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A total of £50 million worth of assets belonging to two British nationals have been frozen following an undisclosed asset probe.
According to the order, eight vehicles worth £600,000, a £1.9m yacht, and a bank account of £2.6m were each seized.
The order was the second of its kind to be awarded to the CPS since the force was introduced in 2018.
An investigation has been launched under the Proceeds of Crime Act to ascertain the origin of the money.
The anonymous pair and their associated companies have three months to prove that they legally received the funds to buy the items.
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If they are unable to provide an adequate explanation or any response at all, they face having the assets permanently seized by the CPS under civil law, without a criminal conviction being necessary.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Adrian Foster said: “We successfully obtained an Unexplained Wealth Order and Interim Property Freezing Order against two British nationals and their associated companies in the UK.
“They are now legally required to prove how they got their wealth or risk having their assets seized following an application by the CPS Civil Recovery Team.”
The assets order was granted by the High Court today, with the case to return to the Royal Courts of Justice for a hearing on the anonymity of the couple, referred to only as Mr X and Mrs X, within 28 days.
The couple have not been convicted or charged with any criminal activity.
Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs), sometimes known as ‘McMafia laws’ named after the BBC crime drama series, were introduced in the Criminal Finances Act 2017.
The powers were first called within two weeks of coming into effect in January 2018 to freeze £22m of assets belonging to Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of the former chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan and jailed fraudster Jahangir Hajiyev.
Her assets include a house in Knightsbridge and a golf club near Ascot.
In 2020, Leeds businessman Mansoor Mahmood Hussain was forced to surrender a £10m portfolio of 45 properties after he was suspected of laundering profits from crime bosses.
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