UK authorities have restrained a record GBP 383 million in suspected criminal assets during the financial year ending March 2025.
The total was driven by tens of thousands of defence against money laundering requests (DAMLs) submitted by banks and other AML-regulated entities, alongside increased enforcement capacity within law enforcement agencies.
According to data from the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU), regulated firms filed approximately 867,000 suspicious activity reports (SARs) between April 2024 and March 2025. While this figure was marginally lower than the 872,000 SARs submitted in the previous year, it remains significantly below the all-time high of roughly 901,000 reports recorded during the 2021–2022 financial year. Despite the stabilisation in overall SAR volumes, asset-focused interventions increased markedly.
Growth in DAMLs and asset freezing measures
The most recent reporting period included around 58,000 DAMLs, a mechanism used by regulated entities when seeking consent to proceed with transactions suspected of involving criminal property. These DAMLs led to 2,048 asset-targeting measures under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), including account freezing orders, restraint orders, forfeiture orders and civil recovery actions. Collectively, these measures resulted in the highest annual value of restrained or seized assets on record.
Notably, a single DAML accounted for more than GBP 103 million in denied assets during the year, representing approximately 27% of the total GBP 383 million. Across all cases, the average value restrained or seized per order stood at around GBP 187,000. This compares with the prior financial year ending March 2024, when UKFIU received approximately 57,000 DAMLs, authorities obtained around 1,800 asset-related orders, and total restrained or seized assets amounted to GBP 240 million.
The data indicates a growing reliance on account freezing orders, which are often favoured due to their speed, lower evidentiary threshold and cost efficiency compared with other enforcement tools. Law enforcement agencies also made greater use of court-approved moratorium extensions linked to DAMLs, doubling such applications year-on-year to 151. These extensions allow investigators additional time to gather evidence in complex financial crime cases before seeking longer-term confiscation or restraint.
In parallel, operational efficiency improved. UKFIU reduced the average processing time for DAML requests from 3.1 days to 2.8 days, limiting periods during which firms must suspend transactions while avoiding customer notification. This efficiency gain coincided with expanded staffing levels across the UK’s financial crime ecosystem.
The increase in enforcement activity followed the introduction of the economic crime levy in April 2023, which funded the recruitment of nearly 400 additional investigators, analysts and specialist staff across UK law enforcement agencies. These resources appear to have translated into higher asset recovery outcomes despite declining DAML volumes over the longer term.
Indeed, DAML submissions have fallen steadily since peaking at approximately 105,000 in the year ending March 2021. UKFIU has attributed part of this decline to legislative amendments to POCA that raised the transaction value threshold requiring DAML consent from GBP 250 to GBP 1,000, and later to GBP 3,000 in July 2025.
International cooperation also remained significant. UKFIU received 1,608 requests for information from overseas counterparts during the year, the highest volume globally. Fraud-related inquiries accounted for nearly half of these requests, with suspected money laundering comprising roughly one quarter. Germany was the most frequent requesting jurisdiction, followed by Malta, the US, Lithuania, Italy, and France, while the UK most often sought assistance from Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Ireland, and the Netherlands.
