## Video Summary This video analysis addresses important aspects of the law surrounding the seizure of cash by police in the UK, particularly under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The speaker critiques a police interaction captured in a video, finding it both disappointing and a little embarrassing due to the apparent lack of clarity regarding the legal grounds for seizing cash over £1,000. Key points discussed include the general power of seizure which requires reasonable grounds to suspect that cash has been obtained through unlawful conduct or is intended for unlawful use. The speaker underscores the confusion in police statements about money laundering and its relation to drug dealings. They stress that officers must provide concrete reasons for any suspicion of criminality and cannot solely assume that cash possession is indicative of criminal activity without further evidence. Throughout the transcript, legal definitions and examples are provided to elaborate on the law's applications, highlighting that the mere presence of cash does not suffice for seizure unless linked to a suspected crime. The analysis aims to clarify the legal procedures and encourages viewers to engage thoughtfully with both the law and law enforcement practices. ## Transcript You don’t know the law. You don’t have to have drugs on your money, thieves. You don’t have to be involved in a crime. No, you don’t. No, you don’t. You don’t know the law. You don’t know the law. And if I might ask you just one small favour, if I could ask you to hit that subscribe button and the like button, that helps to spread my video to a wider audience because it’s just me. I create these videos for you. I take a lot of time and effort to research them, read about them, create them. Please do subscribe and enjoy the video. Okay, so this video is somewhat disappointing and somewhat embarrassing in a number of ways. Now, I support the police when they have a difficult job to do. I try not to be too critical, but it’s really difficult here to look at a video where there is such an argument about what is really quite a simple issue, or it should be for the police at least. Now, I’m going to talk about the law in just a moment. In fact, I’ll give you a brief overview, then I’ll play the rest of the video, then I’ll give you a bit more detailed talk about the law and what I think about what’s going on here because, as I say, this is really disappointing. Now, a very broad overarching caveat. Obviously, I’m relying on this video and what’s said in this video. I don’t know all the facts and that doesn’t mean I need people in the comments saying, "Ah, a barrister commenting without knowing all the facts." I can comment on what I see and I can use that as a springboard to tell you what the law says. And on the face of it, what it appears to me to have happened in this video, without making any findings of fact, of course, I’m not a tribunal. I’m not a judge here. I’m not saying this is what happened. And I’m certainly not saying the police have definitively done something wrong. I’ll just say on the face of it what it appears to me. I have to say that, of course. So, very broadly speaking, let me show you this first. Very broadly speaking, there are two powers of seizure that the police have. There are a number of them, you understand, and these are two of them. There is a general power of seizure under Section 19 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and that would include cash in this situation. But there is also the Proceeds of Crime Act, which again I think is one of the reasons that this video is somewhat embarrassing and somewhat awkward on the whole. There’s the Proceeds of Crime Act which specifically deals with the seizure of cash under Section 294, but a specific amount for specific reasons. I will come to talk about those in this video. But first of all, let’s go back. Let’s watch the rest of this video and then I’ll talk about it in a bit more detail. So what grounds are you using for money? You just say anyone over £1,000 you can have? Because if you haven't got a balance reason to have it, you don’t work for £1,000. We can seize it, and we can investigate why you’ve got £1,000 cash. And if you can prove it, you should get it back. But obviously, it’s an investigation. We’ll have to interview you again. Why are you investigating? Why have you got £1,000? There’s no law saying anything about £1,000. Well, you’ve got to have a reason for investigating. Well, we think that you have £1,000 because we believe that it’s linked to drugs. Oh, yeah. We’ll look around if you’ve got to believe that. Well, that’s what we’ll investigate, won’t it? We’re going to take you down if there are any drugs over £1,000. If you’ve got over £1,000 in your car, we can seize that under drugs. No, no, you can seize that. That’s a different thing. That’s under the Proceeds of Crime Act. So, if you... yeah, but if you had drugs on you now, the money would be seized as part of the drug dealing proceeds of crime. This is money now. No, this is money laundering. No, you can’t seize it. You have to prove why you’ve got £1,000. I don’t have to prove anything. You have to prove something wrong. We’ll take it and then you can discuss or like Lisa, can’t we? We’ll give you your form. Don’t worry about it. We’ll investigate it. That’s if you’ve got over £1,000. You might not even have over £1,000. That’s why we can’t see. It’s roughly about £1,000. Well, we’ll find out now, won’t we? Right. So then that obviously loops back to the bit that you saw at the beginning because that’s how the clip worked. It was a hook at the beginning and then the rest of it. And there were a few things said there that were broadly correct, and there