The Assembly has endorsed plans for the establishment of an agency with the power to seize criminal assets through civil action and without a criminal trial.
Although matters relating to crime and justice are reserved to the British government, the Assembly had been asked to comment on a draft of a Proceeds of Crime Bill establishing a Criminal Assets Recovery Agency (CARA) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The agency will have powers similar to the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) in the Republic and officers from the CAB along with the RUC, British National Criminal Intelligence Service, Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue all gave evidence to the Assembly committee established to examine the issue.
Recommending the committee's report to the Assembly, its chairman, Mr Alban Maginness, predicted the agency and other changes to the law would deal a major blow "to the rising tide of criminality" in the North.
"It is a gross affront to common decency and democratic values that criminals in our society can openly and fearlessly enjoy and indeed display the fruits of their evil and sinister activities," he said.
"I hope that through this draft Proceeds of Crime Bill that they will be, in the near future, deprived of their accumulated wealth and that their reign as local crime lords will be a thing of the past," he said.
The committee made a number of recommendations in relation to the agency's operation, including that the official with responsibility for its functions in the North be based locally and be of deputy director level. He or she should have sufficient seniority to take decisions on behalf of the agency in the North, it said.
The committee also heard evidence from the North's Human Rights Commission. The head of the commission, Prof Brice Dickson had said that it was a principle of the European Convention on Human Rights that there should not be punishment without criminal conviction.
The committee took the view that denying a person of assets to which they were not entitled was not a punishment but recommended that the CARA should "negotiate settlements wherever possible". During the debate on the committee's report, one of its members, Mr David Ervine of the PUP, said some of the leading criminals in the North were laundering money by purchasing expensive oil paintings.
Mr Ervine, whose party has links with the UVF, said some criminals living in working class areas had ploughed their money into collections many galleries would envy. "Their wealth can be seen, although it may not be evident to their neighbours that some of the oil paintings on the walls would be of such value to be able to launder money with," he said.
The committee also welcomed changes to legislation governing confiscation of assets after a criminal conviction. Under current law, only assets thought to have come from drugs offences could be confiscated but this is to be widened to include the proceeds of fuel and tobacco smuggling.