THE amount of criminal cash and assets seized by police in Dorset has risen sharply in the latest five years, new figures show.

Anti-corruption organisation Global Witness warned the £200 million recovered nationally is "a drop in the ocean" compared with the huge volumes of illegal money flowing through the UK each year.

Home Office data shows Dorset Police collected proceeds of crime worth £796,400 in the year to March.

Of this, £643,900 (81 per cent) was obtained through confiscation orders, which are made during sentencing following a criminal conviction.

The rest came from powers to seize and confiscate cash via civil proceedings.

The haul was more than twice the value seized in 2014-15, when officers recovered £289,800.

Around £208 million was collected by police forces, councils and government agencies across England, Wales and Northern Ireland using powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act in 2019-20 – a four per cent decrease from the year before, but up eight per cent compared to five years ago.

Dominic Kavakeb, of Global Witness, said: “These latest statistics really are a drop in the ocean compared with the billions in illicit wealth flooding the UK.

"It shows how much work there is still to do in the fight against dirty money, starting with the long-awaited property register that can bring transparency to the UK’s property market – for years a top choice for criminals and the corrupt looking to launder stolen cash.”

In August a property portfolio worth an estimated £17 million, purchased with “dirty money” by a Birmingham drugs trafficking gang, was seized and sold following an eight-year investigation by the National Crime Agency.

The Government unveiled new measures to clamp down on corruption in 2018, including the creation of Unexplained Wealth Orders – which give authorities the power to demand a person or company explain where their cash or assets came from.

To date, the National Crime Agency has obtained UWOs on four cases with a total asset value estimated at just over £143m.

In the year to March, £208m was also frozen in more than 800 bank and building society accounts – up significantly from £95 million the year before.

The National Economic Crime centre, based at the NCA's headquarters, also launched two years ago with the aim of bringing together police and government bodies to combat economic crime, including money laundering and fraud.

An NCA spokeswoman said: “The National Crime Agency froze or seized £160m in suspected criminal assets during the last year alone, and we continue to use all of our powers, in both the criminal and civil spheres, to disrupt criminals and corrupt elites by recovering the proceeds of their criminality.”