Southern District police seized $3.7m in assets from criminals in year to March

Otago Daily Times

3 Jun, 2021 08:42 PM3 mins to read

In April, four people were arrested and $3.2 million in assets seized after a major drug bust. Photo / File

More than $3.7 million in assets were seized from alleged criminals by Southern police last year.

The haul was the second-highest in the country, behind only Auckland City.

Just one case accounted for $3.2m of the recoveries.

Among the items seized were houses, cars and motorcycles, and cash.

In the Southern district, 19 assets with a value of $3,701,282.70 were seized in 2020-21, data obtained under the Official Information Act shows.

Five residential properties made up $1.875m of that, while one non-residential property was worth $1.342m.

The remainder of the balance came from nine vehicles or motorcycles ($276,920), three lots of cash ($152,362.70), and a bank account totalling $55,000.

The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was passed in late 2009, allowing police to seize goods if they could show someone had profited from criminal offending, on the balance of probabilities.

Previously, they needed to secure a conviction.

In April, four people were arrested and $3.2m in assets seized after a major drug bust in Dunedin and Southland.

The six-month-long organised crime operation led to three men - aged 49, 32 and 26 - and a woman, aged 37, being charged with drug offences including selling and supplying cannabis and cultivation of cannabis.

During the raids police located a growing operation and recovered large amounts of cannabis with a street value of about $60,000, as well as $115,000 in cash and eight firearms.

The assets, which included residential properties and vehicles, were believed to have been financed through drug dealing.

Nothing was seized in the South the year before, while in the 2018-19 year two assets with a total value of $359,080 were seized.

Nationally, 297 assets with a value of $52,474,122 were seized in the past financial year.

A range of initiatives are funded through the Proceeds of Crime Fund, including $1.433m for drug, alcohol and mental health support workers in Dunedin last year.

Other programmes included enhanced border detection capabilities, cross-sector co-ordination to combat organised crime, and a whānau harm and drug harm reduction programme in Rotorua.

The biggest haul for police in the past five years was in Auckland in 2019-20, when four assets totalling nearly $142m were seized.