The Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) collected over €10 million in taxes and interest last year and recovered more than €136,000 in social welfare payments that were 'overpaid' to recipients throughout the State.
Publishing its annual report for 2007, the bureau it had initiated a "policy shift" towards assets such as high-powered cars and jewellery, increasing its activities in this area by 45 per cent.
Cab said it initiated 16 such cases under the Proceeds of Crime Act last year.
It said the increase demonstrated a “policy shift” towards earlier applications to the courts, focused on lower-value assets and “middle-ranking” criminals.
“Such an approach ensures that easily disposed of assets, such as high-powered motor vehicles or jewellery, are not dissipated by the time a more comprehensive investigation is complete.”
It said this tended to target “a more middle-ranking criminal, effectively giving the bureau a higher visibility at a more local level”.
Cab collected over €10 million in taxes and interest last year and recovered more than €136,000 in social welfare payments.
Tax assessments were raised in relation to 21 individuals. Cab said many investigations were concluded by agreement, providing for the payment of tax, interest and penalties.
Including that interest, Cab collected more than €7.3 million in income tax; €301,487 in capital gains tax; €946,490 in VAT; €1.3 million in corporation tax and €123,789 in PAYE/PRSI.
As a result of its investigations into social welfare cases, almost €551,000 in such payments were terminated, including over €245,000 in one-parent family payments, €145,425 in jobseeker’s allowance payments, €78,798 in disability allowance payments, €60,384 in carer’s allowance payments and €20,780 in farm assist payments.
Cab also identified nearly €532,000 in “overpayments” of social welfare assistance, including €327,659 in one-parent family payments.
Of the €136,623 it managed to recover from recipients, €73,234 related to one-parent payments, with €26,300 in disability allowance payments recovered and €19,590 recouped of the jobseeker’s allowance payments.
The body’s 12th annual report said it was granted court orders to the value of over €16.5 million where property or cash was alleged to have been the proceeds of crime.
Cab obtained 113 search warrants to allow it seek evidence in its investigations and some 254 orders to make material available to its officers were obtained in the courts.
A total of €254,651.94 was paid by Cab to the Minister for Finance in relation to the disposal of assets that were the proceeds of crime.
In total, Cab spent just over €5.1 million, of which a full €4.1 million was on pay.
The body said the fact that it was “not bound by any particular financial targets” had given it great flexibility in the utilisation of the remedies available to it.
It said the “imaginative use” of the Proceeds of Crime Act ensured that significant funds were provided for the benefit of victims of an insurance fraud in the US.
This was a reference to the case of deceased American fraudster Matthew Wallace Schachter, who lived in Ireland and had been under investigation here since 2004.
He defrauded some $24 million (€7 million) from mostly US and Canadian citizens by selling them bogus insurance policies. In December last year, the High Court granted Cab an order allowing it to return Schachter’s Irish estate to his victims in the US and Canada.
The order was the first in the bureau's history in which money realised in an assets action was returned to the victims of the person targeted.
Cab said its primary objective is the “deprivation of the proceeds of the fruits of such crime” and the fact that funds eventually accrue to the Exchequer, while of importance, was seen as secondary to this prime objective.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said the report demonstrated the “continuing effectiveness of a co-ordinated, multi-agency approach in dealing with the issue of the proceeds of criminal activity”.
“I am delighted that there is a new focus on lower value assets and middle-ranking criminals,” he said.
“I believe that this will address the understandable desire of communities that the Bureau should focus on all criminals who are parading their ill-gotten assets before local communities.”
Mr Ahern said the development of links with asset recovery agencies in other jurisdictions was a key activity in ensuring that criminals cannot use international boundaries as a means of evading investigation and asset seizure.
Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said the €10 million raised by Cab should be put back into communities “ravaged by the drugs epidemic”.
“Using the proceeds from CAB’s activities to fund drug treatment and awareness programmes around the country would have immediate and clear benefits for the communities which are paying the price of the drugs trade,” he said.
Since its inception in October 1996 to December 31st 2007, the body has obtained interim and “final” restraint orders to the value of over €71 million and €35.5 million respectively.
It has demanded almost €122 million in taxes and interest and collected over €118 million.
Some €3.5 million in social welfare savings have been made by Cab investigations and it has recovered overpayments of over €2.5 million.