Robber to hand over £170k assets

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/7478572.stm

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A convicted robber is to hand over assets worth £170,000 in a settlement with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), it has emerged.

Seamus Cunningham, 36, will forfeit a substantial interest in a domestic property at Dundrod, County Antrim, and seven bank accounts.

This was after a consent order was agreed at the High Court.

Cunningham was jailed for six years in 2006 for his part in an armed raid on a Securicor van in Antrim.

The authorities targeted him because they believed they could prove his assets were obtained illegally, with mortgage and benefit fraud and tax evasion believed to have been involved.

SOCA's predecessors in the Assets Recovery Agency secured a property freezing order in February 2007.

Inquiries continued while Cunningham, whose criminal record stretches back more than 20 years and includes convictions for armed robbery, theft, burglary, handling, going equipped and benefit fraud, was held in jail.