Inside Scotland's secret courts

Even the authorities pursuing him aren't sure where the 52-year-old Congolese national lives.

But Yagien, the Sunday Herald can reveal, is alleged to be "the leader of a crime gang which specialised in the fraudulent presentation of stolen and forged benefit and tax credit cheques and benefit books throughout the United Kingdom".

Thought to be London-based, Yagien, according to Crown documents, "employed a professional forger and recruited drug addicts and alcoholics to present the forged documents and obtain funds". He is described by the Crown as "a career criminal and thief".

Another Crown target was Samu Yagien, a naturalised British citizen born in the Congo in 1970. She was believed to have opened Scottish bank accounts in her name and in those of her children, in which she deposited "the proceeds of Wawe Yagien's criminal activities". The Crown believes £86,000 was laundered through these accounts between August 2006 and August 2007.

In November 2007, after a private "Chambers" hearing (closed to the public) with Lord Brodie of the Court of Session, the Crown obtained a prohibitory property order that prevented the Yagiens from moving money out of eight bank accounts.

Total raised for the Scottish Government: £1934.08 from Wawe Yagien and £14,890.06 from Samu Yagien

Dale John Donaldson, George Tough and Lynne Tough

IT is a modest little flat in a backstreet of Scotland's biggest fishing port, Peterhead. But it is claimed it was paid for with the profits of drug dealing by Dale John Donaldson.

That is what a Court of Session judge found when he granted a recovery order for the "westmost second-floor flat" at 56 Prince Street in November 2011 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Lord Brodie also ordered the removal of Donaldson, 40, who is still understood to live in Peterhead, and two other named individuals, George Tough and Lynne Michelle Tough "or Donaldson" from the property. Lord Brodie also handed over control of a bank account to the Crown.

The judge was acting on evidence gathered by the Crown Office's Civil Recovery Unit (CRU), Grampian Police and the elite Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA).

Macniven, of the CRU, said: "The proceeds of the sale of this property and the money recovered will now be put to good use in our communities rather than being used to fund illegal activities."

Total raised for the Scottish Government: As yet unknown

Anna Charitou and Khalid Pervaz

They are wanted for an alleged £913,000 VAT fraud. But no-one knows the current whereabouts of Greek national Charitou and her Pakistani husband, Pervaz.

The pair have successfully evaded an international manhunt after they fled their plush Edinburgh home when they were charged back in 2001. Charitou was then in her mid-20s and living in Liberton, on the outskirts of the capital. She is now aged 36 with no home to return to.

The CRU obtained a prohibitory property order at a secret Chambers hearing in March 2009, effectively preventing either Charitou or 56-year-old Pervaz from selling their home at 19 Park Crescent in Edinburgh or using eight bank accounts.

In February 2010, Lord Woolman, in an unreported motion at the Court of Session, granted a recovery order against the bank accounts, the home and luxury watches.

Total raised for Scottish Government: £241,104.96

David Turnbull and Michelle Sheila Patterson

HE is, the Crown claimed, a "career criminal, money-launderer and drug dealer".

David Turnbull, 42, also known as John Anthony Green, is from the north-east of England but decided to set up home across the Border near Eyemouth. He did so by buying a plot of land for development at 12 Welltower Park, Ayton.

He and Michelle Sheila Patterson, 38, paid £25,000 for the land – in cash. Mostly, according to the Crown, in used £20 notes, between June of 2002 and August of 2003. They later built a house on the plot, funded, said the Crown, by a fraudulently obtained mortgage.

The CRU obtained a prohibitory property order banning the pair from disposing of their home after a secret Chambers hearing before Lady Smith in July 2008.

Turnbull and Patterson settled out of court. After the deal – described by prosecutors as "extra judicial" – a recovery order was granted in February 2010.

The Ayton house was later sold at auction for £175,000. The Crown received a share of the equity in the property.

Total raised for the Scottish Government: Unknown.

Ugo Kenneth Uchidiuno

UGO Uchidiuno, an alleged identity thief, is believed to have funnelled hundreds of thousands of pounds through Scottish bank accounts from what prosecutors believe were "large-scale frauds and immigration offences".

The 35-year-old Nigerian, who is understood to live in Sheffield, held accounts in both his real name and that of a dead Briton whose identity he assumed, Mark Andrew Caldwell.

The immigrant, who had no declared income and no right to work in the UK, used forged identity documents to commit fraud, alleges the Crown Office.

Crown investigators discovered five bank accounts he was using in 2008 and 2009 under both his real name and his alias, Caldwell.

By June 2009 a Court of Session judge, Lord Bannatyne, had effectively frozen the accounts under Proceeds of Crime legislation following a Chambers hearing.

In January 2010 Lady Clark of Calton pronounced a recovery order for the bank accounts, allowing the Government to empty them, after an unopposed motion from the Crown Office.

