Episode 5 Ill Gotten Gains

When this cell door slams shut on a criminal,

you might think they've got their just deserts.

But the law doesn't stop there.

Criminals are now having their most prized possessions hunted down,

seized and sold at auction to the highest bidder.

Welcome to Ill Gotten Gains.

In this programme,

West Midlands Police pay a fraudster an early morning visit,

and get a first-hand look at what the millions

he conned out of the state were actually spent on.

There was lots of designer shoes, designer handbags,

high-value vehicles such as Bentleys and Mercedes on the drive.

This lady was robbed by a cruel conman,

and her daughter was heartbroken.

In many ways, it was as bad as a physical attack.

But Trading Standards used the law

to make the conman pay back what he stole.

And a community mixed martial arts club

that's in danger of losing its funding

gets a windfall from cash seized from criminals.

It just meant they could really give the place a revamp,

we could provide, particularly some of the higher-level lads,

with the facilities they needed to push onto the next level.

Across Britain every day,

teams of specialist police officers are using a powerful law called

the Proceeds of Crime Act to take cash and property

from people who make money in illegal ways.

They might be fraudsters, drug dealers or benefits cheats,

but any cash they made through breaking the law

will be taken away by police.

They've seized over £150 million from crooks in a year.

And it's not just cash that gets seized.

This building may not look like Sotheby's,

but millions of pounds' worth of goods owned by crooks

get sold off here every year.

This is a location miles away from London where they hold

barely advertised auctions called proceeds of crime sales.

They're open to the public,

and any ill-gotten gains seized by the police

will get sold to the highest bidder.

Up and down the country, there are secret locations like this one,

where the police store assets seized from criminals using the powerful

Proceeds of Crime law, designed to hit crooks where it hurts the most -

in their pockets.

And the police can take everything a criminal has bought

with money made from crime.

If you think of anything that you could buy, or would want to buy,

whether it be symbolic, status, something you require...

So it can go from property, a lot of money's invested in property,

there's cars, there is all the associated bling,

jewellery, watches, there's...

People have bought boats, artwork,

there was cases in the past of racehorses, greyhounds,

anything of monetary value or a status symbol.

Once police have proven a case against a criminal,

they can start to target and seize the crook's possessions

and some crooks have assets the rest of us can only dream of.

Rolex, Cartier, Breitling -

some of the most desirable brands in Britain.

And brands like this are massively popular

with underworld figures across the country.

Like this man, drug dealer Mohammed Aslam.

He ran a massive Class A drug-dealing operation

in the Bradford area.

Police believe he made millions of pounds from his drug operations,

and spent it wisely,

even buying this nice Rolex for £25,000.

But later on, his prized watch will be going under the hammer.

Police investigating drug dealing in the Bradford area

also came across this man, Mahboob Alam.

He also made a fortune dealing drugs on the streets of Bradford.

Both men were being investigated by West Yorkshire Police.

They sold an array of what we call Class A drugs,

namely heroin and cocaine.

We're talking, on both operations,

over 40 kilos of drugs were recovered.

Street value all told was around six million pounds' worth,

that this group of individuals, those two,

played significant parts in.

And the West Yorkshire team were very keen to put a halt

to the two dealers' thriving illegal businesses.

During our work and the investigation that we did,

we were aware that a large amount of money

was spent on holidays and cars

so we were alive to those...

benefits that they were making from their crime.

The police successfully charged both men with drug-dealing offences,

and they were sentenced to 17 years and seven years respectively.

But police weren't finished with them there.

Proceeds of Crime laws are now used to strip crooks of profits.

After investigation by Yorkshire Police's

Asset Confiscation Enforcement team, known as the Ace,

the men were ordered to pay back £1 million

they had made as proceeds of crime.

It was the Ace's job to pinpoint exactly what assets the men had

so they could be sold off, and they were in for a surprise.

In respect of Mahboob Alam...

..the overall confiscation order included

a small street in Bradford comprising of four houses.

You heard right.

The cunning dealer had bought a whole street in Bradford,

as an investment that he hoped would grow in value.

But the Ace team put his street up for sale.

It was sold off for an undisclosed sum,

and is now no longer owned by Mahboob Alam.

And that's money going back to the public purse.

