ORGANISED CRIME

This man had UKP1m buried in his back garden. New powers might let police
seize it without proving he had done anything wrong. Is that right?

A dark green Mercedes is parked in the driveway. An elaborate security
system protects the comfortable house. From its rear windows, Philip Glennon
can look out on the beautiful lawn of his secluded garden. Glennon, 61, runs
a string of gymnasiums on Merseyside and his home is the typical house of a
successful executive. But when the police raided it last year, they dug up
the garden and unearthed more than UKP1m in several currencies buried in
plastic bags.

Glennon was arrested and police seized the cash while they launched an
investigation into how it got there.

Last month, in a court case involving a corrupt police officer, Glennon was
charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice and was described
as a man who had amassed a fortune from drug dealing. Though others in the
case were convicted, the judge threw out the charge against him.

The police will have to return the buried fortune to Glennon unless they can
prove he obtained it illegally. He has no convictions for any crimes and
protests his innocence.

"There is a procedure in this country where people are arrested and charged
and the authorities can go to court and obtain a criminal restraint order,
which freezes people's assets until the conclusion of the trial," said
Andrew Pearson, Glennon's solicitor.

"It seems to me a perfectly fair and decent way of ensuring that justice is
done by all parties. If you are acquitted you get your assets back. If not,
the state makes a confiscation or compensation order."

However, last week the Home Office published proposals that would transform
the way such justice is done. It wants to enable the state to confiscate
money and assets without having to prove any criminality.

If the proposals go ahead, the police could apply to the civil courts to
seize cash, cars, yachts, even houses, and hand them over to the Treasury on
the suspicion that they are the proceeds of crime. The test would be a
"balance of probabilities", not "beyond reasonable doubt".

Senior police officers and politicians say the powers are vital in the
battle against organised crime.

"Present arrangements are not working as well as they should," said Jack
Straw, the home secretary, last week. "For every rich criminal, from pimps
to drug barons, there is a victim who has suffered. Villains should pay the
price from their own pocket."

ONLY two other countries have such draconian powers to seize personal
property. The republic of Ireland is one of them. In the past decade, it has
struggled with a heroin problem. Drug barons flaunted their wealth yet the
garda (Irish police) seemed unable to catch them by traditional methods.

Matters came to a head when Veronica Guerin, the journalist who had been
investigating organised crime, was shot dead in 1996. Within four months, an
agency called the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), staffed by gardai, tax
officials and other civil servants, was set up. It could freeze bank
accounts, seize assets and serve tax demands on criminal suspects.

The bureau's first target was John Gilligan, a convicted burglar, who had
been challenged by Guerin. His country estate was confiscated, his bank
accounts frozen and he was handed a tax bill of UKP1.7m. Gilligan is at
present on remand in a British prison; the garda is seeking his extradition
in connection with Guerin's death.

Since it began, the Irish CAB has won orders to seize millions of pounds'
worth of assets and has served tax assessments worth more than UKP6m.
Suspected drug dealers and money launderers have fled the country. "We have
made a difference to crime in Ireland," said Fatchna Murphy, chief
superintendent of the bureau.

Late last year Home Office officials travelled to Dublin to find out more
about the CAB. Soon Britain was taking advantage of its formidable powers.
Scotland Yard first sought its help in investigating a man called Micky
Greene. He had moved to Ireland from Essex in 1994 and had bought a
UKP250,000 house, a city apartment and several Mercedes. As soon as the CAB
began investigating his affairs, he left Ireland. The agency is planning to
confiscate the properties and cars he left behind.

Another target was Johnny Morrissey, who arrived two years ago in Kinsale, a
small Irish port. Within months he had spent up to UKP250,000 transforming
an old Victorian building in the town into an exclusive restaurant. He
rented a large house and gave generously to local causes.

Prompted by British, Dutch and French police, the CAB began investigating
the source of his funds. Morrissey sold up and moved to Russia. His Irish
bank account was frozen and the CAB has sent him a tax demand for
UKP100,000.

When Thomas McGraw, a 41-year-old businessman, was acquitted of
drug-smuggling charges in Scotland last year, the Strathclyde police also
turned to Ireland for help.

The CAB found that McGraw had spent UKP135,000 on a pub in Ireland and that
UKP200,000 had gone through the pub's bank accounts. These were frozen and
the pub was sold at auction. The proceeds may eventually go to the Irish
Treasury. McGraw is now believed to be in Spain.

John Abbott, director-general of Britain's National Criminal Intelligence
Service, believes that this is the way to tackle modern crime: targeting the
assets of the Mr Bigs with the use of his computer files.

"Top-level criminals rarely get their own hands dirty; forensic evidence is
not likely to be available; witnesses are few and may be intimidated," he
said in a recent speech.

HOWEVER, legal experts are alarmed about civil rights. "The great worry is
the presumption of innocence: you should be found guilty before you are
punished," said Dr Ralph Beddard, lecturer in human rights law at
Southampton University.

Jeremy McBride, a senior lecturer in criminal law at Birmingham University,
predicts a rash of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights. Gilligan
and other targets of the CAB already plan appeals to the European court.

In America, which introduced asset-seizure in the 1980s, the courts have
been busy. The police now grab hundreds of millions of dollars of suspected
criminal property and cash each year. But they have hardly dented the drug
trade and too often their targets turn out to be the modest savings, cars
and homes of people who have done nothing wrong.

When Willie Jones, a landscape gardner from Nashville, Tennessee, bought a
plane ticket with cash, narcotics agents detained him as a suspected drug
courier and confiscated the $10,000 he was carrying.

No drugs were found on him and he was charged with no crime. But to get back
his money - which he said he was carrying to buy stock for his business - he
was forced to go to court.

Last year an accountant from Florida recovered a house worth nearly
UKP200,000 after a three-year legal battle costing UKP25,000.

Hosep Bajakajian, a Syrian who lives in California, was stopped at Los
Angeles airport in 1994. The police found more than $350,000 in his luggage.
He said it was to repay relatives in Syria who had helped set him up in
business in America. The police confiscated the money. This year the Supreme
Court ruled that Bajakajian can keep it.

Part of the problem is that in America the proceeds of "asset-forfeiture"
usually go to funding police operations, creating an incentive regarded by
some as unhealthy. It reached such a pitch in Louisiana that a prominent
lawyer has described police eagerness to make asset seizures as a "feeding
frenzy".

In Britain, the assets would go to the Treasury and the police argue that
the gains would outweigh the risks. The targets they have in mind include
the Adams family in London, estimated to be worth UKP50m. Tommy, one of the
family members, is serving seven years for drug smuggling. Police also cite
Curtis Warren, a drug dealer, who is worth an estimated UKP40m and is
serving a 12-year jail sentence in Holland.

If the proposals are accepted, the law could be in place by 2000. They
include an even more contentious plan to penalise lawyers and accountants
who failed to tip off the police about clients they suspected of money
laundering. The punishment would be fines or imprisonment.

Checked-by: Don Beck