JANUARY 11 — On Saturday (January 10) the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) reportedly seized luxury assets valued at over RM2.2 million, consisting of 23 Rolex watches of various models, with an estimated market value of approximately RM2 million and several pieces of jewellery valued at around RM225,000.
A day earlier (January 9), MACC had also seized gold bars, a high-performance sports utility vehicle (SUV), and cash in various foreign currencies, valued at an estimated RM6.9 million.
The gold bars comprised three units of 999 gold bars, each weighing one kilogram, with a current value of approximately RM1.8 million. Also seized were nine pieces of gold, each weighing 100 grams, with a current value of more than half a million ringgit.
The SUV is estimated to be worth about RM360,000 and is believed to have been purchased in cash.
The foreign currencies included US dollars, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen and Saudi riyals.
Two days earlier on Wednesday (January 7), about RM2.4 million in cash was reportedly intercepted as it was being transferred between two residences.
In the UK, individuals connected to such assets would have been subject to a court order to explain how the assets were acquired.
The order is called unexplained wealth order (UWO).
UWOs were introduced to the UK legal system in January 2018, with the passing of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 (CFA). Section 1 of CFA amended the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) to introduce UWOs.
A UWO requires the individual or respondent to explain how an asset was acquired. If no adequate explanation or unsatisfactory evidence is provided, the asset will be considered “recoverable property” for the purposes of a civil recovery order under POCA.
The law was further enhanced when in March 2022 the UK government expedited the passage of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (ECTE) in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
ECTE expands the scope of the powers and increases operational confidence in using UWO powers.
An enforcement agency can apply to the High Court for a UWO where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a respondent, including an organisation, holds property (with a minimum combined value of £50,000 or RM274,302); and either that their known sources of lawfully obtained income would have been insufficient to obtain the property in question, or that the property was obtained through unlawful conduct.
According to Rahman Ravelli, one of the few UK legal firms to have the necessary skills and experience in UWOs, a UWO can be sought without any civil or criminal proceedings having begun. There is no need for the subject of a UWO to have been convicted of an offence or to have had a civil law judgment against them.
Unexplained wealth is a concept I have explained thrice in as many years. Read it here, here and here.
Two years ago, I said that it was about time the government sent a clear message to individuals with unexplained wealth by legislating for court ordered measures like UWOs.
Two years on, we have yet to have such legislation while Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim moaned about corruption being a systemic problem and remaining far from being resolved.
Consider lah legislation to provide for UWOs, PMX.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
