To catch a gangster

A new law enforcement agency has been set up to target the assets of criminals. Its chief, Jane Earl tells Robert Verkaik it's not just the Mr Bigs of the underworld who need to beware

In a windowless back room of a central London restaurant, close to the Old Bailey, a middle-aged woman from the Home Counties declares war on the criminal underworld's so-called "untouchables". Jane Earl is perhaps Britain's most unlikely answer to Eliot Ness, the American investigator who brought to justice the most famous untouchable of them all, the 1930s Chicago gangster Al Capone.

Last year her most pressing concerns were the refuse collection arrangements for Wokingham Unitary Council, where she was chief executive. Her new circumstances could not be more different. Today she heads one of the most controversial law enforcement services to be established in recent years.

The Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) is considered so sensitive that the Government will not disclose its central-London address, although the headquarters of MI5 and MI6 are now openly acknowledged.

Last week Earl, 45, slipped into the central-London restaurant unnoticed, mobile phone clasped to her ear, deep in conversation with an official from the Inland Revenue.

This was significant. One of Earl's key new powers allows her to raise tax on assets belonging to suspected criminals who have successfully evaded the close attention of the police. As all self-respecting law enforcement agents know, it was tax legislation, rather than the full force of the criminal law, which finally did for Al Capone.

The Inland Revenue has also played a crucial role in identifying 39 crime barons who have amassed fortunes totalling £220m. Overnight, Britain has become a distinctly less secure place for these "untouchables" – the master gangsters who run their illegal rackets with impunity. Yachts, jewellery, cars, businesses and even the homes of wives, children and parents are now liable for seizure under the new powers.

Earl and her agents will not need to prove any criminal offence, only that there is a strong probability that the asset was obtained by illegal means or just simply that its ownership can not be justified. The civil courts' test, on the balance of probabilities, is less strict than the criminal burden, beyond reasonable doubt. Earl and the Government hope that this will lead to high success rates against a range of suspected criminals.

Earl doesn't want to make life uncomfortable just for Mr Big; she also has her sights set on low-level crime, small-time drugs dealers, or gangsters who have become a scourge on our council estates. Suspected criminals need have only £10,000-worth of assets and no "visible means of support" to attract the interest of the new agency.

Earl's appointment as director was partly due to her conviction that her new powers should be used to break the stranglehold such criminals have on some of our urban estates.

"We will be looking to deal with the untouchables who are not being dealt with in the criminal justice system," says Earl. "If we can get this right, then we can take some of these characters out of their local communities and help people feel good about their lives again – honest and decent people who want to try to bring up their children properly but are frustrated by the inability of the law to reach these people who can't be touched."

Earl is particularly keen to target the drug dealers who she blames for destroying our inner city communities. The new council estate "untouchables" drive Mondeos, rather than the luxury cars favoured by their more notorious counterparts. Yet they can bring disproportionate misery to the lives of thousands of ordinary people who have the misfortune to call these villains neighbours, says Earl.

Typically, Mr Mondeo runs a network of drug dealers selling class A drugs, many of whom operate out of houses he lets to them. He also allows his properties to be used by prostitutes and has worked out a system for "laundering" his money to make his businesses appear legitimate. He flaunts his ill-gotten gains with impunity, knowing that the police can't touch him. But now the ARA, like the police, has the power to compel a person to answer questions, provide information and produce documents. The agency's civilian investigators will be able to freeze criminals' assets as soon they start examining their affairs. At the moment this can be done only when a criminal charge is about to be brought.

Banks and other financial institutions can be required to provide details on accounts held by a person under investigation and to provide details of transactions on a suspect account for a specified period.

Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, introduced by the Home Office last year, the agency, eventually to be staffed by 150 police officers, accountants, tax investigators and lawyers, will be able to issue confiscation orders through the civil courts, usually granted by a High Court judge.

In her first year Earl expects to bring between 25 and 30 cases. She believes these first few ventures into court will test the limits of the new law as defendants, many of whom are more accustomed to the criminal arena, throw up a range of human rights defences. Eventually, as more powers come on stream, the investigators will look to target assets which have been salted away abroad.

In the Metropolitan, West Midlands, Merseyside and West Yorkshire police areas alone there are probably 60 to 70 individuals with assets of more than £100,000 derived from crime. An estimated 2 per cent of the UK's gross domestic product of £18bn comes from crime, half of it produced by the drugs underworld. The Home Office hopes to recover £120m a year via the courts, double what it confiscates now.

Under the new civil recovery scheme the ASA will work closely with the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the police, customs and Inland Revenue.

Some of these new powers have attracted criticism from civil liberties organisations. John Wadham, the director of the civil rights group Liberty, warns: "These proposals will increase the likelihood of innocent people being convicted. They will not be imprisoned but they may have their home and property taken away... and they will have been convicted in the eyes of the public."

The human rights of the "untouchables" couldn't have been further from the mind of Jack Straw when he unveiled plans for the new agency two years ago. The then Home Secretary said: "There are some individuals and families who are well-known to the police and other agencies as people who are organising large scale criminal rackets."

Last week Tony Blair joined the fight: "We are not just going after those in charge of big, sophisticated crime networks – the people who behave in public like company directors though they've never done an honest day's work in their lives.

"We are targeting in a much more effective way the local crooks and drug dealers whose legal incomes – if they have them at all – can't possibly support the flash cars and lifestyle they are leading."