Evading justice

When such serious criminals are brought to justice, they must not only be stripped of their liberty but they also need to lose their luxury lifestyles to demonstrate that crime does not pay.

It is, therefore, perturbing that the justice system has only recovered a tiny fraction of the 174m that criminals have been ordered to repay in the past five years.

However, this failure has only come to light after the Crown Prosecution Service was forced to reveal the identities of 45 criminals who have each been ordered to repay 1m or more to the taxpayer.

While this rogues' gallery of captured VAT tax fraudsters, cigarette smugglers and Class-A drug traffickers does show that police and courts can crack organised crime, it also highlights alarming problems in recovering the assets involved.

Legal experts say that more than 100m of the outstanding amount is hidden, with much of it overseas.

Another 20m is tied up by receivers after the collapse of illicit business empires when the criminals were convicted.

The work of recovering money from criminal networks is by its very nature complex and time- consuming, but it will be very difficult for ordinary, law-abiding citizens to understand why eight criminals have still to repay a single penny of the 1m that they each owe.

As such, there needs to be the fullest possible appraisal of this case – and of whether the CPS needs extra resources, or powers, to start obtaining this money at the earliest opportunity.