NO ROOM FOR ASSETS OF CRIME

POLICE can no longer seize boats, cars and motorcycles belonging to WA
criminals because they've run out of storage room.

Investigators are continuing to put freeze orders on suspected proceeds of
crime but they can no longer remove the items.

"At the moment the officers are putting orders on vehicles and boats and
other assets and then leaving them in situ with the criminals they're
supposed to have taken them off," WA Police Union president Mike Dean said.

"You can imagine what's going to happen to these assets. They will end up
being used, deliberately run-down, damaged or even stolen."

The lack of storage space is just one of a number of setbacks for the
police unit that tackles the finances of organised crime.

Office space was taken from the unit recently because promises of more
staff and equipment did not eventuate.

The unit has officers trying to cope with as many as 42 case files each
under the Criminal Property Confiscation Act brought in three years ago.

"This is total mismanagement," Mr Dean said. "This is one of the few
legislative tools where they (the Government) could have dealt with
organised crime properly and efficiently and actually helped the community
but because of silly management practices by government the whole thing is
grinding to a halt."

The act also allows for investigations into unexplained wealth of people
suspected of being involved with organised crime.

But until more investigators, analysts and forensic accountants are added
to the assets unit, it can't be as pro-active as it would like.

High-profile people suspected of having major organised-crime links in
Perth are safe from the legislation unless caught trafficking drugs or
committing other serious crimes.

Investigators know the crime bosses keep themselves distanced from
day-to-day illegal activities, so the best chnace of attacking them is
through the unexplained-wealth provisions of the Act.

Attorney-General Jim McGinty has control of the funds confiscated from
criminals, but has made only $150,000 available to the assets unit for an
accountant, compared with more than $1 million spent on community projects
such as security lighting at a retirement village.

In April last year he posed with Director of Public Prosecutions Robert
Cock QC on the back of a confiscated motorcycle.

He said at the time that "drug traffickers, in particular, could expect
that all the property they owned or controlled, and even property they gave
away, could and would be seized".

"Their luxury lifestyles will simply be stripped away," Mr McGinty said.

Despite its restrictions, the specialist unit has frozen $39 million worth
of assets.

"The tragedy is, it could have been such a magnificent success - $100
million could have been seized by now," Mr Dean said.

"What Mr McGinty is doing is sabotaging the Government's own legislation."

Mr McGinty said yesterday this was the first he had heard of the storage
concerns.

"Mr Dean has never raised this with me and I wonder how genuine it is," he
said.

"I presume this is part of the campaign by police for wages."