North's top crime buster 'to quit'

The North’s top crime buster is expected to quit, it was revealed tonight.

With his Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) due to to merge with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in the UK next year, Alan McQuillan is planning to leave.

Its understood he will not be replaced in Belfast – raising fears for the future of the developing offensive to seize the assets and recover cash from suspected criminals and racketeers.

Mr McQuillan, 52, the former acting deputy RUC chief constable, was unavailable for comment but sources tonight confirmed he will stand down as the agency’s director for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Soca will be run from London after the merger next April and although it is believed there are no plans at this stage to downsize the Northern Ireland staff, Mr McQuillan’s departure will be seen as a major setback.

He has headed up the agency since it was established in the North in February 2003 and it had been widely anticipated he would stay on after the merger.

But a source said tonight: “He doesn’t see himself having any role in the new set-up.”

Dozens of suspects, including paramilitaries allegedly linked to drugs, fuel and cigarette smuggling, money laundering and counterfeiting, have been pursued by Mr McQuillan through the Northern Ireland High Court as part of the clampdown on crime proceeds.

With an estimated 113 criminal enterprises disrupted, almost £40 million in assets have been frozen by legal action, although just £1.5 million in cash has been recovered since his appointment.

Soca – dubbed Britain’s FBI – will bring together more than 4,000 police, customs, financial and immigration experts who will use international agencies to identify links between illegal gangs in the UK and abroad.

There will be about 120 staff based in 40 countries worldwide working as liaison officers.

The director general is Bill Hughes, former head of the UK's National Crime Squad, with ex-MI5 boss Stephen Lander as chairman.

Even though the British government insisted there would be no let-up in the North post-Soca, senior British police chiefs had expressed misgivings about the merger and the impact the changes could have in the fight against crime.

There are also serious concerns that under the new management arrangements, the person in charge of the Belfast office will not be operating at the same level as Mr McQuillan when he was an ARA deputy director.

The Democratic Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, Jeffrey Donaldson, said the North could ill afford to lose a man of Mr McQuillan’s calibre in the battle to identify and target gangsters who have avoided criminal prosecutions.

He added: “Questions have to be asked about the reasons why he is departing and if there are any issues about the new arrangements and the impact they will have in getting to grips with organised crime in Northern Ireland and the residue of paramilitarism.

“We need answers from the government and there must be no let-up in the campaign to track down and seize assets from these criminals.”