The Confiscation Investigation: Investigating the Financial Benefit Made from Crime

Abstract

The court-ordered confiscation order is the primary means of recovering a defendant's financial benefit from crime. Whilst becoming more prominent within the police service, little is known about the role of the financial investigator and the operational processes which lead to a confiscation order. This paper examines the role of the financial investigators in confiscation proceedings along with their day-to-day tasks, training, status and profile within the police service. It identifies how cases are selected for financial investigation, distinguishing between proactive and reactive referrals. It sets out the powers that financial investigators have to investigate defendants’ financial affairs and the information that they draw on in practice. The paper examines the difficulties in integrating confiscation investigations with mainstream policing activities, highlighting the role of competing targets, the performance management regime and potentially perverse incentives. The paper ends with a call for the development of a proactive rather than reactive asset recovery regime.