are a few things that I would take issue with. I’ll go through the video and I’ll give you some of my views in just a moment. But I will jump to the law first and then with that in mind we can come back to the video, and I’ll pick apart really the bits that I’ve talked about and whether I think there’s any issue with any of those. Again, with the caveat that I’m not drawing conclusions. I’m not stating facts and this is not intended to be specific advice or specifically directing or derailing this in any way. Let’s first jump back to the law. Let’s look at the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. There is a general power of seizure under Section 19. Now think of this as a crime that may have been committed or they’re investigating a crime that may have been committed. They obviously, firstly, there’ll be powers to search, which are found elsewhere: search of the person, search of the vehicle, search of the premises, etc. And so long as they are lawfully on any premises, which would include any power to be on those premises—that’s found elsewhere in PACE—so long as that’s the case, there’s a general power of seizure. Now, this is exercisable by a constable, not just by anybody. There are two subtly different sections here. Under subsection 2, a constable may seize anything which is on the premises if he’s got reasonable grounds for believing it has been obtained in consequence of the commission of an offence, and that it’s necessary to seize it to prevent it being concealed, lost, damaged, altered or destroyed. Alternatively, under subsection 3, a constable may seize anything which he has reasonable grounds for believing is evidence in relation to an offence he is investigating or any other offence and it’s necessary to seize it in order to prevent the evidence being concealed, lost, altered or destroyed. So these broadly cover whatever reason they might have the cash on them, or any item on them, any property with them that they’ve got reasonable grounds to believe was either obtained in consequence of the commission of an offence or in relation to an offence the officer is investigating or any other offence. So this is a general power of seizure. What I think has been confused somewhat in the video—I'm not saying here that the officers don’t understand it—but what it appears to me is that during the conversation, it appears a little bit obscure as to whether they fully understand it or not. Subtle difference. You understand? I’m a lawyer. But looking at the Proceeds of Crime Act here, 2002, Section 294 is really the part they are referring to when they’re talking about the proceeds of crime and the money laundering bit you heard in the video. This would be the relevant section. This specifically refers to the seizure of cash. This minimum amount section that you see down here is where the £1,000 comes from because it’s the Secretary of State that sets that amount, and it’s a minimum amount of £1,000. So, £1,000 or more can be seized under this section, which again is subtly different. Now, under this section, this usually comes about through going through customs or whatever because people carry large amounts of money through customs. That’s why you have to declare that you’ve got £1,000 or more. And then you explain what your reasons are and all that sort of stuff. If you don’t declare it, there might be reasons to question you about it. You need to be honest about why you’ve got it. In fact, there was a definitive case that settled this where the parties lied consistently about why they had the money, but ultimately it was decided that there must be a reason for having seized it in the first place, with further issues about retention and forfeiture applying afterwards. Those are all separate tests. They must show it’s linked to a crime or money laundering or whatever, but the initial seizure is governed here. Either an officer of revenue and customs or an officer of the serious fraud office, or an accredited financial investigator can do this. Here we’re dealing with a constable. A constable may seize any cash if they’ve got reasonable grounds for suspecting that it’s recoverable property or it’s intended by any person for use in unlawful conduct. And again, the important bit here: it must not be less than the minimum amount. So it’s got to be at least £1,000. Then they can seize it if and only if they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that it’s recoverable property or it’s intended by any person for use in unlawful conduct. That’s where we have to jump around a little bit to get the money laundering bit because Section 304 of the Proceeds of Crime Act specifies that property obtained through unlawful conduct is recoverable property. Unlawful conduct is defined under Section 241 where conduct occurring in any part of the UK is unlawful if it is unlawful according to the criminal law of that part. So any unlawful conduct under criminal law is indeed unlawful and any property obtained through unlawful conduct is recoverable property. Recoverable property is something that can be seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act, specifically relating to the seizure of cash. So, that’s where the money laundering bit comes from. If there’s any kind of crime and the money has been obtained through that unlawful conduct, as defined, which includes money laundering of course, then that becomes recoverable property and that can be seized. In other words, as long as it’s £1,000 or more and it’s been obtained by unlawful conduct, it becomes recoverable property and thus can be seized as cash under Section 294 of the Proceeds of Crime, or in the alternative, it’s intended by any person for use in unlawful conduct, which is pretty much amounts to