Three seized NI properties in drug traffickers portfolio

THREE properties in Bangor are among a multi-million pound property portfolio purchased with “dirty money” by a drugs trafficking gang.

The portfolio, worth an estimated £17million, has been seized and sold following a National Crime Agency investigation lasting more than eight years.

The NCA carried out four connected civil recovery investigations into dozens of properties suspected of being financially linked to a group of heroin dealers operating out of east Birmingham. The inquiry, which initially began in 2011, ran alongside a separate criminal investigation which led to three of the gang’s ringleaders and five associates being jailed for a total of 139 years at Birmingham Crown Court in 2017.

In all, the NCA uncovered a spider’s web of 59 properties, including industrial premises, terraced houses and even one commercial unit which had been turned into a gym, mainly in the West Midlands.

NCA say the properties in Bangor were on Victoria Road and Albert Street. In some cases, the gang seems to have set its sights on “buying up roads”, an NCA official said, owning five or six houses in three different Birmingham streets.

None of the addresses were purchased in the names of the criminals, but were each proven beyond reasonable doubt before a High Court judge to be purchases linked to the proceeds of drug importation and supply, fraud and money laundering.

There is no evidence any of the owners of the seized properties themselves were involved in any criminal activity, the NCA said. All the addresses seized have now been sold or are being sold, with the proceeds split between the Treasury and the NCA, where it is used to help the fight against serious organised crime.