Convicted “Big Fish” criminals who fail to hand back their illicit profits should face renewed prosecution as part of a fresh drive to recover hundreds of millions of pounds of stolen assets, a report said today.
London’s White Collar Crime Centre said that a new offence of non-payment, which would send offenders back to prison for years, was needed because the existing system for seizing criminal gains was not working.
The result was that “crime is paying” for many major offenders, who were retaining huge sums which should be returned to taxpayers and victims.
The threat of prosecution for non-payment would help to address this by giving offenders an incentive to co-operate before they were sent back to jail.
The recommendation came in the White Collar Crime Centre report which contains new figures showing that the value of unpaid confiscation orders imposed on criminals now stands at more than £1.9 billion.
The total includes £550 million owed by VAT fraudsters, £430 million unpaid by drug traffickers, and £250 million by money launderers. The statistics, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, also show that nearly £20 million is owed by burglars or thieves, and more than £12 million has yet to be recovered from pimps, brothel owners and pornographers.
Today’s report says that a “review of the whole system” is needed and warns of an “astonishing information deficit” about how existing “default” sentences for punishing non-payers are working. These penalties, which do not carry a criminal conviction, already give the courts power to return offenders to prison.
Several high-profile criminals, including Olympic tickets fraudster Terence Shepherd and Paddington drugs baron Eyad Iktilat, have been given extra time behind bars as a result.
But today’s report says a tougher system involving criminal prosecution is needed.
It adds: “A better response to non-compliance could entail the creation of a new criminal offence for non-payment.”
It also recommends that asset recovery is made the responsibility of a single law enforcement body.
