Unexplained Wealth Orders: Will the Trickle Ever Be a Fl
These are the words of Donald Toon, the nation's Crime Agency's director of economic and cybercrime. Based on him, unexplained wealth orders are the much-needed weapon to wage fight against the flow of dirty money into the UK.
But if that's the case, why are we seeing so few of them? There has been recent headlines about three UWOs being obtained by the NCA as part of its investigation into London property linked to a politically exposed person believed to possess links to serious crime. These UWOs relate to three homes with a total value of a lot more than lb80M. It's the second time the NCA has obtained UWOs as part of an investigation given that they became part of UK law in January 2021, thanks to the Criminal Finances Act.
Coincidentally, the prospective of the first investigation involving UWOs was the topic of headlines just hours prior to the NCA let it be known it had secured its second UWOs, The very first UWO was issued this past year against two London properties believed to be owned by Jahangir Hajiyev, the jailed former chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, and the wife Zamira Hajiyeva. It was her eye-popping spending at Harrods that was being disclosed to the media dads and moms before the NCA said that its second case involving UWOs was underway.
No it's possible to say there's not been plenty of media coverage of UWOs. The headlines have been made by both the two cases to date and the reports that heralded the arrival of UWOs and their possible use within combating the proceeds of crime. Yet two cases in 18 months can't be claimed to be the effective targeting of cash laundering that Mr Toon hoped for. To have an agency that has seemed so pro-UWO, the NCA is not rushing to the courts to find them regularly. Which is despite Mr Toon's statement this past year the NCA was examining between 120 and 140 visitors to see if they were suitable targets for UWOs. So either those individuals weren't, as it ended up, the right fit for any UWO or the NCA is much more unwilling to use UWOs than it makes clear in the public pronouncements.
What also has to become remembered is that it isn't just the NCA that has been under gung-ho in the use of UWOs. UWOs can be applied for by agencies other than the NCA. The Serious Fraud Office , HM Revenue and Customs , Financial Conduct Authority and Crown Prosecution Service can all seek a UWO if they accept is as true would assist in tackling money laundering. And just how many UWOs have these agencies sought previously 18 months? The grand total of zero.
It may well end up being the situation that for some reason the floodgates open and we see the NCA and also the other agencies rushing to secure UWOs for big amounts of investigations. If that is the situation we will then at least see if Mr Toon's claims for UWOs are located in fact or mere optimism.
Stating that UWOs have the possibility to discourage those seeking to launder money in the united kingdom would be a big statement. For now a minimum of that potential has not been fulfilled. That does not necessarily mean they're much more of a white elephant than a valued weapon – even though it is going to be hard not to reach that conclusion unless we have seen them getting used more frequently and effectively.
I am certainly in no rush to write off UWOs. But there've always been some of us who have viewed them as a gimmick: an attempt by the government to come up with a plan to tackle money laundering or, perhaps better, be seen to do something about it. That is not an opinion based on pure cynicism. It is in line with the inescapable fact that UWOs don't by themselves result in assets which are bought using the proceeds of crime being seized.
Under a UWO, an individual has to take into account how they could legitimately get the asset. This permits the authorities to put the responsibility of proof straight to the shoulders of the baby being targeted through the order. But that alone does not result in assets being seized. Any agency that obtains a UWO against a person is more than prone to face a legal challenge to it from that individual – and any challenge is likely to prevent the most determined agency from achieving a quick seizure of the assets. As well as if that challenge ultimately proves successful, the company will still need to go down the standard civil recovery route to obtain the assets.
The irony here's that civil recovery proceedings can be brought with no UWO. Without engaging in the minds of senior figures in the agencies that may obtain UWOs, this fact surely cannot have escaped them – which might take into account the pitifully small numbers of UWOs we have seen so far.
It may be worth making the point here that UWOs could be issued against PEPs – classed as someone having a prominent public function in a condition outside the European Economic Area – or those involved in serious crime in the united kingdom or elsewhere. The UWOs issued so far happen to be against PEPs, which can be an indication that the agencies see no need to use them against anybody who isn't a political figure from past the EEA.
That could take into account the low quantity of UWOs so far. And if it will, it can make it very unlikely that UWOs is ever going to be the success story a lot of believed they may be.
