime Agency’s Annual Report 2019-20, she details the “NCA’s relentless mission to end the very worst criminality” and the report cites the categories of Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) that “destroy lives” including: child sexual abuse; modern slavery and human trafficking; organised immigration crime; cybercrime; fraud; money laundering; bribery and corruption; and, sanctions evasion.
30 July 2020
City of London Police seize more than £2 million in cross-border money laundering operation
Media reports from 24 July 2020 inform us that the City of London Police (COLP) has seized more than £2 million held in British bank accounts as a result “of profits made by an Italian mafia gang”. We are told that Westminster Magistrates’ Court ordered the forfeiture of the cash after detectives submitted evidence that it was being channelled through London in a money-laundering operation.
27 July 2020
Further clarification on the rights of third parties in confiscation proceedings
The rights of third parties in confiscation proceedings have been the subject of scrutiny over recent years by the courts and legislature, as detailed in our blog, ‘The rights of third parties in confiscation matters: an inhospitable landscape’. The issue was considered most recently in the case of R v Hilton [2020] UKSC 29 in which the Supreme Court restated the law regarding when third parties may make representations to the court.
25 June 2020
End of the road for the NCA in NCA v Baker
In our previous blog, ‘Unexplained Wealth Orders: An overview of the regime to date’ we considered the challenges faced by the NCA in their efforts to use the relatively new statutory tool of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs). Unfortunately for the NCA, one of the four cases they have focused their efforts on since its introduction has now been unequivocally lost.