Under provisions from the Criminal Finances Act 2017, betting slips, casino chips and gaming vouchers can now be seized as if they were currency. Police will also be able to search for and seize items of value such as jewellery, watches, stamps and precious stones where they are suspected of being involved in illegal activity, in the same way they already do with cash.
For background, see code of practice on the gov.uk website.
The Scottish Nationalist Cabinet Secretary for Justice Michael Matheson said: “This is a significant step in ensuring criminals cannot profit from unlawful activities and gives our law enforcement agencies additional powers to seize assets acquired by illegal means.
“More than £6m was recovered by the Crown Office and the Civil Recovery Unit in 2017/18. However, expanding the definition of what can be treated as cash and what our police officers can search for as they seek to disrupt criminal activity has the potential to further impact Scottish organised crime.
“I am determined that crime will not pay and that every ill-gotten asset can be put back into communities through the Cashback programme, whether it’s a gemstone, betting slip or casino chip. There must be no respite in tackling organised crime and the harm it causes.”
Briefly, the Act is to amend the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The National Audit Office in a 2016 report suggested that ‘the various bodies involved in confiscation orders had failed to put an effective system in place, that not enough confiscation orders were being imposed, and that not enough was being done to enforce orders once they had been imposed’. In 2013 the NAO found found that the actual amount confiscated in 2012-13 amounted to an estimated 26p in every £100 of criminal gains generated.
