As a drug-trafficking helicopter, houses, cars and cash seizures add up to a record year for B.C.’s civil forfeiture program, government is granting $5.5 million of the proceeds to support local crime prevention efforts throughout the province in 2011-12.

The new grant funding will support projects that reduce youth involvement in gangs, prevent violence against women and children, and further crime prevention. The new funding is possible due to exceptional growth in the civil forfeiture program’s proceeds. Year to date, civil forfeiture has taken in $10.8 million - more than double the $4.8 million in all of 2010-11, and more than is needed to sustain the self-funding program.

The new grant money is in addition to funding provided for 35 projects last fall, which means the total amount going to groups in 2011-12 is $6.1 million. Earlier, the Province announced $500,000 through the Crime Remediation and Crime Prevention Grant Program and $100,000 through the Domestic Violence Prevention Response Fund. Examples of projects supported through those grants include:

• The introduction of a violence-prevention curriculum at six Lower Mainland schools.
• Six projects focused on preventing domestic violence and on services for victims of domestic violence.
• A one-day workshop in Campbell River for North Island service providers focused on the issue of sexual exploitation.
• Support for a rediscovery program in Prince Rupert that teaches Haida culture in the context of crime and violence prevention.
• An awareness-raising campaign delivering an anti-gang message in Kelowna.

Active since April 2006, B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Office (CFO) counters the profit motive that is behind much unlawful activity. The office files civil court actions against property that is alleged to be a tool used to further unlawful activity or a proceed of it.

In its first year, the office saw five cases settled and almost $800,000 in assets forfeited. Today, the highly successful program has concluded more than 400 cases - most with ties to drug trafficking and organized crime. High-value, notable cases concluded in 2011-12 have involved:

• A number of Victoria homes and cash seized from a kilogram-level drug dealer.
• $340,000 forfeited by a self-proclaimed “holistic healer” and paid out to five medical fraud victims, including a woman nearly killed by arsenic poisoning and rendered quadriplegic.
• $400,000 police seized as a result of a money laundering scheme used by a known drug trafficker.
• The CFO and the BC Securities Commission working together to reunite 37 Canadians with $190,121 they lost to fraud through a Ponzi scheme.
• An unregistered Bell helicopter seized from suspected drug traffickers.
• $316,000 seized at the Canadian border from an individual possessing 57 kg of cocaine.
• An Abbotsford grow-operation with more than 400 plants and $191,000 of proceeds. 
• A Vancouver grow-operation with more than 500 marijuana plants.

All grant funds will be paid out by March 31. Details of application processes will be available on Feb. 10 at: www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/crimeprevention/grants/index.htm

Quick Facts:

• Of the more than 850 cases police have referred to the program since its inception in 2006, the CFO has acted on 609. Of those, two-thirds are concluded.
• Today, more than 200 cases are ongoing.
• The Province anticipates issuing another call for grant proposals in 2012-13.

Learn More:

Read details of grants provided last fall:
www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011PSSG0132-001401.htm

View news releases containing more details of the Ponzi scheme and medical fraud cases referenced above:
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011PSSG0075-000674.htm
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011PSSG0141-001469.htm

Read about the forfeited Hummer that Abbotsford Police use to help deliver anti-gang information to local youth:
www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011PSSG0020-000157.htm

Contact:
Government Communications and Public Engagement
Ministry of Justice
250 356-6961