A UWO forces a criminal to identify the source of wealth that law enforcement suspects is illegitimate. The funds can be confiscated if the source cannot be proven. Researchers from Booz Allen Hamilton, a Washington, D.C., research and technology firm examined laws and applications of existing UWO statutes in Australia, Colombia, and Ireland. Presenting their preliminary findings, they found that in Ireland, UWOs produced significant results in depriving criminals of assets. The full report will be finalized this summer.

UWOs are designed to make it easier to target criminals who have connections to organized crime. It often takes years to build a case against people involved in organized crime because of how hard it can be to connect money to crimes. “[In organized crime,] parts of the crime happen in different places and different accounts. When you consider the scale of the problem and the resources available, we’re lacking from a purely law enforcement perspective," panel moderator Bruce Ohr, chief of the Organized Crime and Gangs section of the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Shifting the burden of proof to the criminal puts another tool in the hands of law enforcement, Duncan Deville, senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton said. Irish police also use a database of all tax, criminal, and social welfare activity that can be cross-referenced with property records.  “We don’t have anything like that here [in the United States],” he said.

In Ireland, primarily, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) investigates organized crime. A multiagency team within CAB, which is made up of police, customs, and social welfare workers, investigates possibilities of illegal money and presents the findings to the court, which uses that to issue a UWO. Once the UWO is issued, the person targeted in the order has 21 days to appear in court and provide documentation that the assets were legally obtained or the assets will be seized by authorities.

In Ireland, the UWO has support from both the public and law enforcement and is being regularly used to combat organized crime. There are criticisms of UWO use, however. Critics of the practice say it encourages law enforcement take out unnecessary UWOs as a revenue stream. But Deville explained that the government is not allowed to take control of the assets obtain through a UWO for seven years (and the money goes straight to the general funds). There have been no media reports or complaints of abuse UWOs, Deville said.

The UWO statute in Australia [1]has been in effect for nearly a year and hasn’t been quite as successful as it has in Ireland because of how it is treated by the courts and the public. “Initial reports indicate that the courts consider it an overreaction in response to crime,” Jeffrey White, senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton said. No cases have been heard federally and only two on the state level, Deville said. “It’s just not popular in Australia,” he said.

The law enforcement community in Australia has shown enthusiasm about UWOs, but academics and attorneys are concerned that it could turn into an abuse of power – the same concerns that Americans would have if something similar were implemented, he noted.

Ireland’s success could be a jumping off point for a dialogue in other countries where organized crime keeps money flowing into the pockets of crime bosses, but something similar may not go over well in the United Sates legal system because of reversal of the burden of proof. For something similar to work in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department would have to present it as “palatable and effective,” Ohr said.

 

 MORE READING

June 2011: Bulgaria to implement unxeplained wealth laws [2] from Sofia News Agency

June 2009: Criminals with unexplained wealth to lose assetts [3] from The Sydney Herald