Manitoba confiscated $7M from criminals last year

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This article was published 04/07/2023 (1129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In Manitoba, crime does pay if you’re the criminal property forfeiture unit.

It seized an estimated $7 million in 2022-23, the head of the unit said Tuesday.

At a news conference at Winnipeg Police Service headquarters to announce funding for new technology and trauma training paid for by the proceeds of crime, the unit’s executive director, Melinda Murray, said details about the $7 million seized in the latest fiscal year will be released soon in an annual report.

The number of seizures in 2022-23 wasn’t as high as the $11.89 million seized during the previous year, but was nearly triple the roughly $2 million a year that was seized before the province changed legislation to make it easier for the unit to identify, target and seize criminal wealth.

The fund has two streams — personal property valued at $75,000 or less is an administrative forfeiture that may be confiscated without involving the courts following a 2012 amendment to The Criminal Property Forfeiture Act that simplified the process. The other stream — a judicial forfeiture — involves property valued at more than $75,000 and requires a statement of claim to be filed in court.

“Most of them have probably been $75,000 and above,” Murray said Tuesday of the unit’s haul in 2022-23.

“Any time police stop someone and there’s drugs and cash in the vehicle, then we go after that,” she said. “Those are bigger amounts. Maybe inflation has something to do with it.”

Since 2009, the unit has had legal authority to start civil forfeiture proceedings against property believed to be the proceeds or instruments of unlawful activity. In 2021, amendments expanded the legal information-gathering tools and authority to identify and secure unlawful money before it can become untraceable and disappears.

“Preliminary preservation orders” can prevent a person from disposing of their property before a statement of claim is filed against them in court and “preliminary disclosure orders” can require someone to answer questions under oath about the source of their property before forfeiture proceedings have been initiated.

On Tuesday at WPS police headquarters, Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen announced more than $1 million from the forfeiture fund will go to city police for a variety of crime prevention measures, including $290,000 for time-saving technology to help the service sift through hours of video evidence, and $76,000 for trauma-informed leadership training for 200 staff members.

“We are we always eager to reinvest those proceeds of crime into law enforcement to enhance the safety of officers and enhance the safety of the community,” Goertzen said.

(The province would not say how the remaining $700,000 was being spent, “citing operational security considerations.”)

“There are thousands of cameras: some at private businesses, some publicly maintained around the province,” Goertzen said. “That can be very helpful when it comes to evidence collection and proceeding on a case but it’s a tremendous amount of data and it’s very time-consuming for officers to have to go through all of that,” the justice minister said.

The technology to help with that is expected to be in place in the “very near future” following the release of a request for proposals, said Staff Sgt. Josh Ewatski.

“It will literally save thousands of hours of investigators sitting and combing through video evidence,” Ewatski said. “It will help investigators close files and get answers to victims’ families… especially when it pertains to serious crimes such as homicide, serious assaults and it will allow them to then continue and move on to the other files they have to deal with on a daily basis.”

The trauma-informed leadership training for 200 staff members is part of societal shift towards recognizing and addressing mental health, said deputy chief Scot Halley.

Tuesday marked his 29th anniversary with the police service, and attitudes towards mental health have come a long way since he started as a constable, Halley recalled.

“There was a certain machismo involved,” the deputy chief said.

The leaders he worked with at that time would dismiss what happened at “a bad call” as “an awful thing to see” then move along. The culture has changed thanks, in part, to a new generation of police officers who recognize mental wellness as part of health care, Halley said.

“It’s about showing care and compassion for people. Healthier police and civilians perform a better service for the community.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca