Asset Recovery Statistical Bulletin: Financial years ending 2019 to 2024

Product Description

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA 2002) enables law enforcement agencies to deprive criminals of their money, or other property connected to criminal activity, and recover the proceeds of crime. This legislative framework encompasses several asset-focussed interventions, including asset denial through restraint (restraint orders), seizures (cash, listed assets) and freezing orders (account freezing orders); and asset recovery through criminal confiscations, civil forfeitures, and civil recovery powers. Recovered criminal proceeds can subsequently be returned in compensation to victims (following criminal conviction) or reinvested for use in tackling crime through the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS).

These tools support the disruption of criminal activity and act as a supplementary mechanism or as an alternative to criminal prosecution and conviction. The Economic Crime Plan 2 further highlights the importance and practical use of asset denial and asset recovery tools in tackling economic crime. This release contains official statistics on the value and volume of proceeds of crime restrained, seized, frozen (the ‘denial’ phase) and subsequently recovered and receipted (the ‘recovery’ phase).

The release also includes statistics on:

• the value and volume of proceeds of crime by the associated criminal offence types
• the value of compensation paid to victims
• the amount of funds distributed to POCA agencies through ARIS
• the use of funds received by POCA Agencies through ARIS
• the amount awarded to projects via ARIS Top Slice Funding
• statistics on international asset recovery, including asset sharing and the denial, recovery and return of the proceeds of grand corruption