Key facts
The main relevant legislation is the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Further provisions were made in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 and the Serious Crime Act 2015. Further details about the legislation are set out in Chapter 1.
- 640,000 offenders were convicted of a crime in the UK in 2014–15. Over the same period 5,924 confiscation orders were made, meaning that less than 1% of convictions led to a confiscation order.1
- In that time, 1,203 restraint orders were used to freeze assets before they could be hidden.2
- The overall enforcement rate of all confiscation orders was 45%. This varied with the size of the confiscation order, ranging from 96% of orders up to £1,000 to 22% of orders above £1 million.3
Figure 1: Enforcement rates by size of confiscation order
Source: Committee analysis of data provided in National Audit Office, Confiscation Orders: progress review, HC 886, March 2016
- At September 2015, there was £1.61 billion total debt outstanding from confiscation orders. This was up from £1.46 billion in September 2013.4
- The interest rate on unpaid debt is 8% a year. This now makes up £470 million of the outstanding debt (nearly 30%).5
Figure 2: Breakdown of outstanding debt of confiscation orders
Source: Committee analysis of data provided in National Audit Office, Confiscation Orders: progress review, HC 886, March 2016 and National Audit Office, Confiscation Orders, HC 738, December 2013
- Enforcement agencies collected £155 million from confiscation orders in 2014–15. The cost to administer that process was estimated to be more than £100 million.6
- In the five years between 2010 and 2015, £116 million was returned to victims of crime.7
- It is estimated that at least £100 billion is laundered through the UK every year.8 More than 130 countries in the world have a GDP smaller than £100 billion (including Angola, Hungary and the Ukraine).9
- The value of property in the UK subject to criminal investigation for being proceeds of international corruption in 2004–15 was £180 million.10
- By the end of October 2015, the National Crime Agency had closed 119 suspicious bank accounts in the UK.11
8 Q94
9 The World Bank, ‘GDP ranking data,’ accessed 10 June 2016 [NB: On that date 1 USD=1.44 GPB]
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11 July 2016