And fellow drug dealer Mohammed Aslam got the same treatment.

The Proceeds of Crime investigation took this watch clean off his wrist.

Successful drug dealers can come into a lot of money,

and things like watches are very, very portable assets.

They're very easily transferable -

if you do run out of money, there's always a market for them.

In some cases they go up in value,

they can be a good asset in terms of appreciation.

But again, in terms of...promoting an image,

a watch is one of those symbolistic things of,

"Look at me," you know, "Look how much I'm worth," sort of thing,

or, "Look at my status," or whatever,

which is often the motivation behind drug dealers

or people of that criminal ilk and organised crime and all this

is around image and status.

Group asset recovery manager Aidan Larkin

is well aware of how popular these watches are.

Lot 83 is a Rolex Oyster.

It's brand-new,

it still has the original cellophane and plastic around the watch,

box, papers, it's in perfect condition,

a watch like this, particularly in 18-carat rose gold,

rose gold is very desirable,

and it's the current fashion of a lot of watchmakers,

so this watch will easily go past £10,000 at the auction,

and probably as high as £15,000.

In the auction hall, prospective buyers

are already taking an interest in the extravagant watch.

I think there will be some strong bidding,

particularly with items like these,

we've a large online following,

so, physically, you don't have to come to an auction,

most people will bid, now,

just in the comfort of their own home on an app.

So we'll find watches like this, particularly with box and papers,

will be attractive to the trade and private bidders alike.

A lot of people just like the fun of the fair

and the razzmatazz of the auction to see everything that's happening.

And the police teams that smashed the £6 million drug operation

are delighted to see that this watch is going to be sold.

When we look at the financial constraints that we place upon them,

that looks at things like realising the assets they have,

like the Rolex watch, selling it through the auction,

so that we realise that into monies

that can be fed back into helping the community.

So therefore, the financial penalties are actually paid

by selling the assets that they've acquired,

and ensuring things like the property they've had are sold,

so that the money is realised.

That is one of the main...

..factors of the Proceeds of Crime Act for us to utilise.

And it's a visible thing.

People can see it's actually taking place and they want it to happen

because they don't want to see people getting rich

out of somebody else's misery taking drugs...

and the drugs that we see on our streets.

-Once.

-Later on, we'll see how much the very desirable Rolex...

Twice.

..actually fetches at auction.

It's not just drug dealers who pay big money for expensive jewellery.

One of the country's biggest ever fraudsters liked to spend his cash

on all the finest things, but didn't spare a penny for the taxman.

Every year, police officers like Derek Tinsley in the West Midlands

recover millions of pounds from criminals that the police arrest.

Derek is a financial investigator who has handled many complex cases,

but some of them stand out, even to experienced eyes like his.

And the case of Tommy Scragg is one of those.

This is footage taken by police

as they raided Tommy Scragg's home in Solihull.

Throughout his very expensive property,

they discovered overwhelming evidence that Scragg

had a lot of money to spend on things the rest of us can't afford.

He even paid his bodyguards enough money to buy a Lamborghini,

but they wrote it off in an accident.

But why did West Midlands Police decide to raid his home?

Well, Tommy Scragg was

one of the UK's most brash and public criminals.

He'd been living the high life,

flaunting extravagant wealth in the streets, and showing off

a seemingly endless supply of designer goods.

That made investigators at West Midlands Police's

Regional Asset Recovery team

suspicious that the money was coming from crime.

Derek started a covert investigation.

Generally, financial investigations are quite covert.

What we tend to do is more or less out of the public view,

and also anybody else's view that we're actually looking at.

Derek was able to access Tommy Scragg's financial records,

and in particular, his income.

And the devil was in the detail.

From this document here, what I can actually see is that his earnings

during this period is approximately £40,000,

but what he was doing was taking in dividends from the business

for up to £133,000.

Next, Derek looked closely at how much Scragg was spending.

So turning the page here, I can see he's got his home address.

And in reality, that's nearly £900,000 worth to buy.

He's got a vehicle, a Bentley,

approximately £150,000 to buy.

He has got various amounts of...

memorabilia, sporting memorabilia,

such as Wayne Rooney's FA football boots,

signed England shirts...

Diego Maradona's World Cup shirt.

Several bank accounts, for which there's over £60,000 at this time

that he's got a balance on.

