In a move that would make even the most hardened of villains stir uneasily in their coffins, the Financial Conduct Authority has reportedly been taking notes from the Italian playbook, which appears to be written in blood and garnished with confiscated Ferraris. The news comes after Italian authorities recovered a veritable treasure trove of villas and motor cars from a deceased Mafia don, proving that even in death, you cannot take it with you, but they can certainly take it from you.
The FCA, that bastion of bureaucratic officiousness, is now said to be considering legislation that would allow the seizure of assets from the estates of deceased criminals. Yes, you read that correctly. The dead are now being audited. One imagines a team of forensic accountants in pinstripe suits peering into the pearly gates, demanding receipts and explaining the intricacies of offshore trusts to Saint Peter himself.
This is, of course, deeply sensible. The only thing more absurd than a career criminal is a career criminal who dies rich. We have long been a nation that allows the law-abiding to bequeath their modest savings to ungrateful children, but now we are to extend this privilege to the underworld? The logic is impeccable. If you spend a lifetime accumulating ill-gotten gains, you should at least have the decency to be buried in a cardboard box, with your assets going to the state, which will promptly waste them on something foolish like a roundabout sculpture of a dancing turnip.
The Italian example is deliciously instructive. Picture it: a sun-drenched villa in Sicily, its owner a man who communicated mostly through gestures and heavy silences. He expires, and within weeks, the state is organising a car boot sale of his belongings, complete with bulletproof vests and suspiciously clean banknotes. The UK, ever the follower of continental fashion, now seeks to import this charming custom, albeit likely with more queueing and less enthusiastic gesticulation.
But what of the logistics? One imagines the Treasury already salivating at the prospect of seizing a Tottenham safe house complete with flock wallpaper and a suspiciously large television. The legal hurdles are immense, but the British civil service has never met a problem it couldn't solve by forming a committee. Expect task forces, working groups, and possibly a podcast. The dead, after all, cannot appeal. They cannot write angry letters to the Times. They are, in a sense, the ideal defendants.
There is, of course, the matter of the innocent living heirs. But who cares about them? They should have thought twice before inheriting from Uncle Vinnie’s questionable property portfolio. The FCA’s position is clear: if you benefit from crime, even if your only crime is being born into a family with a taste for smuggling, you are fair game. It is a refreshingly blunt approach in a world of legal finesse.
In the end, this is a story about the eternal truth that the state loves money more than it fears the dead. The regulators are circling, ready to pluck the watches from the wrists of corpses. It is grim, it is ghoulish, and it is absolutely necessary in a world where crime pays, at least until the taxman arrives with a shovel. Cheers to that.
