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THE STATE received €2.7 million in cash recovered from the proceeds of organised crime in 2011, following recovery procedures by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
The bureau’s annual report for that year, published yesterday, reveals that the bureau obtained court orders dealing with the freezing or seizure of criminal assets worth over €22 million in 2011.
That amount – which includes over £750,000 sterling, and nearly $700,000 in US dollars – includes permission to sell or transfer almost €3.5 million in criminal property.
The €22 million figure includes cases where the same cash was subject to several different court orders, including interim orders to freeze it followed by subsequent orders to transfer or dispose of it.
In addition to the €2.73 million transferred to the Exchequer, the CAB also secured a court order to transfer €2.7 million to a liquidator, so that it could distribute the cash to the victims of a fraud.
Another £300,000 sterling was forwarded to the British courts system to satisfy a criminal confiscation debt.
The report says that in five cases, involving 12 respondents, people who were alleged to have raised money through criminal action had gone to court to prove the legality of their funds. Those cases involved proceeds worth €2.84 million.
Justice minister Alan Shatter said the report highlighted “targeting the proceeds of criminal conduct”, and said the government was keen to give the CAB further powers “through forthcoming legislative proposals”.
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Wow, €2.7m…. well done! Meanwhile, property developers owe County Councils across the country €750m….why can’t CAB investigate this?
They won’t go after their own they come from the same bunch
Your figures are spot on Joe.
There’s no reason these debts can’t be collected by cab after a set period.
Good to see someone catching the bankers and politicians
government are criminals.
€2.7m seems a bit pathetic when you consider the amount of huge cannabis grow ops that the Gardai have taken down, these are usually cash businesses, was there little or no money recovered from these criminal gangs? On the flip side, if our government had the courage to accept that our cannabis prohibition laws are counter productive and legalsied cannabis for adult consumption, it has the potential to earn over €100m p.a., (almost €2.7m per week) through tax & levies, whilst also having the effect of weaking the organised crime gangs that are currently behind its sale & distribution.
*weakening
Stop smoking it and after a while reality will kick in and you’ll realise most of us don’t want it legalised.
I don’t smoke, just a question for you Tom: Why do we prohibit the use of Marijuana but legalise alcohol and tax it, why don’t you want it legalised?
Sorry Tom, but you are sadly mistaken if you think my judgement is in any way clouded by my cannabis use, I think you’ve probably either been reading too much anti cannabis propaganda or watching too many Cheech & Chong movies. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t realise the reality of the situation, because according to the following poll, only 9% of Journal.ie readers seem to oppose cannabis legalisation –
http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-should-ireland-move-to-legalise-marijuana-664591-Nov2012/
As Jason pointed out above, you don’t have to be a user of cannabis to realise that cannabis prohibition is a seriously flawed policy, if you think that leaving the sale & distribution of the most widely used illicit drug in the hands of organised criminals is in some way going to benefit society, then I think it may be your judgement that’s clouded.
The majority of U.S. & UK citizens are now also in favour of legalisation:
USA – http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-marijuana-legalization-majority-support-20130404,0,2533952.story
UK – http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/18/legalise-cannabis-in-uk_n_2712826.html
Ah, so this is where the 21 million quid we are sending to the African war lords is coming from. Gooooooooo team Ireland, world clowns.
Ouch !
Some amount of clowns awake early this morning with their nonsensical comments
2.7 million? And their proud of that figure! Thats actually pathetic. With the resources, legislation, manpower etc available to CAB and the amount of criminality out there this figure is a joke. They should be taking this off one guy. The unit probably costs about 5 million a year to run. Its not as if there isnt much proceeds of crime out there.
Ok – it is great to see CAB getting money from the criminals. But I will not cheer till I see money taken off the REAL CRIMINALS who brought us to our knees and are out there still living the highlife. Every time I see young people in trouble with mortgages, losing jobs etc and then read about the REAL CRIMINALS my blood boils. Have a good weekend everyone.
Nice to see its goes back in. Should be a lot more but better than nothing. Can’t help feeling its been skimmed by the government but maybe that paranoid thoughts?
Unvouched expenses anyone??
rte puts the figure at €6,000,000 was the money stored in balbriggan?
have your say