New crackdown on 'criminal money'

The move is also aimed at middle and low level criminals

The PSNI and the Assets Recovery Agency are set to unveil their latest move to help track money gained from illegal activity.

They are to announce training courses for 250 officers on how to recognise money laundering.

The move is mainly aimed at financial investigators.

They will be trained to follow money trails from "individuals with a lifestyle beyond their legitimate means back to its criminal source".

They will also target middle-ranking and low-level criminals.

Solicitors are concerned that they might through inadvertence, or perhaps in some cases through ignorance, become accidentally caught up in the movement of these assets John Bailey Law Society

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said: "Police officers have a duty to bring criminals before the courts, but we are also determined to use the law to confiscate their illegal profits."

He added: "If someone has a lifestyle beyond their legitimate means, at whatever financial level, we are now getting the resources to be able to lift the stone and examine what they've been up to."

'Illegal activity'

Assets Recovery Agency Deputy Director Alan McQuillan said the ARA had established "state-of-the-art training programmes and standards in this field".

"I am absolutely delighted to see this development which is a further expression of PSNI's commitment to tackling the proceeds of crime through the effective investigation of criminals' assets and criminal confiscation," he said.

Solicitors in Northern Ireland regularly handle large sums of money and some have expressed concern that they could become caught up in illegal activity without realising it.

John Bailey, chief executive of the Law Society, said it was one of the most high profile issues for the profession at the moment.

"Solicitors are concerned, and understandably concerned, that they might through inadvertence, or perhaps in some cases through ignorance, become accidentally caught up in the movement of these assets," he said.

"In the very few cases that have come before the courts involving solicitors, it is clear that it has been a matter of inadvertence, or in some cases naivety, and has not been a cases of deliberate involvement in criminal activity."