What happens to a seized mafia asset after the headlines fade? Dr Amber Phillips, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at UWE Bristol, has spent her career chasing that answer, starting with fieldwork in Calabria alongside anti-mafia organisations working to strip the 'Ndrangheta of its assets and its grip on local communities.
She joins Jason Sandoval to unpack her 'Beyond the Figures' research with financial investigators across England and Wales and the gap between headline recoveries and what practitioners count as success. Amber argues for a fifth 'D', Destination, alongside disruption, disentitlement and deterrence, and previews her new NCA/Home Office study, funded through the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS), on whether asset recovery genuinely deters crime.
02:00 – Amber's route into asset recovery via Calabria
08:45 – how mafia power works and what asset recovery undermines
14:00 – the GOEL social reuse model in Calabria
17:50 – proposing a fifth D: destination as a measure of success
21:00 – Beyond the Figures
29:45 – how ARIS funding actually works
Dr Amber Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at UWE Bristol, specialising in organised and economic crime. Her career began in Calabria with anti-mafia organisations and she now leads a new NCA/Home Office study examining whether asset recovery genuinely deters crime.
Numbers Do Not Tell the Story
Amber's research with financial investigators found headline figures often miss the disruption and investigative quality practitioners value most.
Destination Deserves Its Own D
Amber proposes adding Destination to the existing framework of disruption, disentitlement, deterrence and detection.
Low Value Orders Can Outperform High Value Ones
A small seizure from an early-stage offender can disrupt a criminal career as effectively as a six-figure one further down the line.
ARIS Funding Shapes Investigator Behaviour
How ARIS returns are split between confiscation and forfeiture orders can push investigators toward the more lucrative route, not the more powerful one.
- Dr Amber Phillips on LinkedIn
- Bristol247 on the NCA/Home Office study
- Seize & Desist E32 with Sal Melki, NCA
- Seize & Desist E35 with Oliver Bullough
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