Category: Asset Seizure

The Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 46 Council of Europe member states have adopted an additional protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime and on the financing of terrorism (the “Warsaw Convention”) during their annual Committee of Ministers session today. The new treaty modernises the legal and institutional frameworks for asset recovery, in response to increasingly sophisticated, transnational and technologically advanced criminal networks. It enhances the authorities’ capacities to monitor and suspend suspicious transactions and to confiscate assets, including crypto-assets, obtained through criminal conduct. Europe tools up to…

Guernsey’s Royal Court has seized more than £8.5 million from a shell company bank account associated with the infamous missing ‘Cryptoqueen’ Dr Ruja Ignatova. The 45-year-old founded the digital currency OneCoin, but is believed to have used it as cover to help defraud victims out of more than $4 billion globally – making her one of the world’s most prolific alleged scammers. Dr Ignatova is on the FBI’s most wanted list, with a reward of up to $5 million offered for information leading to her arrest and conviction. Now, some of her assets have been seized by Guernsey authorities after…

Today at Southwark Crown Court, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) confiscated £250,000 from Achilleas Kallakis, one of the convicted fraudsters behind the UK’s largest ever mortgage fraud, held at the prestigious West London sports club, The Queen’s Club. SFO investigators identified the £250,000 debenture by tracing the funds through a complex chain of offshore accounts, including a purported family trust, to his £740 million fraud. Mr Kallakis’s name was displayed prominently alongside other notable members on the Debenture Board in the club’s reception in return for the debenture that he purchased in 2007. He also received club membership and access…

Today, the SFO confiscated an additional £92,500 from Achilleas Kallakis, one of the fraudsters behind the UK’s largest ever mortgage fraud case – ten years after his conviction. A recent SFO investigation exposed how criminal proceeds from this fraud were donated towards a theatre at Mr Kallakis’ child’s London private school in 2005. When the school later removed the Kallakis name from the theatre, the family took legal action against it, revealing the additional funds to the SFO. Following a three day hearing at Southwark Crown Court, this donation, paid through a complex family trust fund, was confirmed as the…