The UWO must target an individual who is either: Politically exposed (e.g. (ex)leaders and senior officials of a country and their families) or Reasonably Believed to be involved in Serious Crime (e.g. bank robbers) and whose wealth lacks an apparent explanation. If the target either can't or won't explain their wealth it may be seized.
UWOs are supposed to be reformed to make them work even when you've paid lawyers to make the apparent ownership very opaque. Right now if you're benefiting from an opaque "trust" arrangement maybe spanning several countries it may be impossible to show how that wealth is really "yours" legally, without the co-operation you would have been required to show as part of the UWO.
In practice it often happens, as I understand it, that the UWO target decides the best way out is to just hand over the wealth, because the real answer to "Why do you have this wealth?" is "I did a bunch of crimes" and that is a confession of crime, for which you might do prison time, and either they don't trust lawyers or the lawyers they hired couldn't come up with another story that would hold water.
Sadly the current (Tory) and former (Tory, Tory, and Tory back many years now) UK governments have been much better at talking up their commitment to transparency than at actually taking any steps to prevent the UK (and especially London) functioning as a laundromat and dormitory for crooks to wash their dirty money and sleep comfortably knowing the people they stole from can't reach them...
I guess that's strictly "better" than the nearly-zero-recourse civil forfeiture travesty we have here in the US, but... still not great.
Is it unreasonable that law enforcement asks how did you aquire an amount of money that is greater than you could ever earn in your lifetime?
it's nearly the same mechanism as what was used against alcapone to jail him for inocme tax evasion -> he had access to absurd amount of wealth, and there is no way the could have aquired it legally.
Triggering the investigation is fine and reasonable.
Confiscating the wealth without evidence of a crime is the issue.
Civil Asset Forfeiture in the US is regularly confiscating not tens of millions of dollars, but mere thousands of dollars for the simple reason of it being in cash. And this case is even worse - the cash was not on anyone's person out in public, but in a safe deposit box, not doing anything in particular.
Sometimes the case is never brought to trial [1]; in other cases the owner of the assets is never even charged with a crime [2]. When the forfeiture creates a financial burden [3] or the asset has the potential for depreciation [3], the accused may have even a financial incentive to settle rather than go to trial.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31446215
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588268
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10365463
[4] https://cre.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/37_2_3_Federal_Fo...
I'd much rather live in a place where that dang mobster that "no one can touch" gets a little rich and evades the law (until that day he doesn't), than to live in a dystopian totalitarian mega-state (e.g. China).
> Is it unreasonable that law enforcement asks how did you aquire an amount of money that is greater than you could ever earn in your lifetime?
Yes, very much so. It's very, very, incredibly dangerous to fall into the trap of allowing a system that asks someone to prove their innocence and that is exactly what your question is asking.
> it's nearly the same mechanism as what was used against alcapone to jail him for income (sic) tax evasion
Nearly the same is not the same. In other words, it'd be OK to check that the $10,000,000 dollar bank account owner did pay taxes on it. If not, well, ooof. But also, how do we know he had a $10M bank account in the first place? That info had better be obtained legally too.
Scenario:
John Doe has 10 million dollars appear in his bank account. No evidence that it was obtained legally and no evidence that any taxes were ever paid.
Option IRS/Alcapone - he goes to jail for Tax evasion
Option 'Unexplained Wealth Order' - UK government seizes assets because they should it could not be obtained legally. He is still free and out and about
If anything the option you are advocating is "worse" as in it is harsher.
Actually, it wasn't that Capone had "an absurd amount of wealth," the amount was irrelevant. Just ask J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and others who weren't put in jail for being "too wealthy." It was because Capone didn't pay taxes on that income
In fact, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treats "illegal" income[0] exactly the same way it treats "legal" income for tax purposes.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_of_illegal_income_in_...
The presumption of innocence does not mean you're entitled to obstruct investigators. "But you haven't proved that I'm guilty" also doesn't work to stop detectives entering your home with a search warrant.
I'm ok with having large amounts of cash with no obvious legitimate source triggering an investigation, but that's not what's happening.
They just sneak past it by not actually sentencing you of a crime.
It's more like "we see a lot of smoke coming out of your house, satisfy us there isn't a fire or we're coming in with the hoses". Viewing that through the "innocent until proven guilty" lens is like trying to argue the fire crew have to stay outside until they see actual flames
Yes, an "Unexplained Wealth Order" in the UK. If you appear to have too much wealth you can be obliged to explain how you lawfully acquired it on pain of seizure.