Asset Recovery: UK money launderer's secret stash confiscated
Police in the UK waited until Keith Griffin, now 57 years old, was released from jail - then they searched his home leading to the seizing of money hidden in a Dutch bank account.
Griffin was convicted of laundering in 1997, an early success in the UK's then relatively nascent counter-money laundering laws.
But although relatively new, the fact that the laws had grown out of long-established laws to combat drugs trafficking and terrorism, there were already confiscation provisions in place. And so the Judge ordered Griffin to hand over GBP36,000.
But he claimed to have ony GBP12,700 and suggested that Leicestershire Police settle for that.
Sentenced to ten years, he was released in 2005. Because he was on parole, his house was liable to search - and that's what the police did. They found GBP7,000 in cash - and a bank book relating to an account in the Netherlands holding the equivalent of GBP26,000.
The GBP7,000 was immediately confiscated but it has taken until now for a confiscation order to be made in the Netherlands.
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