Police use eBay to raise £1.5m selling seized assets

LEICESTERSHIRE Police has made almost £1.5m by flogging designer goods seized from criminals for knock down prices - on eBay.

Leicestershire Police was the first in the UK to use the auction site to sell assets which were paid for with cash generated through criminal activity.

The force’s economic crime unit seizes everything from high-end jewellery and designer clothes to luxury sports cars and houses under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Bargain hunters visiting their eBay ‘shop’ have snapped up Rolex watches as well as designer handbags made by Mulberry and Louis Vuitton.

Officers have also sold shoes by world-famous designers Christian Louboutin and Vivienne Westwood on the auction website.

Recently a men’s Rolex 18-carat Gold Sky Dweller sold for £21,600, while a Rolex Submariner watch worth £5,000 new was sold for £4,650.

Other items sold this year include a convertible Audi A4 for £4,495 and a BMW 120D Sport for £1,750.

Incredibly, the force once sold a plane which had belonged to a drug trafficker on their eBay account - which has a 100 per cent seller rating from more than 3,500 feedback ratings.

The Zenair Zodiac aircraft, which was used to transport cocaine with a street value of £1.7 million, sold for £17,200 in 2013.

Leicestershire Police opened shop in September 2009 and has since sold more than 6,000 items for a collective £1,481,422.

The sales include 475 goods worth £115,271 between April and October last year.

The cash generated is shared between the force, the Home Office, the Crown Prosecution Service as well as being used as compensation to victims of crimes.

Paul Wenlock, the head of the economic crime unit at Leicestershire Police, said: “We are continually working to take the cash out of crime and to target people who are benefitting financially from criminal activity.”