Millions seized in crackdown on Ulster racketeers BreakingNews.ie_5536

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Millions seized in crackdown on Ulster racketeers You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
More than ￡3m (�4.5m) has been seized in the first year of a new offensive against Northern Ireland’s crime and terror bosses.
But, even though the Assets Recovery Agency insisted it had exceeded targets, an MP claimed that wealthy paramilitary racketeers had still escaped unscathed.
Ulster Unionist representative David Burnside said: “This hasn’t even touched the outside of the iceberg.
“Whoever set these targets would need to look at them again. They should be set in hundreds of millions.”
Alan McQuillan, Belfast chief of the UK-wide agency, has launched investigations into 19 cases with combined assets of ￡8m (�11.9m) referred to him by police and customs.
As he attempts to empty the bank accounts of drug dealers,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, smugglers and extortionists linked to both loyalist and republican terrorist organisation, Mr McQuillan has obtained 140 High Court orders.
These have allowed his team to search premises,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, access accountants’ and solicitors’ records, bank accounts and other financial documents.
New statistics published along with ARA’s first annual report and business plan showed the agency had either frozen or pursued through taxation assets worth ￡3m (�4.5m) in Northern Ireland.
One of these cases involved close co-operation with the Criminal Assets Bureau in Dublin, leading to action on both sides of the border.
Across the UK, the agency exceeded its 2003-04 targets for the number of cases under investigation by 24%.
Director Jane Earl declared: “We have made enormous strides over the past year to create a new organisation,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, capable of responding to the challenges of contributing to crime reduction through asset recovery.
“We have learned a great deal about the processes of investigating and litigating cases using POCA (Proceeds of Crime Act).
“Because of the proper legal safeguards enshrined in the Act, we now know that our cases will take approximately two years to bring to a conclusion.”
But Mr Burnside urged the authority not to be carried away with its first successes, stressing the scale of the challenge still faced in Northern Ireland.
The South Antrim MP added: “Only this week on TV a senior republican and IRA member was exposed as having a personal wealth of ￡35m (�52.4m).
“You just have to drive through Northern Ireland to see the amount of corruption there is in petrol, diesel,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, cigarette smuggling and extortion that is financing the republican and so-called loyalist communities.
“A political blind eye is being turned to criminal empires for the sake of some sort of semblance of stability in the political process.”