I'm going through...

..buy-to-let properties that he had, 16 of them.

To purchase, anywhere between £200,000 to £300,000, really.

So all of those added together far outweighs, effectively,

what his legitimate and declared income is.

So there's clearly a big disparity, and the question, really,

for us, as financial investigators, is to try and come up with an idea

as to how he's funding, you know, this opulent lifestyle.

Derek and his team discovered that Thomas Scragg and his friends

liked to live the sort of life some of us could only dream of.

Photos such as these at celebrity charity events were later presented

as evidence by the police to show Tommy Scragg's lifestyle.

And Tommy enjoyed the company of celebrity friends.

So this epitomises what Tommy Scragg was all about.

Here you can see one of his friends, money is no object,

drinking the champagne, having the lifestyle

and looking at all the cash strewn all over the bed.

Probably somewhere in the region between £80,000 and £100,000 here.

As a financial investigator,

Derek's suspicions were aroused.

He looked closer at the company Thomas Scragg ran, Moya,

a payroll firm who handled accounts for construction companies

and Derek found where Scragg's endless supply of money was coming from.

Looking at their bank accounts, it was quite apparent that there was

millions of pounds that's going through the bank account,

which actually was quite alarming.

And that required further investigation,

which eventually identified that it was a fraud

that was being perpetrated against HMRC

in the theft of VAT and PAYE.

Derek had discovered Tommy Scragg's company never paid any VAT,

and that they weren't passing on

employees' PAYE contributions to the government.

Instead, that money was being pocketed by Scragg.

It added up to millions of pounds,

so it was no wonder Tommy Scragg seemed to be living the high life.

Derek had seen enough,

and nine months after the investigation started,

West Midlands Police raided Tommy's home.

What they found stunned them.

When we went in, we found lots of sporting memorabilia,

there was cash and high-value jewellery such as Rolexes,

you know, strewn across the property.

And I think it was a bit of a surprise,

the extent of the value of jewellery and memorabilia

that was at the house, it was quite surprising.

So as we went through the house,

and we were searching the house for evidence of the offence,

it was quite apparent that there was designer clothing,

there was lots of designer shoes, designer handbags,

high-value vehicles such as Bentleys and Mercedes on the drive.

There was cash strewn in all sorts of places,

even the bedside table, you know, in the bedroom,

expensive jewellery such as Rolexes.

The sort of lifestyle that Thomas Scragg and his family were living

can only be described as the champagne,

high-value end of life, really.

Following on from the raid at his house, Tommy Scragg was arrested.

Prior to his trial, police wanted to question him about money.

Officers asked Mr Scragg, effectively,

"We're going to now move on to questions in relation to you

"and your personal finances now.

"Do you own that property?"

He replied, "No comment."

"Do you have a mortgage on that property?"

"No comment."

"Is it solely in your name?" "No comment."

"What's the value of that property?" "No comment."

"And what's the current mortgage on that property?"

"No comment."

"Who is the mortgage held with?"

There was just silence.

But on the back of Derek's investigation,

a judge determined that Scragg was guilty of not paying

an astounding £26 million of VAT and PAYE payments.

The judge gave Scragg a 17-year jail sentence,

and ordered him to repay £1 million to the state,

which was all the money Scragg was deemed to have left.

It was one of the highest sentences

any person, for fraud, has received in the UK.

With Thomas Scragg, all of his known assets such as his watches,

you know, and all his sporting memorabilia

was auctioned off in order to satisfy his confiscation order,

and other assets, such as his house and vehicles, were repossessed.

So in effect, Tommy Scragg has got none of the benefits

from his criminality any more.

And of course, his assets were all put up for auction and sold off.

But for Derek, it's all about detecting the fraud.

The quality of the investigation, you know,

it is a success moment for the whole investigation team.

The Proceeds of Crime Act has been used

to tackle some of the UK's biggest fraudsters,

but victims on the south coast found the law just as useful

for getting their money back from a local rogue trader.

Often, the Proceeds of Crime Act is used to bring major fraudsters

and drug dealers down to financial size.

But it worked just as well when Trading Standards discovered

a local conman who was targeting the elderly.

92-year-old Joan Davis was tricked into believing her roof needed

extensive repair work by a rogue roofer named John Gray.

