Criminal Offences Confiscations Fund receipts and pay-outs (FOI)

​Request

A

How much has the Criminal Offences Confiscations Fund received since inception in total? Broken down by assets recovered under a confiscation order, and received under an asset sharing agreement.

B

Could you provide a breakdown of each payment into the fund since inception, and which confiscated assets and / or asset sharing agreement each payment relates to, with details of the legal action they relate to?

C

Could you provide a breakdown of each allocation made from the fund since inception, including specifically how that money was used in each case?

D

In the case of an asset sharing agreement, how much other parties involved in the agreement received vs the States of Jersey?

E

What is the current or most recent known balance of the Criminal Offences Confiscations Fund?

Response

The Criminal Offences Confiscations Fund (COCF) was created under Article 24 of the Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999. The Proceeds of Crime and Terrorism (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Jersey) Law 2014 came into effect on 4 August 2014. Subject to certain saving provisions, this repealed the Drug Trafficking Offences (Jersey) Law 1988 and prescribed that any monies in the Drug Trafficking Confiscations Fund (DTCF) be transferred to the COCF. Where relevant, information in respect of DTCF transactions has been included for consistency.

The Treasury do not hold information from the inception of the Fund. However, the requested information has been provided to the extent to which it is available, referencing previous responses where relevant.

A

Please see relevant information in the attachment below:

Annual amounts received by the COCF

Monies received subject to asset sharing agreements are confiscations that have been received where a proportion may be required to be paid out to another jurisdiction at a later date under an asset sharing agreement.

Monies received from asset sharing agreements are confiscations where, under an asset sharing agreement, Jersey has been entitled to receive funds which have been confiscated in another jurisdiction.

See answer to request B for the list of individual payments received.

All funds listed in the response for request B were received following enforcement of domestic and external confiscation orders.

B

Individual payments received are given in the ‘Receipts 2004 to 2017’ table below. Where possible, cases are identified by the surname of the defendant concerned. It has not been possible to identify all cases within the time available for this response.

Receipts 2004 to 2017

Please note that until 2014 confiscations relating to the proceeds of drug trafficking were paid into the DTCF. For clarity, the two funds have been combined in this response.

Details of the individual cases can be obtained through the Jersey Legal Information Board at www.jerseylaw.je

 C

This was partly covered by a question in the States Assembly in 2007. Details can be viewed at the following link:

Question to the Minister for Treasury and Resources by Senator Perchard 30 January 2007

Previous Freedom of Information responses have also covered particular periods. Information for 2007 to 2017 can be found in the ‘Grants paid out to date’ table below.

Grants paid out to date

D

See link to ‘Asset sharing’ table below.

Asset sharing 

E

The cash balance held as at 31 October 2017 was £15,244,376.

A total of £6,647,932 is ring-fenced as it relates to cases that are subject to potential asset sharing agreements with other jurisdictions.

A total of £406,618 relates to applications for funding that have been agreed but not yet been paid out.

These items leave a remaining balance available of £8,189,826 from which it is proposed, subject to the Budget 2018 debate and receiving the formal agreement of the Attorney General that the purpose is consistent with the requirements of the fund, to allocate £6.5 million to the Prison Phase 6 capital project as part of the Budget 2018 capital programme.