The Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) and the Assets Recovery Agency which targets the proceeds from crime in the North are poised to seize more property and freeze funds on both sides of the Border, delegates at an international police conference in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, heard yesterday.
Opened on Monday by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, progress reports on seizures were given yesterday by Cab chief bureau officer Chief Supt Felix McKenna and the Belfast-based deputy director of the Assets Recovery Agency Alan McQuillan.
The delegates, which included Europol assistant deputy director Laszlo Saigo and inter-agency network officers Christian Jacquier and Jill Thomas, discussed efforts to crack down on the proceeds from gangsterism in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Chief Supt McKenna chaired a session yesterday which was addressed by senior officers from police networks in the Netherlands.
Issues surrounding the confiscation of property and cash at North/South and international level was dealt with by legal expert Barry Galvin.
Officers staged a number of workshops in private to debate legal issues surrounding the taxation of criminal proceeds, seizures and the management and disposal of restrained assets.
Last night Chief Supt McKenna gave a presentation of recommendations made by separate groups in the fight against tax evaders, smugglers and suspected paramilitary bosses believed to have amassed illegal assets on both sides of the Border and internationally.
Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy and Director of Public Prosecutions James Hamilton were at the conference, which ends today.