Her daughter Val remembers what happened.

He told her that the tiles were thinning,

and really, she needed a new roof,

and that would cost £70,000 to £80,000.

She let the chap in,

and let him into the roof to have a look,

where he took some pictures,

apparently on something like a tablet or a smartphone,

she wasn't sure what it was.

But apparently, this showed, "Bloom on the timbers," he said,

which was caused by salt blowing in through cracks.

But conman John Gray and his firm, named RoofRevivers,

offered to help her out.

He said, "Well, there is an alternative.

"I have got this special coating we can put on,

"and that should be £20,000 to £24,000,

"just to put the coating on. But of course,

"it would be that much cheaper than the £70,000 to £80,000

"that the full roof replacement would cost.

"But I could give you a discount for this and a discount for that,"

and eventually, he got it down to about £8,000.

But he said, "But you've got to make up your mind straightaway."

RoofRevivers shouldn't have been pressuring

92-year-old Joan in this way.

But she decided to cough up £8,000

to repair a roof that didn't need any work.

She was furious with me.

She didn't want to accept that this had happened.

It was very, very difficult to convince her.

Very painful, lots of rows and horrible conversations

with her putting the phone down on me.

And I thought she was actually going to put up the shutters and say,

"I don't want to see you ever again." It was very, very upsetting.

Very upsetting for her, and for me as well.

And she wasn't the only one.

The local Trading Standards team received numerous complaints

about John Gray, and how he was misleading elderly homeowners

that he could work wonders with their roofs,

then was pocketing thousands of their cash for his own use.

Trading Standards decided to use the Proceeds Of Crime law

to see if they could get back the money

from John Gray's painting scam.

There were various claims made about the coloured paint

that were too good to be true.

No paint is going to do that,

which was proved in our evidence.

It was just a coloured paint.

I think it really damaged her self-confidence.

In many ways, it was as bad as a physical attack,

as bad as a mugging, because...

..she had thought she could trust her mind, trust her judgment,

and she'd fallen for a trickster.

Trading Standards carried out a full investigation of John Gray

and his cons, and as a result,

he was jailed for eight months.

But they were after more.

We decided to take a Proceeds Of Crime investigation,

and we looked to get back the money

that the consumers had been paid,

and we were successfully able to get a compensation order

so that the victims that were involved in the case

were able to get a substantial amount of their money back.

And the Proceeds of Crime investigation

turned the screw on John Gray.

A further search by the County Council's financial investigator

unearthed more than £16,000,

which a judge ordered Gray to hand over to his victims.

Sadly, Joan passed away just weeks before Grey's trial,

and didn't get to see the justice she so deserved.

She died five weeks before the trial.

I think she would have been relieved, yes,

to know that he was jailed, and also

that a fair bit of money was recovered.

This was a terrific result for Trading Standards.

It's a sign to the traders out there that crime doesn't pay,

you may have to serve your time in prison,

but also, you're going to have to repay

some of the money to the victims as well.

Trading Standards have done an amazing job

under the Proceeds of Crime Act,

and have recovered just over half my mother's money.

And that, I think, is a wonderful thing.

The Proceeds of Crime Act can help the vulnerable and elderly

recover money they've had stolen.

But it can also help community projects,

like this one in South Wales.

One area of the country that's seen its share of problems with crime

is Blaina, near Gwynedd in Wales.

Richard Sean knows the area well - he grew up here.

Blaina's always been a tough area,

same as all the surrounding towns,

your Abertillery, your Brynmawr, Six Bells.

They're all mining communities.

There's high unemployment in the area,

there's not a lot of money,

there's no money coming in and being invested into the area,

so, yeah, it's a tough area, and I think kids have been brought up,

they've had to fight, really, from a very, very young age.

It's the sort of place where extra activities can help pass the time,

and 20 years ago, Richard took up martial arts.

Started off with judo and karate.

For the past 15 years,

I've been training jujitsu boxing and mixed martial arts.

Something I do every day of my life.

So it's a lifestyle as well as anything else.

There's not a lot of work here.

Male unemployment is double the British average.

The only business doing well locally is the boarding-up business.

An atmosphere like this can be a driver for crime.

But Richard had other ideas.

Lots of people have left the area over the years, you know...

