Bank Accounts (was Gringotts Bank)

[James P. Robinson III]

No: HPFGUIDX 50600


>"kiricat2001 <Zarleycat at aol.com>" <Zarleycat at aol.com> wrote:
>
>But, why would the money in Sirius' account be seized? Does this
>happen in the UK - you're convicted of a heinous crime, you go to
>prison for life and the government is entitled to take your assets?
>And, if that's not the law in the UK, why would people think the MoM
>has authority to take Sirius' money out of Gringotts, whether to keep
>it or to give it to Sirius' next-of-kin?
>
>I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen in the US.
>I'd think that Sirius' accounts and real property would simply sit
>around until he died. If he, or any convict, died in prison and he
>had left a will behind, I'd think the property and money would go to
>whoever was specified in the will. And, if he died intestate, with no
>next-of-kin, then the MoM could do what they wished with the assets.


>Then "Scott Northrup" <snorth at ucla.edu> wrote:
>I'm not a lawyer either, but I think that if you're convicted of
>"racketerring activity," your assets can be siezed under RICO ("RACKETEER
>INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS") laws, which are mainly in place to
>fight organized crime, but I believe the US government has a tendency to be,
>uh, flexible with this law.  From what I've seen, "racketeering activity" is
>somewhat broad:
>
>         Any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson,
>robbery, bribery,
>        extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled
>        substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the
>        Controlled Substances Act), which is chargeable under State law and
>        punishable by imprisonment for more than one year.
>
>Maybe someone who IS a lawyer could help us out.  Of course, this is only in
>the US.  I've not the slighest idea if it's similar in the UK.  But under US
>law, I could easily see Sirius's assets being seized (he was imprisoned
>without "trial"), but really, who knows what the MoM is thinking.  It's
>probably not as simple.

For my sins, I am a US lawyer, although I do not specialize in criminal 
law.  There are quite a number of offenses for which conviction can mean 
that your assets are seized.  In some cases, they are simply frozen and in 
others actually taken by the gub'mint,  The most notable of these are RICO, 
as Scott mentioned, any drug related crime and any terrorism related 
crime.  I believe the UK has some similar provisions.  Sirius' "crime" 
would probably be considered both RICO and terrorism related.  Of course, 
in neither the US nor UK could anyone be sentenced without a trial.  Thus, 
I suspect that wizard law at the time was even less protective of personal 
rights than ours.  Further, at the time of the withdrawal, Sirius was an 
escaped convict.  One of the first things either US or UK police would do 
when such an important, high profile criminal escaped would have been to 
monitor his bank account (which would require a warrant, but that would not 
be an impediment), even if it had never been seized or frozen.  So they 
should have been alerted to the withdrawal, traced it to QQS, traced it to 
HP and questioned him about it.  Even in the unlikely event the police did 
not do this, US and Canadian (I am not certain about the UK) banks have 
so-called "know your customer" laws.  Any suspicious activity in a bank 
account is reported.  A large withdrawal from an escaped felon's account 
which has been dormant for 13 years would be mighty suspicious.  Admitted 
this is all extrapolation from muggle criminal law and law enforcement 
procedures, but I believe it is enough to support the hypothesis that 
Gringotts is outside MoM jurisdiction.

                                                 Jim