POLICE seized more than three quarters of a million pounds in cash and goods from criminals operating in the county last year.

Officers now have the powers to apply to the courts to confiscate criminal assets such as houses, cash, jewellery and cars which have been obtained through criminal activities.

Last year, police seized goods and cash with a total value of £843,310 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

And while this is passed onto the Home Office, North Yorkshire Police received a grant back totalling £256,316.

This cash has been used to fund the force’s Why Should They? campaign, which provides cash to local groups and charities and encourages people to report known criminals who have lifestyles funded through theft, drug dealing, shoplifting, fraud and money laundering.

The cash also contributes to the costs of the force’s financial investigation unit which investigate criminals’ ill-gotten gains.

Last year officers with the force’s financial investigation unit scored their biggest-ever victory when disgraced limousine firm boss and drugs kingpin Dave Black was ordered to repay £354,000 of the cash he pocketed from cocaine dealing.

Black, already serving ten years in prison, was given six months to repay the money or face the prospect of an extra three-and-a-half years being added to his jail term.

Meanwhile, brothel keeper Barry Abrahams was ordered to pay back £267,806, while Trevor Alfred Morris, who was part of a £1.4 million plot to defraud Aviva, was ordered to repay £69,000 or have a further 18 months added to his two-and-a-half year sentence for money-laundering.

North Yorkshire Police and the Local Criminal Justice Board launched the Why Should They? campaign in May last year.

Among the groups to have benefited financially from the campaign include the Priory Street Centre in York, the Harrogate and Knaresborough Toy Library and the Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team.