Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
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| Long title | An Act to establish the Assets Recovery Agency and make provision about the appointment of its Director and his functions (including Revenue functions), to provide for confiscation orders in relation to persons who benefit from criminal conduct and for restraint orders to prohibit dealing with property, to allow the recovery of property which is or represents property obtained through unlawful conduct or which is intended to be used in unlawful conduct, to make provision about money laundering, to make provision about investigations relating to benefit from criminal conduct or to property which is or represents property obtained through unlawful conduct or to money laundering, to make provision to give effect to overseas requests and orders made where property is found or believed to be obtained through criminal conduct, and for connected purposes. |
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| Citation | 2002 c. 29 |
| Introduced by | David Blunkett (Home Secretary) |
| Territorial extent | England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 24 July 2002 |
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Status: Current legislation
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| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (c.29) (POCA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provides for the confiscation or civil recovery of the proceeds from crime and contains the principal money laundering legislation in the UK.
The act was enacted following the publication on 14 June 2000 of new government policy as set out in the Performance and Innovation Unit's report "Recovering the Proceeds of Crime". It deals with a wide range of matters relevant to UK law on proceeds of crime issues. These include confiscation orders against convicted individuals (requiring payment to the State based upon the benefit obtained from their crimes), civil recovery of proceeds of crime from unconvicted individuals, taxation of profits generated from crime, UK anti-money laundering legislation, powers of investigation into suspected proceeds of crime offences, and international co-operation by UK law enforcement agencies against money laundering.
The Act has been amended since 2002, most particularly by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, the Serious Crime Act 2007 and the Serious Crime Act 2015.
The money laundering provisions in Part 7 of the Act are supported by the UK Money Laundering Regulations 2007.
Amongst other things, the 2002 Act simplified the conviction of criminals suspected of money laundering because prior to it being enacted prosecutors had to work with two different statutory regimes: the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 for laundering of the proceeds of drug trafficking, and the Criminal Justice Act 1988 as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1993 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 1995 for proceeds of other crimes. In essence prior to the implementation of the 2002 Act a prosecuting lawyer had to prove that the monies or assets were the proceeds of crime and also what 'type' of crime the proceeds came from (i.e. either drug crime or non-drug crime). The 2002 Act removed the need to make a distinction between these types as the source of the proceeds in relation to alleged money laundering in the UK commencing after 24 February 2003.
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