KB-2024-001295 - [2025] EWHC 3000 (KB)

The following provisions of POCA are relevant to this claim.

Under s.243(1) proceedings for a recovery order may be taken in the High Court by an “enforcement authority” against “any person who the authority thinks holds recoverable property”. The Claimant is such an enforcement authority: POCA, s.316(1).

By s.266(1), if the court is satisfied that any property is recoverable, the court must make a recovery order. There are certain exceptions to the court’s powers in ss.226(3) and (4) but none of these provisions are applicable.

A recovery order is an order which vests recoverable property in the trustee for civil recovery: s.266(2).

Under s.316(4) “property” is “all property wherever situated and includes (a) money, (b) all forms of property, real or personal, heritable or moveable, (c) things in action and other intangible or incorporeal property”. In Director of Public Prosecutions v Briedis [2021] EWHC 3155 (Admin) at [10], Fordham J held that cryptocurrency falls within s.316 and in particular, s.316(4)(c).

POCA, s.304 defines “recoverable property” as “property obtained through unlawful conduct”.

Under s.241, “[c]onduct occurring in any part of the [UK] is unlawful conduct if it is unlawful under the criminal law of that part”. It includes conduct which occurs abroad and is unlawful under the criminal law of the country where it occurred, if that conduct would also be unlawful in the UK, had it occurred in England: s.241(2).

It is not necessary for a claimant to show that the conduct was 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: 242(2)(b).

The courts have adopted a “fairly liberal” approach to determining how matters should be proved in civil recovery proceedings: R (Serious Organised Crime Agency) v Wang [2011] EWHC 4100 (Admin) at [22], perSilber J.

An unexplained lifestyle can be relevant as can an explanation that is offered but rejected as untruthful: Director of the Assets Recovery Agency v Olupitan [2007] EWHC 162 (QB) at [23], per Langley J.

Where from all the facts an irresistible inference can be drawn (on the balance of probabilities) that the source of funds was criminal, then that is sufficient to establish money laundering, even if no type of crime can be identified: SOCA v Gale [2009] EWHC 1015 (QB) at [17], per Griffith Williams J.

In an appropriate case, an inference for proving unspecified money laundering when such was being used as the unlawful conduct in s.241 POCA can properly be drawn from a failure to provide an explanation of apparently suspicious dealings: see, for example, SOCA v Namli [2013] EWHC 1200 (QB) at [49], per Males J (as he then was).

In Claimant v Surin [2025] EWHC 10 (KB) at [126], Mould J determined that on the facts of that case, the defendant’s prolonged inaction in responding to a freezing order and in providing evidence in response to the claim supported the inference that the property was recoverable.