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n1 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Private law firms will be hired by police to pursue criminal suspects for profit, under a radical new scheme to target cyber criminals and fraudsters.

In a pilot project by the City of London police, the lead force on fraud in England and Wales, officers will pass details of suspects and cases to law firms, which will use civil courts to seize the money.

The force says the scheme is a way of more effectively tackling fraud – which is now the biggest type of crime, estimated to cost £193bn a year. It is overwhelming police and the criminal justice system.

Under the shakeup being piloted, a law firm will pursue the suspect in the civil courts before any conviction and possibly even without a criminal charge. The burden of proof is lower in civil courts, and they will only have to show that the suspect stole the money on the balance of probabilities.

[...] Katie Wheatley, joint head of criminal law at Bindmans, a London law firm, expressed unease over the proposals, which she said gave police “what they would regard as an easy deterrent, without having the inconvenience of proving an offence to a criminal standard”.

[...] A working group to oversee the experiment has been set up by the City of London police, officers from the National Crime Agency, and Metropolitan police, and law and private investigation firms.

Source: The Guardian [theguardian.com]

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