Criminal Justice Act, 1994

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Assessing the proceeds of drug trafficking.

5.—(1) For the purposes of this Act—

(a) any payments or other rewards received by a person at any time (whether before or after the commencement of section 4 of this Act) in connection with drug trafficking carried on by him or another are his proceeds of drug trafficking, and

(b) the value of his proceeds of drug trafficking is the aggregate of the values of the payments or other rewards.

(2) The court shall, for the purpose of determining whether the defendant has benefited from drug trafficking and, if he has, of assessing the value of his proceeds of drug trafficking, make the assumptions set out in subsection (4) of this section except that the court shall not make any of the said assumptions if—

(a) the assumption is shown to be incorrect in the case of the defendant, or

(b) it is satisfied that there would be a serious risk of injustice in his case if the assumption were to be made.

(3) Where the court does not apply one or more of the assumptions set out in subsection (4) of this section it shall state its reasons.

(4) The assumptions referred to in subsection (2) of this section are—

(a) that any property appearing to the court—

(i) to have been held by the defendant at any time since his conviction, or

(ii) to have been transferred to him at any time since the beginning of the period of 6 years ending when the proceedings were instituted against him,

was received by him, at the earliest time at which he appears to the court to have held it, as a payment or reward in connection with drug trafficking carried on by him,

(b) that any expenditure of his since the beginning of that period was met out of payments received by him in connection with drug trafficking carried on by him, and

(c) that, for the purpose of valuing any property received or assumed to have been received by him at any time as such a reward, he received the property free of any other interests in it.

(5) For the purpose of assessing the value of the defendant's proceeds of drug trafficking in a case where a confiscation order has previously been made against him, the court shall not take into account any of his proceeds of drug trafficking that are shown to the court to have been taken into account in determining the amount to be recovered under that order.