FORCES EYE CRIME PROCEEDS

Municipal Police Services Lobbying For Share Of Assets, Money

Windsor's cops want to share in the action when it comes to divvying up the
seized assets of criminals.

"We need to access that money," Chief Glenn Stannard said of the increasing
pool of money and materials being confiscated by police agencies under
proceeds of crime legislation.

All such criminally obtained loot now goes into provincial coffers, but
Ontario's police departments are clamouring for a piece of the pie.

"There's tens of millions of dollars in a pot in Toronto," Stannard said
Thursday. "The problem is there's no way for a municipality to access that
money."

Stannard and his municipal counterparts across Ontario are lobbying to have
some of the money and assets they seize under proceeds of crime legislation
returned to them to invest in more of the types of investigations that lead
to such seizures in the first place.

Stannard can't give an estimate on the value of what's been seized locally
as a result of criminal investigations, but said it must be growing.

Earlier this month, city police seized assets worth an estimated $500,000
- -- including a South Windsor home, east-side business and eight vehicles --
from a local man accused of selling cocaine for the Hells Angels.

Last July, city police made the largest seizure of money from a drug bust
in Windsor history. Executing a narcotics search warrant at the downtown
Harvest Moon hemp store, police also seized cash totalling nearly $250,000.

Stannard told the Windsor Police Services Board Thursday that the Ontario
Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) is embarking on a campaign to have
the government change existing proceeds of crime legislation to allow
municipal forces to benefit financially from those seizures.

Local police departments want to "take that money and reinvest it back into
the community so we can fund further investigations," he said, adding
"municipalities have been shut out of this."