Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. The overall scheme of this process returns the "clean" money to the launderer in an obscure and indirect way.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. It operated within the United Kingdom and collaborated with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government responsible for the collection of taxes, the payment of some forms of state support and the administration of other regulatory regimes including the national minimum wage and the issuance of national insurance numbers.
The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) is a law enforcement agency in Ireland. The CAB was established with powers to focus on the illegally acquired assets of criminals involved in serious crime. The aims of the CAB are to identify the criminally acquired assets of persons and to take the appropriate action to deny such people of these assets.CAB recently took down one of their biggest targets to date, Marc Brogan ( a well known cattle haulier and the head of a smuggling ring with links to the Hughes bros and Morgan Mclernon. This action is taken particularly through the application of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996. The CAB was established as a body corporate with perpetual succession in 1996 and is founded on the multi-agency concept, drawing together law enforcement officers, tax officials, social welfare officials as well as other specialist officers including legal officers, forensic analysts and financial analysts. This multi-agency concept is regarded by some as the model for other European jurisdictions.
Distraint or distress is "the seizure of someone’s property in order to obtain payment of rent or other money owed", especially in common law countries. Distraint is the act or process "whereby a person, traditionally even without prior court approval, seizes the personal property of another located upon the distrainor's land in satisfaction of a claim, as a pledge for performance of a duty, or in reparation of an injury." Distraint typically involves the seizure of goods (chattels) belonging to the tenant by the landlord to sell the goods for the payment of the rent. In the past, distress was often carried out without court approval. Today, some kind of court action is usually required, the main exception being certain tax authorities – such as HM Revenue and Customs in the United Kingdom and the Internal Revenue Service in the United States – and other agencies that retain the legal power to levy assets without a court order.
The Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office (RCPO) was a non-departmental public body created under the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 as an independent prosecution body to take responsibility in the England, Wales and Northern Ireland for the prosecution of criminal offences in cases previously within the purview of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise (HMCE). In Scotland it was a Specialist Reporting Agency and the cases are then prosecuted by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It was merged with the Crown Prosecution Service on 1 January 2010.
Civil recovery is the method in some legal systems employed to recover the proceeds of crime, instead of, or in addition to, criminal.
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (c.29) (POCA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provides for the confiscation or civil recovery of the proceeds from crime and contains the principal money laundering legislation in the UK.
The Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) was a special police force of Scotland responsible for disrupting and dismantling serious organised crime groups.
Asset forfeiture or asset seizure is a form of confiscation of assets by the authorities. In the United States, it is a type of criminal-justice financial obligation. It typically applies to the alleged proceeds or instruments of crime. This applies, but is not limited, to terrorist activities, drug-related crimes, and other criminal and even civil offenses. Some jurisdictions specifically use the term "confiscation" instead of forfeiture. The alleged purpose of asset forfeiture is to disrupt criminal activity by confiscating assets that potentially could have been beneficial to the individual or organization. In 2014 law enforcement took more property than burglars did from American citizens.
The power of arrest is a mandate given by a central authority that allows an individual to remove a criminal's liberty. The power of arrest can also be used to protect a person, or persons from harm or to protect damage to property.
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom, established to support police by providing expertise in such areas as information technology, information sharing, and recruitment.
The New South Wales Crime Commission is a statutory corporation of the Government of New South Wales. It is constituted by the Crime Commission Act 2012, the object of which is to reduce the incidence of organised crime and other serious crime in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
In law, sequestration is the act of removing, separating, or seizing anything from the possession of its owner under process of law for the benefit of creditors or the state.
The Serious Crime Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that makes several radical changes to English criminal law. In particular, it creates a new scheme of serious crime prevention orders to frustrate crime in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, replaces the common law crime of incitement with a statutory offence of encouraging or assisting crime, makes provision as to disclosure and information sharing in order to prevent fraud, and abolishes the Assets Recovery Agency creating a new regime for the recovery of the proceeds of crime.
International asset recovery is any effort by governments to repatriate the proceeds of corruption hidden in foreign jurisdictions. Such assets may include monies in bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, arts and artifacts, and precious metals. As defined under the United Nations Convention against Corruption, asset recovery refers to recovering the proceeds of corruption, rather than broader terms such as asset confiscation or asset forfeiture which refer to recovering the proceeds or instrumentalities of crime in general.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cyber crime; and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders, but can be tasked to investigate any crime. The NCA has a strategic role in which it looks at the bigger picture across the UK, analysing how criminals are operating and how they can be disrupted. To do this it works closely with regional organised crime units (ROCUs), the Serious Fraud Office, as well as individual police forces.
The Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime, also known as the Strasbourg Convention or CETS 141, is a Council of Europe convention which aims to facilitate international co-operation and mutual assistance in investigating crime and tracking down, seizing and confiscating the proceeds thereof. The Convention is intended to assist States in attaining a similar degree of efficiency even in the absence of full legislative harmony.
The Criminal Finances Act 2017 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that amends the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to expand the provisions for confiscating funds to deal with terrorist property and proceeds of tax evasion.
The European (EU) Union Asset Recovery Offices (ARO) are national central contact points that facilitate EU-wide tracing of assets derived from crime.
