§ 27. Mr. Andrew MacKayTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has about the implementation of measures to confiscate the assets of convicted drug traffickers.
§ Mr. Douglas HoggDuring the first year of operation of the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986 the High Court made over 150 restraint or charging orders freezing some £7 million of suspected drug traffickers' assets; and some substantial sums have been confiscated by the Crown court, including £452,000 in one case in January 1988. The national drugs intelligence unit now co-ordinates all540W intelligence about the financial activity of suspected drug traffickers. We recently signed an agreement with the United States for co-operation in the tracing, freezing and confiscation of the proceeds of drug trafficking, and we expect to conclude further such agreements this year.