Myself, I decided to stay put and open my own martial arts academy.

And it was a justified decision,

I think we're doing really well at the moment.

We started off in a little cellar under a nightclub,

there was 12 of us.

The club's just gone from strength to strength.

More and more people getting involved,

youngsters taking themselves off the street,

coming in and doing something positive.

Nine years on, we're up in Blaina.

We've gone from a population of 12 to 60, 70 students now

and it's been something really positive for the area.

But like everything else in Blaina, the club began to run out of money.

The club hit a crossroads a while back,

inasmuch as everything was worn and torn,

the equipment had had its day, a lot of the stuff we had was handed down,

or purchased second-hand.

We were getting no investment, no funding off anybody,

none of the councils were willing to help.

We didn't have any option of taking the club to the next level,

so we were at risk of closing, to be honest.

With no money to spend,

it was looking like another business in Blaina would be closing down.

But there was a rare ray of light in this former mining town.

I was at home one day on the computer,

and had a message on Facebook

off somebody that I hadn't spoken to for many years,

just saying, he thought it was great what we were doing with the club,

and what we were doing with the community.

And I responded with, you know,

we're at a bit of a crossroads, really,

contemplating closing the gym down

because of the lack of facilities there.

And he told me that the Proceeds of Crime Act

were handing out funding through the police.

Richard's local Police And Crime Commissioner ran a scheme

whereby local groups could apply for money

to help boost their activities.

Richard filled in the forms online

and put in an application for funding for the club.

It was a long few months, waiting for the decision off the police

to decide whether we would be awarded funding.

The club was on its knees,

but their application had made it through to the Commissioner.

A couple months after we put the application in,

I received a phone call off a lovely lady telling me that

we'd been awarded the whole amount, the whole £5,000,

which really took me aback, to be honest,

did not expect it at all.

Over the moon, really pleased.

It just meant I could really give the place a revamp,

we could provide, particularly some of the higher-level lads,

with the facility they needed to push on to the next level

within their martial arts journey as well.

With Proceeds of Crime money behind them,

the club's sporting success really took off.

And now local Blaina kids had a very physical, but very worthwhile,

place to spend their time.

And now, the club has a thriving membership.

We've established ourselves now as

probably one of the top-tier teams in Europe.

We've got British champions at every single belt level,

from white up to black.

We've got medallists at European level,

at various belt levels. We've got three fighters, now,

which are currently ranked in the top ten in Europe.

We've got the facility, we've got the numbers,

we've got a good student base, we're getting bigger and bigger.

We've got affiliation clubs in different areas, down in Cardiff,

over in Blaenavon, for example.

We've got people travelling from all over to come and train with us

so I really think it's just a matter of time before we get somebody

into the UFC, and we just continue to grow as we are,

still putting people out there, competing regularly

and winning gold medals.

And one young fighter the club has trained

is really making a name for himself on the club circuit.

Jack Marshman used to get in trouble with the police,

but now he's rated as one of Europe's top MMA competitors.

I train here twice a day, six times a week,

so it is brilliant,

we've got tonnes of pros that we train with, it's a brilliant gym.

Jack has turned his back on his old life and has really thrown himself

into being a top-notch competitive sportsman with the club's help.

I've been with Richard for...

..maybe 11 years now, you know,

since I was a kid, and I definitely wouldn't be where I was going to be

if it wasn't for him.

Yeah, I think I am a contender.

I'm one of the highest ranked Welsh fighters in Europe,

and my next fight will probably see me a world title shot,

to be honest with you, so it's going there.

Mixed martial arts is such a growth sport that big international clubs

have massive facilities for their fighters to train in.

And Tillery Combat needs to do what it can

to provide the best facilities.

If I want to grow as a fighter, I'm going to need a gym

with these sort of people in, and the coaches that we've got

and training partners we've got.

Having had a boost of cash from the criminals' coffers,

the club is going from strength to strength.

Without it, we wouldn't be here doing what we're doing today,

so they've given us a facility

that's comparable with anywhere, now, in the UK,

so without the funding from the Police Commissioners,

we wouldn't be where we are today. We'd be closed, probably.

Drug dealers across the country lose millions of pounds every year

because financial investigators seize their assets,

and the police can take anything

they believe was bought with illegal money.

