TNAG-1430-FCO40-1913-Hong-Kong-Independent-Commission-Against-Corruption-(ICAC)-1985 — Page 47

#1

E.R.

2 -

1985, the purpose of this paper is to make the Government's proposals

available for wider comment before a Bill is introduced in Parliament.

Any comments should be sent to C4 Division, Room 338, Home Office, 50 Queen Anne's Gate, London, SW1.

4. The need for new powers to deprive convicted offenders of the

proceeds of their crimes was vividly illustrated by the 'Operation Julie' case in 1978. Those convicted as a result of that investigation had manufactured and sold the hallucinogenic drug LSD on a vast scale. Huge profits had been made, and the prosecution was able to trace some

£750,000 of those profits to assets in the hands of the offenders. In

addition to imposing long terms of imprisonment the court made an order

for the forfeiture of those assets, but on appeal to the House of Lords

it was held that Parliament had never intended forfeiture orders to serve

as a means of stripping drug traffickers of the total profits of their

unlawful enterprises. The power could only be used to forfeit property directly related to the offence, such as the drugs themselves, the

apparatus for making them, vehicles used for transporting them and cash

(1) ready to be or which had just been handed over for them.

5. This case led to the setting up of the Hodgson Committee to look at the

powers of the courts in this area, and their report "The Profits of Crime

and their Recovery" was published in June 1984. The Committee recommended

that the criminal courts should have power to order the confiscation of

proceeds in all cases where it seemed that a convicted offender might have

made substantial profits from his offences. The Committee's detailed recommendations on the operation of confiscation procedures have greatly assisted the Government in the development of its proposals, and we are

glad to acknowledge here the value of the Committee's contribution.

6. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, in its Interim Report on

the Misuse of Hard Drugs, described the growing menace of international

drug trafficking as the most serious peacetime threat to our national

(1) Rv Cuthbertson [1981] AC 470