the same thing. So either the cash itself is recoverable property or the cash is intended by any person for use in unlawful conduct. Hopefully that makes sense. So let’s go back to the video now and you’ll see why I say this video is a little bit confusing and a little bit disappointing and perhaps a little bit embarrassing. I don’t do this video to embarrass anybody; I just want to educate people with respect so that we all have a better understanding of what’s going on here. Now, there are also a couple of caveats: there may be something else going on here and there may be good reason that the police just haven’t said. They may not have said it because they’re on camera, or they may not have said it because they haven’t thought to say it, but there may be other things going on, just in case anything else happens here moving forward. Therefore, this video cannot taint anything because there are all sorts of possibilities here. So, let’s watch the video again and make some general commentary about the general things that have been said. Generalised, you understand? Let’s have a listen. What grounds are you using for the money? Just anyone over £1,000 you can have because if you haven’t got a balanced reason to have it, if you don’t work, you don’t have that £1,000. So, straight away he’s asked, "What grounds are you using for the money laundering?" Presumably it’s the reference to the Proceeds of Crime Act, although he may not know that. She’s responded to say just anything over £1,000 because if you’re not working, you don’t have a reason to have it. We can seize it. It sounds like she thinks that just because he doesn’t work, he may not have a reason to have it, therefore they can seize anything over £1,000, which of course is not true unless they have a reason behind it. I’m not saying they do or they don’t, but they have to have a reason behind it in order to seize the cash. Let’s carry on. So what we’ll do is we can seize it and investigate why you’ve got £1,000 cash and then if you can prove it, you should get it back and that’s fair enough. She said we can seize it, and we can investigate it, and then if you can prove it, etc., then you can have it back again. All of that’s fine because, as I said, there are separate rules for retention, and then separate rules for forfeiture, meaning you lose it permanently. So those things are separate that happen afterwards to the seizure of the cash in the first place. But obviously, it’s an investigation. We’ll ask her again until he was a go investigate. And so there she says it’s an investigation which is again perfectly fine. What she said is in line with the legislation. It could be something that they are investigating. So if they are investigating a crime—and that’s for them to prove—and as I say I’m not making any comments on this video specifically, but if they are investigating a crime generally, then that’s something they’re allowed to do. And why have you got £1,000? There’s nothing about £1,000. Well, you’ve got to have a reason to investigate. Well, we believe that you have £1,000. What do you believe? I believe that it’s linked to drugs myself. So, there’s quite a clear statement from the officer that she believes that it’s linked to drugs. It may or may not be. Again, not making any comment or conclusions here because I can’t as I don’t know the full facts, but it appears that that’s something they’re investigating. And if that is something they’re investigating, then they’ve got reasonable grounds to believe. But it can’t be just because it’s £1,000 and just because he’s not working and those kinds of things. But again, a little bit mixed up through the video, but let’s carry on. Have you got to believe that? Well, we think that’s what we’ll investigate, won’t we? No, no, you can’t seize that. That’s a different... that’s a proceeds of crime act. And so this really is where it starts to get confusing and they throw the terms around. She’s correct to say that he doesn’t have to have the drugs on him to be able to seize the cash. That much is right. Again, they can seize cash if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that it’s recoverable property, which remember recoverable property is something that’s been obtained under unlawful conduct, which is anything that is unlawful under criminal law. So if they’ve got reasonable grounds to suspect that it’s property obtained through unlawful conduct, which is anything that’s criminal, then they can seize it under Section 294. So if you... yeah. But if you had drugs on you now, the money would be seized as part of the drug dealing proceeds of crime. This is money. Yeah. No, this is money laundering. You can’t seize it. You have to prove why you’ve got £1,000. So, here she’s conflating again, a bit confusing, and I don’t think it helps her case somewhat. She says that if you had drugs on you, it would be seized in relation to that. But this is money laundering and therefore it’s proceeds of crime. It’s all a little bit confusing. All of which they might have to explain later. If there is a complaint made about this, they would have to explain everything, and this video would form part of the complaint if there were a complaint. The fact that it’s confusing doesn’t really help matters because they might have genuine reasons for it, but it may also just be an overreach for seizing it just because he’s got £1,000. You have to prove anything. You have to prove that I’ve done something wrong. You initially in take it and then you can find you can disclo. That’s where the chap is a little bit mixed up here as well. He says that they have to prove something to be able to take the money, and they don’t. They just need the reasonable grounds to suspect all the while it’s reasonable