Watches, jewellery and cars are often the type of possessions seized

by police from criminals to sell onto a proceeds of crime auction.

But staff at the auction house are seeing a new trend emerging.

Instead of giving them bling to sell,

the police are sending them a criminal's art collection.

Yeah, what we find is you can notice the trends.

Five, ten years ago, it was all about sort of

the standard stereotypical bling items,

the diamonds and the jewellery.

What we find now is people who have money,

whether it's illegally or not, are still looking for

a more sound investment as somewhere to put their money,

and what they've found, with people like Banksy coming on the scene,

is that an investment in modern art is as good as an investment

in the stereotypical Rolex or the gold bars.

These stills were taken by officers

that had just raided the flat of a drug dealer in Brighton.

Unsurprisingly, police found evidence of drugs being in the flat,

just as their investigations had suggested.

But the gear hanging on the walls was a surprise.

You may not recognise any of the artworks this dealer had,

but it's highly desirable work on the contemporary scene,

and is worth thousands.

Proceeds of Crime expert Mick Beattie knows the case.

The art was seized as part of an investigation into an individual,

Trevor Baker. When they searched his house, they found controlled drugs

and he was convicted in relation to those.

Part of his financial investigation into his life circumstances,

they identified he had substantial amounts of money

going through bank accounts.

They also found evidence that he was trying to launder this money

he was making, no doubt from the drug trafficking, through artwork.

Modern art is a viable asset.

What you want, as a criminal, is you want to put your money somewhere,

either you want to spend it,

so you either want something of status and symbolism,

or you want something that's a sound investment.

And following an investigation,

the owner of this rather ill-kept flat was guilty of drug dealing

and ordered to repay a hefty £50,000

that a judge said he'd made in profits.

Police have already taken his car off him,

and now his art is up for sale.

It's no longer hanging on his wall.

Instead, it's hanging up here, at the auction house,

with potential buyers hoping to snap it up at a good price.

One of the most significant lots from the dealer's collection is

this rather eye-catching piece called Hammerheadz by James Cauty.

And auctioneer Aidan Larkin is about to find out what it will go for.

This one's called Hammerheadz.

Very, very collectable,

and we know there's quite a few online waiting to buy this,

so who will kick me off?

£50, I'm bid. Bid in at £50.

Gentleman's bid at £50.

I have 100 online now, I have 100 online.

150? At £150, it's with the online bidder, Hammerheadz.

150, it's in the hall now.

200, now, against you.

250, 300.

Gormley's said 2,000-5,000.

It's with the online bidder at £300.

350. At 450, it's in the hall,

at £450,

it's with the hall bidder now at £450, and you bid £500.

New bidder, 550, online, straight in again.

575 here.

600, new bid.

625.

650. 675?

Shakes the head, it's here at 650.

It's a new bidder at £650 once,

650 twice, third and last...

-HE TAPS HAMMER

-Sold.

Hammerheadz went very well.

The modern art has such a strong following.

There's always a bit of uncertainty

with those particular types of items,

because they really are bespoke pieces.

You have to find the right buyers,

but with a good, steady sort of marketing campaign beforehand,

we're very pleased to see there was a lot of competitive bidding,

people were bidding online,

people were bidding in the hall and it did very well in the end.

And it seems experts from the art world are not at all surprised

that edgy, contemporary work is looking good to criminals.

They think art values are only going one way.

Current contemporary market at the moment's just fantastic, you know,

it just keeps going up and up and up,

especially in the street art

or urban art sort of genre, if you like.

I think it's potentially the biggest movement of our times,

the street art movement.

And that reflects in the market.

And currently, the market is what is happening right here at this

Proceeds of Crime auction of the jailed dealer's art.

Potential buyers are showing considerable interest,

and whatever gets bid on the works here

will be returned to the government.

Operation Magic Kingdom - War Can Be Fun, again, artist James Cauty.

Let's kick things off. It's unreserved.

£500 anywhere?

£500 I'm bid.

Bid in at £500 on the Cauty.

At £600, gentlemen's bid at 600.

At £600, shakes the head, 700, new bid online.

At 700, 800 seated.

It's in the hall, that's valued at 800, 900.

950, new bid.

At £950.

£1,000, one online bidder.

