POCA Success: Benefit figure reduced by £10M and ‘hidden assets’ avoided

Background

In 2022, our client was convicted of money laundering offences committed in 2013 and 2014. The ‘criminal property’ was the proceeds of the unlawful sale by others of pharmaceutical products, namely prescription-only medicines (POMs) and counterfeit medicines (CMs).

At trial, it was agreed that the amount going through the defendant’s seven merchant accounts from the unlawful sale of POMs and CMs was approximately £1.6 million and credits to his bank accounts or to accounts in respect of which he owed a debt was £223k.

Confiscation proceedings

During the confiscation proceedings, the Crown asserted a benefit figure of £10.3 million. This included all monies into the merchant accounts, £4.5 million under the statutory criminal lifestyle provisions and the standard inflationary uplift. The Crown claimed our client had available to him some £3.7 million, made up of various properties and including £818k in ‘hidden assets’.

Several interested parties, whose interests aligned with our client, asserted claims over assets said by the prosecution to belong to the defendant.

On the eve of the week-long contested POCA hearing, the Crown added new arguments with respect to the lifestyle assumptions and allegedly hidden assets. At every turn in the proceedings, however, we challenged the prosecution and responded in meticulous detail with supporting evidence on behalf of the defendant and interested parties.

Outcome

After considerable negotiation, the Crown agreed a benefit figure of £543k with £267k as the available amount. It conceded that the starting point for calculating the benefit was the £223k and that there were no ‘hidden assets’. It accepted that the defendant had no beneficial interest in a property of which he was the legal owner valued at £1.2 million and claimed by an interested party. Finally, the prosecution agreed that the inflationary uplift should not apply.

The court endorsed the agreed confiscation order and set the period of imprisonment in default of payment at two and a half years.

Our client and the interested parties were naturally delighted with the outcome and the efforts of the legal team.

David Bloom, assisted by Sophie Drake, instructed for the confiscation proceedings Ben Douglas-Jones KC of 5 Paper Buildings Chambers for the defendant and Allison Hochhalter of 25 Bedford Row for the interested parties.