Cops to let the private sector chase after cybercrims' assets The City of London Police is piloting a scheme to allow the private sector to chase after miscreants in civil courts in return for a share of the loot. The scheme, which is set to run for two years, has been launched explicitly because of the lower standard of proof necessary for the recovery of assets in civil courts. City …
Where do we start?
ASBOs
Football banning orders
TPIMS
Sexual offence prevention orders
Criminal asset confiscation
Yet another addition to the list they've been working on for the last 20 years or so. A list of circumstances where the proving of guilt is entirely optional - and the lack of a guilty verdict is no obstacle to punishment.
I'm fucking glad I left this God-forsaken country 20 years ago. Place is going to hell in a handcart.
They seem to be talking about commencing recovery proceedings in the civil courts prior to any criminal conviction.
Not sure how you are going to show a crime was committed to justify the recovery, and it may also prejudice the criminal proceedings as well if the respondent wins the civil case.
It almost sounds like a dry run in a lower court at someone elses expense given the low rates of prosecution in the criminal courts.
Presumably the law firms will only go for the low hanging fruit, and all of the money recovered will, in the nature of things, go on their legal expenses.
So, the net outcome will simply be an increase in the number of very wealthy lawyers, possibly funded by raiding people who aren't actually guilty of anything but who, unlike the lawyers' insurers, can't afford to gamble tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on a fight where win/lose is the toss of a "balance of probability" coin.
I know the UK and England doesn't have the same laws as the US, but this bothered me in the OJ Simpson trial. A criminal court finds him not guilty, but a civil court finds him culpable. Whether he did it or not is moot, as he was both found not guilty and guilty of the crime.
Sounds like the same is happening here. The law can't prove assets were stolen under the law, but let an ambitious law firm sue the crap out of you anyway.
Currently it is necessary to convict cybercriminals before attempting to collect their assets, although the cops believe that delays in this process can provide criminals with the room to hide their ill-gotten gains.
So you are guilty until proven guilty?
Is America coming where cops can empty your account if the dogs gets a suspicious sniff on?
Or maybe ... Ukraine?
James, who is Australian but has been in Ukraine for sixteen years, worked for an oligarch, and speaks perfect Russian, built one of the premier real estate agencies in Ukraine. This winter, he and his Ukrainian wife went on holiday; when they returned to Kyiv, they discovered that an employee with the backing of some government people had stolen their company. The employee had all the correct documentation and everything signed off by a judge; the only thing missing was the signature of the actual owner. But this is Ukraine, so the employee bribed a judge, the judge ruled in his favor, the employee paid a registrar and a notary, and he now owns the agency.
I bet the Brit cops have heard about civil forfeiture in the USA and decided that they want something like that in the UK.
If you don't have enough evidence, lower the standards. They have already done this here in the Northern Colony. Criminal courts and those pesky judges wanting evidence were a bit of a snag sometimes so they formed their own justice system with their own police and courtrooms using the civil standard of proof. Probable is as good as proof anywhere else.
Justice costs too much and we don't have the police to implement it anyway.
Instead of calling the police when you are robbed and getting an incident number so you can claim on your insurance, you call shadyambulancechasers.co.uk who send round contract forensics, check fingerprints etc. against police records then sue the alleged perpatrator.
All costs of the investigation and trial included in the court costs.
Probably better to settle out of court; anyway you won't get a criminal record.
Think of it as a tax scheme to move money from criminals to lawyers (hang on.....).
Of course if you are poor you may not be able to afford a good defence lawyer so innocent or guilty you are screwed anyway.
If you are very poor you probably don't care anyway because what can they take from you?
Perhaps they could resurrect the old "Fire Insurance" arrangement where you subscribe to a private police force who look after your property and interests? Loads of PPI lawyers coming free soon.
Look out for "Neighbourhood Watch" signs being replaced by "Neighbouhood Police" signs.
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