Shakes the head. It's at £1,000.

Valued from 2,000-5,000 up with Gormley's.

1,050, I knew you were thinking about it.

At £1,050 once...

1,050 twice, third and last...

HE TAPS HAMMER

Magic Kingdom, it was by the same artist as Hammerheadz,

and what you find in an auction,

when you achieve a certain price with a certain artist,

then other peepers, other speculators,

will then all of a sudden realise...

"Hmm, I'd be interested in buying that as well."

So it also did very, very well and exceeded our expectations.

By the end of the auction,

the sale of various artworks has raised an impressive £1,700.

The public purse has made a pretty penny

from some not-so-pretty pictures.

Selling off a drug dealer's paintings

can raise money through Proceeds of Crime,

and some of that money can go back into the community,

as this charity found out.

Seagulls Reuse was set up in 2013

by two friends looking to stop unnecessary waste in the area.

They never imagined they'd wind up getting help

from money seized from criminals.

In Leeds alone,

tonnes of unused paint were being chucked out every year.

And they had a novel idea of how to prevent this.

Back in the days when there weren't any green recycling bins

or, really, any awareness of recycling and re-use,

we thought we could do something about that.

Our belief's always been that one man's rubbish is another's gold,

and, you know, why couldn't we make money out of rubbish

for ourselves and for others, really?

Somebody came up with the idea of paint and we sort of

hounded the council, for want of a better word.

-I think they saw that we were passionate, didn't they?

-Yeah.

-And that we weren't going to...

-Weren't going to give up.

We weren't going to give up and go anywhere,

-so they might as well work with us, I suppose.

-Yeah.

With some paint on the market at £30 a pot,

and with the average household owning 17 tins,

Cat and Kat wanted to use the leftover paint

and remix it to sell as a cheaper alternative.

This enterprising pair wanted to see the waste repurposed

and offer a scheme which would have a positive impact on the community.

Our passion has always been people, as well as the planet,

as cheesy as that sounds.

We like to think that we do grow people,

so people can come to us with very low self-esteem,

very low confidence.

They think they have no skills,

although that's actually usually rubbish.

I think what we excel at here is that there's an individual programme

for each person and it's their needs that are met in terms of

what they do here and how they progress.

Me being a single mum when I first came to Leeds, you know,

I got involved in a voluntary project and it really helped me

in building confidence and making me feel worthwhile,

and we just wanted to pass that down to everybody else,

and we live in an area where there's a lot of need for that,

and there's a lot of people who were looking for things to do

and support, and the right kind of support,

and I think that's really important.

Running this paint recycling plant isn't cheap.

Seagulls needed to raise money to keep the scheme going,

and re-use what would otherwise have been thrown away.

We didn't quite know it at the time, but the process of

collecting the paint, mixing the paint, selling the paint,

it takes a lot of people power and a lot of people energy, really.

In 2015, the local Police And Crime Commissioner

was offering cash seized from criminals to help local groups.

Seagulls weren't sure if they could get funding,

but put in an application.

It was a mighty relief when they received £5,000

that would help keep them working.

Our volunteer programme does rely on external funding.

We can't support that just from the work we do within the enterprise,

so it's vital, really, that we get funds like the Proceeds of Crime.

-And it does really makes sense, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

To have the Proceeds of Crime money to go back into projects

like ourselves, who are working with people

who, A, have either been in prison

or B, have a risk of going into prison,

so that we could make sure we were engaging with as many ex-offenders

-as we could.

-It's very difficult for them to engage elsewhere,

so they tend to stay with us indefinitely.

We've got quite a high retention rate here.

Yeah, people don't like to leave us, do they?

The group are known for their distinctive vehicles.

Driving the pink van today is Ruksar,

a former low-level offender who has turned his life around and is now

working at Seagulls and benefiting from their Proceeds of Crime money.

I was in a resettlement prison, an open prison,

so I was given the opportunity to improve my skill set, you know,

to gain... Well, you know, to get work.

Part of that was going to college, which I learnt a trade,

which was decorating, and I started volunteering at Seagulls.

That's a good one, mate. That's bad.

It's good and it creates opportunity,

it creates sort of training.

If you want to change, it gives you that platform

and the opportunity to change.

So this is our paint store.

As you can see, a load of paint has come in.

