Gwent crooks forced to surrender £2.3 million

9:00am Monday 12th May 2008

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CRIMINALS in Gwent were forced to surrender more than £2.3million of their ill-gotten gains last year.

Gwent Police now ranks third in the UK for recovering assets from convicted criminals who profited from a life of crime.

The force more than doubled the Home Office target by recovering £2,330,633.56 during the financial year 2007/8.

The largest sums were clawed back after large prosecutions of drugs gangs.

Other acquisitive crimes included deception cases, complicated business frauds, increasingly common mortgage frauds and burglary.

Detective Sergeant Tony Bruton said: "These figures are great. They show we keep taking money off criminals and hitting them where it hurts."

The biggest Gwent sum recouped from a single police operation was £1.2million, recovered after Operation Reptile -which targeted a massive drug-related organised crime gang.

The smallest sums demanded at Proceeds of Crime hearings are nominal £1 orders, where no current assets are found, but the court retains the power to seize assets acquired at a later stage.

DS Bruton said the average amount recovered from a normal case is usually between £1,000 and £10,000.

Of the cash seized, the Home Office keeps 50 per cent, to be reinvested in supporting criminal investigations.

The other 50 per cent is split between the local Police Force, CPS and Courts, so each local organisation gets approximately 16 per cent back.

Gwent Police uses the money to fund the entire running of the financial investigaton unit and training.

The large sums recovered in recent years means the unit will soon have 10 investigators, compared to just four in 2005/6.

Recently money was also invested in training police dogs to recover firearms and cash.

The enlarged team means more cases can be investigated and more complicated investigations, such as looking into criminals' assets abroad, can be carried out.

DS Bruton also believes the team will soon reach the stage where money recovered can be used to cross-subsidise other local policing services.