Total raised for the Scottish Government: £95,496.90

Alastair, John and Kim Myles

SIX years ago Alastair Myles, 49, and his son John, 26, were cleared of supplying cocaine at the High Court in Glasgow. Myles's partner, Kim Annan or Myles, 44, was convicted of benefit fraud. But that did not end their legal problems.

Last year, in an unreported out-of-court settlement, the family agreed to surrender £136,000 worth of assets.

This was five years after an interim administration order was first placed on their Paisley home and a series of bank accounts and insurance policies.

The Civil Recovery Unit yesterday said it had sought and obtained a recovery order for the assets "on the basis that they had been obtained through benefit fraud and the supply of controlled drugs".

Alastair and John Myles had been prosecuted after an SCDEA surveillance operation.

Total raised for the Scottish Government: £136,000

George McGuffie

"He is a career criminal". That is what the Crown Office believes of George McGuffie, a man who once reportedly told a police officer he was the main supplier of bootleg goods in Dumfries.

The Civil Recovery Unit, which waged a six-year campaign to squeeze cash out of McGuffie, summed up his career.

The 48-year-old, the unit said, "was involved in drugs supply, the supply of bootleg cigarettes and alcohol, poaching, illegal money lending and fraud".

The CRU was first able to put an inhibition order on McGuffie's former Dumfries council house in 2004 – meaning he would find it almost impossible to sell the property.

But McGuffie challenged the action against him and managed to keep his home. But other property – including cars, motorbikes and boats – were auctioned off after a recovering order was granted at the Court of Session in May 2010.

Total raised for the Scottish Government: £23,801.35

Christine Brown

SHE is one of the best-known faces in Glasgow's sex trade.

Christine Brown is believed to have made a fortune out of the brothel she ran with brother, "millionaire pimp" Hugh O'Donnell.

Back in 2006 she was charged with living off prostitution but had a not-guilty plea accepted.

Hugh O'Donnell, however, was jailed for six months after he admitted running the Parkgrove Sauna in the west end of Glasgow. He was also forced to pay a £150,000 confiscation order.

Brown and her brother set up a number of companies that prosecutors regard as fronts for brothel-keeping.

According to the CRU, some £235,000 in credit card payments were made to one of those companies between November 22, 2001, and June 15, 2003.

The Crown believes Brown bought her house at 12a Baillieston Road, Glasgow, with funds from the proceeds of brothel-keeping, and with a fraudulently obtained mortgage.

In January of this year Brown – who is sometimes known as Christine Campling after marrying jailed gangland killer Thomas Campling – was "ejected" from the property and it was sold at auction for £141,000.

Total raised for the Scottish Government: £141,000

HOW POCA CAME TO PASS

THE idea was to name and shame Scotland's gangsters. It hasn't happened.

A decade ago, senior police officers got excited when new Proceeds of Crime laws came in to place. At last, they thought, they'd be able to go after big-time crooks who didn't get their hands dirty enough to end up in court. And they'd be able to warn the public who these criminals are.

One of those officers was Graeme Pearson, one-time head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and now a Labour MSP.

Pearson explained: "When the legislation first came out I was energetic in saying there was a need to name those involved in organised crime.

"Part of the power these people have lies in their anonymity. When you expose them, you tell decent, ordinary business people that if they get involved with these individuals they are likely to become a tool for money-laundering."

However, 10 years after Scotland's Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Poca) was passed, few of those targeted by the legislation have been exposed.

That is because many who come to the attention of the Civil Recovery Unit abandon their property without a fight, or reach out-of-court settlements.

Those who wish to try to clear their name in open court can do so. But such individuals – like alleged gangland frontmen Russell Stirton and Alexander Anderson, who were stripped of nearly £1 million earlier this year after a public hearing – risk exposure.

Routinely, action against individuals will be heard by a judge in chambers, with no public airing of any evidence. Then, not untypically, the Crown will reach an out-of-court settlement with its target.

The Sunday Herald was able to cull details of who was being targeted in civil Poca cases from the courts – but only after a Freedom of Information request on proceedings that even prosecutors assumed were in the public domain.

We were also able to find out details of what property had been seized, thanks to an obscure record known as the Books of Council and Session, a register that predates the Treaty of Union.

But only on Friday, three months after first being asked for the information, did the Crown Office reveal why it had targeted certain individuals.

Behind the scenes, key figures within law enforcement and prosecution bodies are fighting for more Poca material to be in the public domain.

The watchword for the Crown Office's Civil Recovery Unit (CRU) – and the rest of law enforcement – is "disruption". And sometimes that means unreported out-of-court settlements.

Ruaraidh Macniven, who heads the CRU, defended such deals: "As in any civil proceedings, there can be economic and tactical reasons for settling a case out of court and where appropriate, we will consider negotiated settlements."

Such deals also cut down the length of time it can take to pursue a Poca case.

Pearson, for one, last night said he believed the time had come to find ways to speed up cases, some of which are taking five years to complete.

Macniven insisted the CRU would keep tackling difficult cases: "We do not shy away from complex cases, or cases that take some time to resolve."