We've got volunteers and employees, they're all mixing the paint,

so it comes in, it gets separated into type,

and then it gets mixed up.

You get a blob of colour on the top and it goes on the shelves.

Through their two shops,

Seagulls serve over 10,000 customers per year,

and with paint on sale for as little as £1.70 per litre,

it's affordable for everyone.

It's a bit of a bargain, and everyone's really nice and friendly,

and everyone's helpful and they can mix colours that you want, and...

Yeah, it's really nice.

-See you later.

-Bye.

The charity has also had a more obvious impact on the community

through the murals the volunteers have made on the streets,

and it was all helped along by the Proceeds of Crime Act.

There was a project to get people involved in volunteering,

and members of the local community to get involved with Seagulls

and to create something beautiful for the local area.

We're all about helping people,

be that someone who might well have got into trouble with the law,

be that someone with a mental health problem or a learning disability,

we try to make people from all different backgrounds work together

and create amazing projects like you see behind me,

and without the Proceeds of Crime money helping us do that,

we wouldn't be able to fulfil our aims

and work with as many people as we do.

For Proceeds of Crime money to be spent on good causes,

an asset first has to be sold,

and there's very high expectations for one top-of-the-range item

that's about to go under the hammer.

Earlier on, we saw how these two drug dealers,

Mahboob Alam and Mohammad Aslam, were arrested by police.

Officers believed the dealers had made as much as £6 million

selling cocaine and heroin on the streets of Bradford.

For their crime, the two men were sent to prison

for 17 years and seven years respectively,

but the law didn't just stop at jailing them.

West Yorkshire Asset Recovery Enforcement Team

looked into what property and goods the men had amassed.

They discovered that one of the men owned a whole street of houses

in Bradford, all bought with profits from drug dealing.

They forced him to sell off the entire street

and return the money to the public purse.

And his fellow Bradford drug dealer, Mohammad Aslam,

was found to have this on his wrist,

a £25,000 Rolex watch.

The police seized it and have put it up for sale here.

Group Asset Recovery Manager Aidan Larkin

is expecting a busy room.

People just like the fun of the fair and the sort of razzmatazz

of the auction, to see everything that's happening.

And Aidan knows that this particular item

is one of the true heavyweights of the watch world.

Particularly brands like Rolex there,

they have a worldwide following, so if you can take that watch,

whatever you pay for it, any country in the world,

you can still use that as a currency.

You could go in and trade in that watch,

be you in Hong Kong or London or New York,

it'll always have its value in any currency.

But this watch stands out even amongst the Rolex brand.

Lot 83 is a Rolex Oyster.

It's brand-new. It still has the original cellophane and plastic

around the watch, box, papers, it's in perfect condition.

A watch like this, particularly in 18-carat rose gold,

rose gold is very desirable

and it's the current fashion of a lot of watchmakers,

so this watch will easily go past £10,000 at the auction.

And that's good news, because the money made from the watch

will go back to the government to be spent on policing and good causes,

but what will it fetch?

Lot number 83,

the Rolex.

There's one 18-carat rose gold case with a rose dial

and an 18-carat rose gold oyster bracelet.

This is a very nice piece in for sale.

Box and papers are supplied with the watch.

Cost new of the watch was £25,100.

I'm getting 8,000...

Straight away, the bidding has shot up

close to what the auctioneers were hoping for.

£10,000,

bidding at ten, bidding at 10,000, £11,000 online.

At 11,000. At 11,000, 12,000...

Now it's beaten their estimate.

£13,000, bidding at 13, bid online, 13,000.

14 online. 14,000. At £14,000, bidding in at 14,

bidding in at £14,000 all done. 14,000 and I sell online...

And 14,500 it is. 14,500.

At 14,500, bidding in at 14,500.

Bidding in at 14,500.

At 14,500. Hammer's up, going once,

twice...

-14,500.

-That's one happy buyer.

He's just got a £24,000 watch still in its original packaging,

but sold to him for just over £14,000.

And although the money to buy this watch the first time round

came from drug dealing, this time round,

the money will return to the public purse.

Even when criminals are behind bars,

they're still paying off their debt to society.

And when they come out, if they haven't cleared that debt,

the police will continue to hunt down their ill-gotten gains.