More than £12,000 in cash was seized during a raid on a property in Little Lever as they detailed the work carried out by the specialist Asset Detention and Recovery Unite.
Last month was said to be one of the best months on record for the team which is part of GMP’s Economic Crime Unit, which had 84 cases of seized cash and listed asset seizures from across the force to court to be legally detained under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
The unit is made up of both detectives and accredited financial investigators and during the Economic Crime week of action the ADRU have forfeited a total of £306,166.04 which includes 13 successful orders being granted at Tameside Magistrates Court made up of cash and listed assets.
The total amount now forfeited in this financial year by the team is £3,497,180.32, made up of 358 successful forfeiture orders.
This can be broken down into £3,297,580.32 in cash and £199,600.00 of listed assets such as high value watches and jewellery.
Over the past few years officers have seen cash hidden and concealed in a variety of places such as ovens, cooker hoods, freezers and even in a child’s changing bag.
During the week of action, officers across Greater Manchester Police seized bundles of cash hidden in a microwave and watched cash being thrown out of a bedroom window
In Bolton, £12,320.00 was seized following a drugs warrant which was conducted in Little Lever where a significant quantity of suspected class A drugs were located and seized along with £12,320 in cash along with scales and mobile phones.
A man in his 30s was arrested on suspicion of drug offences and later pleaded guilty in November to possession with intent to supply class A drugs and was sentenced to four years imprisonment just recently.
Police say the money is counted three times — it is first weighed and then put into an electronic money counting machine before being counted by hand.
When money is seized from an address or vehicle or even on a person, it is then sealed in an evidence bag before being transported where the officers can count the cash safely.
Detective Sergeant Sarah Langley of GMP’s Asset Detention and Recovery Unit, in our Economic Crime Unit, said: “The number of forfeitures made is a credit to the officers and staff in the unit, who spend countless hours pulling cases together so we are in a position to take them to court.
“We use a variety of powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act which enables us to successfully forfeit the cash and assets that has been seized.
“My team work on a balance of probability basis – through our financial investigations we will assess whether it more likely than not that this money has come from the product of crime and if the answer is yes, we will take the case to court to prove this and ask for the money to be legally forfeited through the Proceeds of Crime Act.
"This enables GMP to recover the money and give back to communities through the Home Office’s Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS) where a proportion of the money is returned to GMP to fund community projects that help GMP’s objectives to fight, prevent and reduce crime and make Greater Manchester a safer place to live, work and visit.”
The video shows how cash seized by police is counted
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