Court issues £80k confiscation order

At Edinburgh High Court this week, the order was made against Laurence McAllister, 59, from Northern Ireland.
In April 2012, he was subject to a routine stop by port officers at Stranraer, en route back to Northern Ireland having been buying and selling horses in the UK.
They discovered approx 25 kilograms of cannabis resin found within four hessian sacks within the horse transporter, alongside two horses.
Later that year he was sentenced to five years, six months imprisonment.
Thsi week, Lindsey Miller, Procurator Fiscal for Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism, said: “Those involved in the trade of drugs are quickly learning the Scotland is becoming harder and harder for them to do business in.
“Not only do they face arrest and imprisonment, but their criminal networks face the loss of large quantities of drugs and years of profits.”
She explained: “For offences such as these, we can analyse a full six years of an accused’s financial records prior to their arrest, and assess how much of their earnings during that time can be accounted for legally.
“We then seek to confiscate anything that cannot be legitimately accounted for – whether it can be linked to the specific circumstances of their conviction or not.
“Our Serious Organised Crime Division, and our teams of expert financial analysts and prosecutors, will continue to work with law enforcement agencies across the UK to ensure that all illegal profits are recovered to be re-invested in the community by Scottish Ministers, through the CashBack for Communities programme.”