Drug dealer surrenders £1k of criminal cash

Sunday 12 May 2019

A jailed MDMA and cannabis dealer said to have profited from his crimes to the tune of £22,640 has been ordered by the Royal Court to surrender £1,010 - all the money he has right now.

Handed down by the Royal Court this week, the order constitutes a partial forfeiture of the cash Jack Taylor (26), who was imprisoned after being caught with drugs worth over £35,000, made illegally.

Taylor was charged and sentenced for five drug related offences earlier this year after he was caught with the substances and a substantial quantity of cash during a search of his home in April 2018.

The 26-year-old is currently serving a three-and-a-half year sentence in La Moye for his crimes.

Pictured: Taylor was sentenced to three-and-a-half years for dealing cannabis and ecstasy.

In what is called a ‘confiscation order’, the Attorney General can demand that those who have been found to financially benefit from illegal activity surrender certain sums of money.

For this to take effect, the ‘benefit figure’ – the amount an individual has profited from the crime – and the amount of money they physically possess that can actually be confiscated both have to be worked out and agreed between counsel.

In this case, Taylor’s lawyer Advocate Michael Haines and Crown Advocate Conrad Yates – appearing on behalf of the Attorney General – had agreed on these sums and therefore a confiscation order was made for £1,010.  

Pictured: The order can be made against anyone who has been convicted of crimes they financially benefitted from.

Although Taylor was only able to offer £1,010 in cash towards the ‘benefit figure’, the remaining £21,630 of the amount he benefitted from his drug dealing will remain outstanding and technically the Crown can bring him back to Court to ask for it at any point.

The money will now go into the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund (COCF) – a pot of money which funds a number of projects through grants such as the police station revamp and also goes towards covering court costs and law revisions.