A Bradford man received a further jail sentence at Leeds Magistrates Court yesterday (1 July 2010), for failure to repay his confiscation order with the stark warning that he will still have to pay the amount, with interest, on release from prison.
In 2005, the North East Regional Asset Recovery Team (RART) launched Operation Churchill, an international money laundering investigation stemming from the compromising of high value bank accounts in the UK. The investigation culminated in a number of trials and the convictions of twelve people for conspiracy to defraud and money laundering offences. This included managers at two branches of a high street bank who been involved in assisting the transfer of money overseas and accepting fraudulent identity documents on behalf of the group.
The twelve convicted were imprisoned for a total of 35 years. Subsequent to those convictions, confiscation hearings were held and over a million pounds worth of confiscation orders were made.
Juga SINGH (D.O.B. 28:3:68) of Bolton Road, Bradford was one of those convicted and received five years imprisonment. He was subsequently issued with a confiscation order in the sum of £166,418.50 which he has failed to pay.
Having completed his initial term of imprisonment he was taken back to court yesterday (1st July) and sentenced to a further term of almost 18 months imprisonment in default of the payment. The serving of the sentence will not remove his liability to pay the confiscation order, which is accruing interest on a daily basis.
Detective Constable, Brown of the Regional Asset Recovery Team, said: “A jail term is only half time as far as we are concerned, if a confiscation order has been served, then the amount has to be paid. Even, as in the case of Singh, when an additional jail term is given, they will still have to payback the confiscation amount as determined by the courts.
“This sends out a really strong message that RART will pursue through the courts criminals who fail to pay back the full value of confiscation orders will have to serve an additional sentence. At the end of that sentence, they will still be liable to payback outstanding monies.”
The North East RART adopts specialist money laundering investigation techniques and asset recovery tools to tackle organised criminals. Their success is due largely to the multi-agency approach comprising expert teams from police forces, HM Revenue and Customs and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), with links to other agencies such as HM Court Services, Trading Standards and UK Border Agency. Using these techniques, the RARTs are able to use the powerful tools of Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) to strip proven criminals of their assets invariably gained through criminal activity.