grounds to suspect. Now the more someone doesn’t explain why they’ve got cash. Here’s a very general conversation. You understand? You’ve seen videos before where someone just can’t explain why they’ve got something, or they won’t explain why they’ve got something. Usually, cases where it’s £10,000 or in one of the cases, I think it was £40,000. In the definitive case, it was a lot of money, and they couldn’t explain it. In fact, what they did was lie about it. Obviously, lying about it or not explaining it doesn’t really help the situation. But that’s where the law gets really interesting because there was a case that was appealed to the High Court specifically about seizure under this section. As I mentioned before, there were lies told and there was a belief that it was to do with criminal activity. Even that ended up being the finding of the court, but then there was the question as to whether they had to show it was linked to criminal activity. Let’s have a brief look through this. Stick with me because this is really interesting and it may inspire some of you to study law. The broad facts of this case. In 2006, the appellant, who was the person that had the cash seized, was stopped at the airport with £40,000 cash in a handbag wrapped in a handbag dust cover. It was in three bundles: £25,000 in casino wrappings, £5,000 in different casino wrappings, and £10,000 unwrapped. A customs officer spoke to the appellant, who said that the money belonged to her mother who’d lent it to her uncle to open a restaurant in the UK. The money represented the repayment of the loan and had been given to her by her uncle over a period of 9 months. Following further investigation, the officer seized the cash pursuant to the powers under this Act that I’ve been talking about here, Section 294 of the Proceeds of Crime Act. Long story short, the court found that the account given at the airport was a lie. And so the court made the following finding: in considering the context in which the lies were told at the airport, we find on a balance of probabilities that the lies in themselves in the context of the other matters above establish that the source of the money is criminal activity. In the circumstances, we find that there’s an irresistible inference that the £40,000 seized from the applicant at the airport was property obtained through unlawful conduct, and this appeal is dismissed. Now, the really important bit from this chunk here that led the lower courts to their conclusion, hence resulting in an appeal, is this: they said we find that it may well have been the proceeds of money laundering. It may well have been. So was that enough? That was the real question. That led to the case being stated to the High Court. The High Court said here the issue before this court is whether such a finding is sufficient for the purpose of 242. Remember, that’s the property obtained through unlawful conduct section. Whether that is sufficient for the purposes of that section. It is the appellant’s case that the finding does not satisfy the provision and that it fails to identify one of a number of kinds of conduct that would have been unlawful. So they had to specify what the conduct was and whether that conduct must have been unlawful. It’s the respondent’s case that the finding of criminal activity as the source of cash is sufficient for the purpose of that section. So the case stated to the High Court here for answers to legal questions was raised. The court summarized these questions, considering their analysation and analysing the issues. It considered that these four really amount to one question. Here’s the key question. In a case of cash forfeiture—remember that forfeiture is subtly different from the seizure—but in the case of cash forfeiture, does a customs officer have to show that the property seized was obtained through conduct of one of a number of kinds, each of which would have been unlawful, or is it sufficient for the officer to point to criminal conduct of an unspecified kind? Jumping to the conclusion at the end, applying the regulation here, which I’ll come back to in a second, the court said, applying this, our answer to the question is as follows: in a case of cash forfeiture, a customs officer does have to show that the property seized was obtained through conduct of one of a number of kinds, each of which would have been unlawful conduct. That’s under this section here, which says it is not necessary to show that the conduct is of a particular kind, if it is shown that the property was obtained through conduct of one of a number of kinds, each of which would have been unlawful conduct. So if they can say it was obtained in one of these different ways, they don’t need to say what it was, so long as each of them was unlawful. So the court ultimately said it can’t be unspecified. It can’t just be, "well, you must have had it for some unlawful reason because you’ve got the cash." It’s got to be one of a number of kinds, each of which would be unlawful conduct. Hopefully that answers the question, but also shows why the video is a bit confusing. If you didn’t quite follow the video on the law here, please watch it again, and hopefully you will. That’s why it’s not straightforward. So that is why watching a video like that, no one can just jump to a conclusion, especially when a lot of the terms are being thrown around and we’re not quite sure what any of the parties within the video actually mean. I’m being as fair as I can. The video was somewhat unclear; it was a little bit mixed up. And in any event, I won’t and I can’t draw any conclusions on that case. I’m only commenting very generally. But that said, let me know what you think about this in general in the comments. You understand?